Sometimes, Silence Truly Is Golden

I have always been an inquiry-based teacher. I like projects, questions, and organized chaos in my room. I like hearing students’ thoughts and processes: the quiet “hum” of busy-ness means that knowledge is being gained and learning is happening. Right?

Well, not necessarily. Sometimes being busy does not mean being productive. Before I started using an Agile framework in my classes, I learned this lesson the hard way. Sometimes I walked around the class to meet with my students and found that they had no clue what they were doing: they might be doing research by copying and pasting the text from a quick Google search, uploading irrelevant pictures from Google images, or blatantly copying a friend’s notes. They did not have a clear roadmap for what skills and knowledge they were expected to acquire. They just knew that they had to get a certain number of facts or pictures into a Google Slides presentation so they could show a beautiful slide deck to the class. This was my fault. I decided to become a better inquiry-based teacher. I wanted to make better rubrics. I wanted my students to become better note-takers and researchers…