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When Kids Teach Kids Through Social Media

My nephew excited to learn.

My nephew excited to learn.

A number of educators in the Langley School District spent the day learning from Alan November today.  During the morning, a key takeaway for me was asking the question “who owns the learning?”(also a title of November’s book).

While at conferences, workshops, and sessions, I often share my learning through social media.  The best part of sharing my learning is when someone outside the session does or says something that takes my learning to a whole new level.  Today, my sister and nephews helped make that happen.

November showed this AWESOME video of a child attempting and reflecting on his Rube Goldberg Monster Trap machine.  This video showed a child embracing mistakes and attempts in learning, a growth mindset, and complete engagement and excitement for learning.  Take a moment to watch below:



After watching this video (and loving it), I did what I often do at professional learning sessions… I shared it.  I have the wonderful privilege of having my nephew (“MN”) at our school this year in one of our kindergarten classes so when I posted the above video on our school Facebook Page, my sister saw it and showed MN.  After watching the video over 10 times and getting so excited at the same times Audri did, my nephew had an idea… HE was going to build his own project!  Within a few minutes of watching the video of Audri, MN had gathered a few of his toys and attempted to build a quick, 5 year-old  version of a Rube Goldberg machine. Check it out below.



How awesome is that? A 5 year-old boy in Langley watched a video from another boy in another country and was inspired to participate in his own learning experience!  I love the body language and brief dialogue when his machine DOESN’T work.  MN continued to try to make this work and then grew frustrated and destroyed it (I often do the same thing when putting together furniture from IKEA).  When his mom asked, “what would Audri do?”, MN responded “Audri would keep trying… but I think I need a break so I will try more after lunch”.  His four year-old brother was also inspired and then added, “no, Mom, we don’t need a break… we just need a bigger ramp and a toaster!!!”.  They worked together to make it successful after they had a break (without the toaster but with a bigger ramp) :-).

As fantastic as this moment of shared learning was for me as an educator and an uncle… it left me with further reflections:

  • Would MN  have been inspired to do this if an adult simply told him to do it? Would he have been as inspired if he watched a video of an adult doing this?
  • Do we (adults) embrace sharing our learning and sharing our mistakes and risk-taking like Audri does?  If we do not, what do we model to our kids?
  • How can we encourage a growth mindset in which students and adults are determined to continue on with learning despite setbacks?
  • Are we showing our kids what success looks like? Is the criteria of success clear to our students?
  • Are we doing enough learning by DOING?
  • Are we encouraging enough self-assessment?  If we are the ones doing the assessment, who owns the learning?
  • Are we sharing our learning so others can benefit?  Are we sharing our kids’ learning (being respectful of consent, etc)?
  • Are we using social media to help with our learning? (like this child does when failing to start a fire with a bowdrill set)
  • Are we tapping into the power of kids teaching kids through social media?  (Show Caine’s Arcade and watch what kids immediately want to do)

I thoroughly enjoyed the day with Alan November.  Because of social media, someone outside of the session enhanced my learning by creating and capturing a moment that has made me further reflect on a deeper level.

Students NEED us.  They NEED teachers and parents to help support their learning… but we also have to reflect on the aforementioned questions and ask ourselves, “Who owns the learning?”.  When we give up some control and create the conditions for more opportunities for kids to learn with and from each other (with our support)… more student engagement and increased student learning can occur.

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Chris Wejr

Proud father of twin girls and a son. Currently working as the Principal of Shortreed Elementary School (K-5) in Aldergove, BC, Canada. Passionate about instruction, strengths-based education and leadership, reconciliation, assessment, and human motivation.

4 Comments

  1. Love the fact that it was okay that it didn’t work the first time… no problem giving it another try! Go “MN”! xo

  2. Hi Chris,

    I am working with the EdTech Mentorship Network and the Ministry of Education to develop a website which provide free, open, flexible, and personalized professional learning opportunities to British Columbia’€™s K-12 teachers in support of education transformation. We are just finalizing some details of the site and will soon be promoting it to the BC education community.
    The link to the site is:
    http://etmn.org

    I think your blog post would be perfect to share on the ETMN site.

    http://chriswejr.com/2014/10/24/when-kids-teach-kids-through-social-media/

    It looks like I can’t directly reblog your post, but with your permission I’d like to create a posting on the site that quotes it and links to it.

    Please let me know if that is okay with you.

    Thanks and bye for now,

    Elizabeth Wellburn

  3. Hey Pal,

    Loved the post – but really just wanted to stop by to say hey and to wish you and your family the happiest of holidays.

    Hope you are well — and hope that we cross paths in person sometime this year.

    Rock on,
    Bill

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