These readings and discussions have me thinking about the exploration and discovery that my students and I are on this school year. We have been part of this really cool cycle where we find ourselves scared to death to try something new, jumping in and trying it anyway, adjusting our course to try to stay on a reasonable path, becoming skilled at it, bumping things up to enhance our skill(s), and then starting all over again with something new we want to try and being totally scared to attempt it. It's funny because we have experienced the cycle enough times to know what will most likely happen, but we still go through the parts of the process with the fear and excitement as if it was the first time we had ever experienced said fear and excitement.
A good example would be our work with 3D printing. We have had success and failure but have enough experience with the technology to know how to leverage it to get what we need to assist our learning and/or demonstration of learning. Another example would be our podcasts where we share our learning by recording the audio and then listening to it so we can think about our thinking.
We keep trying new things - figuring them out - and then working at them in order to feel comfortable with our practice. We are working toward being fluent in the things we are doing in order to make them more automatic and part of our everyday learning.
Below is a podcast that was recorded today. It was initiated by two of my students who really wanted to talk about their thinking. They went off (together) after recording this and listened to it several times (via personal mobile devices). I am certain they will listen to it again tomorrow as they engage in the activity that will help them demonstrate their understanding.
This is where we are at right now. Each day provides us (the students and myself) with new opportunities to practice what we are fluent at/with and to enter the fluency cycle to learn something new.
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