Bee Stings, Wooden Blocks, and Web Browsers

Spontaneous teaching moments. I just love them. Imagine. . .
Your student gets stung by a bee. You and your students find the dead bug and, suddenly, you're all launched onto an unexpected journey involving research and analysis of bees and wasps. Together you create a website to disseminate your experiences and knowledge; you read and respond to feedback from a world-wide audience; and you even confer with an expert entomologist to verify, revise and perfect your ideas and discoveries. Who could design such a rich unit of stimulating, authentic learning tasks steeped in multiliteracies? And for a mixed-age K-2 classroom?

Classroom teacher Tim Lauer could and did. And he did so by embracing an unplanned, teachable moment. Had the teacher simply swept away the offending bug and not responded to the curiosity and excitement of his students, this inspiring experience would never have taken place. Tim Lauer recognized the priceless opportunity that lay before him and capitalized on his students' natural curiosity and desire to learn.

Thankfully, Tim and his elementary students were not bound by the four walls of their classroom. Technology offered them unpredictable and stimulating opportunities that were truly amazing. How exciting to be able to actually communicate with one of the world's leading experts on bees and collaboratively create a webpage of everyone's experiences. You can't find this type of learning adventure in a textbook. It was born from the natural and spontaneous curiosity of children and a visionary teacher, a teacher who understands and values student-centered learning.

This experiential approach to learning has far-reaching benefits. When students are able to pursue their own interests and have a voice about their learning journey, their cognitive approach to tasks is significantly affected - interest in the material to be learned is the best stimulus to learning. Students not only show more initiative and greater attentiveness and persistence to task, they actually show pleasure from learning. Imagine that!

Kudos to Tim Lauer, a teacher who nurtures imagination and discovery and optimizes technology to maximize the learning experience. Those are the teachers we remember best, the ones who feed the flame, make learning fun and forever touch our lives.