This week the big question was, what to teach in my class? Well, programming, of course! BUT...the guidance counselors kept reminding me that "these kids aren't college-bound". Hrmph. I [still] stubbornly refuse to believe that they can't learn to program. This is, no doubt, due to early childhood exposure to the movie "Stand and Deliver".
Much as I hated to admit it, a reality check was in order. Some of the students could learn programming, but a lot of my students will have learning disabilities, will be reading way below grade level, will be on drugs, etc. And the new push is toward "differentiated learning", which means every student can be doing something different that is tailored to his skill level. My class size is limited to 16, but even so, thoughts of 16 potentially different curriculi were making my head spin. I really want second-year students to do an interdisciplinary project within the school and/or the community, so how do I prepare 16 students individually so they can accomplish that? Help!
Fortunately, during the first staff day somebody made a side comment that gave me an idea: most of the students have a job outside of school, so why not harness that experience? Why not structure the Computer Technology class as if the whole class is a software team (or a bunch of little software teams)? Each team[let] needs everything from an "office assistant" to a "programmer" to a "tech writer", and so forth. In this setting, differentiated learning suddenly makes sense to me because it's much less nebulous; students sign up to gain the skills necessary for a specific position on the team. Maybe a student can even start out "training" to be an office assistant, and then be "promoted" to QA or whatever. And, just maybe, having a specific job to fill in the class will give these kids a sense of purpose when they're doing their work. I can only hope.
I think this is the right approach, and I think so because I'm getting the feeling that I get when I've agonized for hours over a design and suddenly I come up with something that's so simple that it looks obvious. I think I'll go for it. The first week or so can be spent developing all of the positions on our "software team" that need to be filled as well as qualifications for each position. Then students can start their on-the-job training. Will this spin make it relevant for my students? If so, maybe I should go into marketing. :-)