In our most recent episode of Teachers Talking Teaching (get it here), John and I talk about Goblin – which I think is the most exciting Teacher PD I have heard about in a very long time.
Goblin (at Goblin.Education) is a PD that instead of lecturing at you, utilises the pedagogy that you’re learning about to instruct you. In short, it’s a pen and paper/D20 role playing game broken into several sessions followed by a guided instruction. Marvelous.
Goblin is the brainchild of two ninja’s from the Centre for Teaching Excellence out of the University of Oklahoma. They are Keegan Long-Wheeler and John Stewart and they are quite simply rad.
You should definitely check it out – John and I will be working to set up a raiding party in the new year.
It also led into a discussion – an important discussion I feel – about Open Source teaching culture as compared to Teacherpreneurial culture (not my favourite portmanteau). But more on this (read: ranting) in an upcoming post.
John brought an article about classroom furniture that was much more interesting than it initially sounds – I promise. Its underlying thesis was that classrooms should be much more like coffee shops in their flexibility and design. You can read it yourself at http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article105815121.html and it is by Suzanne Perez Tobias.
Check out the episode and let us know what you think.
Pete Whiting
Queuing up the podcast and I’m looking forward to that rant. Perhaps it is already here on another post…..