The SHIFT Blog

  It’s been awhile! We’ve been busy of course since September 4th …spending time in the classroom we’ve been loaned by Milton District High School. We’ve been calling it the Active Room, our Sandbox, or most accurately the Demonstration Room. It’s been pitched as, eventually, a place where teachers and students from all pathways, subjects and panels can come and experience learning in different environments. We’ve been meeting with various furniture vendors in an effort to bring in more variety to the classroom. It’s hard to imagine how to make school different if students are still arranged in rows of desks and are facing “the front” of the classroom. We’ve been looking at some of the non-negotiated norms of school and how we can push back against them, defronting our space so that all spaces become areas of learning is our first challenge. In the end, it is important to us to create a room that all teachers can see themselves and their students learning in. Being new to our...

  Being able to work in a classroom of our own at Milton District High School is a bit of a blessing for us.  Turning this space into our own demonstration classroom is a bit of a dream come true. Who wouldn’t want a blank slate to play in?  We realized quickly that we were going to be slowed down a bit by factors that were beyond our control. The room needs to be able to demonstrate a wide variety of uses for multiple subject areas and pathways all while being functional for secondary or elementary students and teachers. The first step we took in our space was to measure the walls and order whiteboards.  We like to work vertically and from our experience, so do students. Once the install is complete the demonstration room will have space for 17 to 20 student groups to work.  Unfortunately the delivery and install could take up to a month. Step two was to find some furniture vendors who would be willing to work with us in outfitting the room with functional, ...