“Connect dots or collect dots, Grades are illusions, Passion and Insight are reality” – Seth Godin. As an educator, this statement has had a powerful impact on me. It is indeed true that creating a meaningful connection matters, it matters to have a relationship with my student, and it matters that a student has a relationship with their classmates. I got lucky that as a Technology teacher most of my activities are done with groups (group research, group presentation, and pair programming). In my class, I am practicing collaboration. If it is individual work, I am pushing my students to help one another, in my grading system I put a grade for participation and collaboration. Based on my observation, students tend to give more productive output whenever they work with groups and if they are working solo, students give more effort in project-based learning, but I also encourage peer feedback. So for me, the structure of the learning really depends on the situation and on what is needed in the lecture. I would like my students to do more hands-on so they can practice their analytical and algorithm teaching.
The only thing that will hinder me from bringing my student to pushing forward is a walkthrough from the admin, some of my admin in the school is still looking for the same teaching style where the teacher teaching, students are quiet and listening. I wish that we can go out from that norm since student-led classrooms are the end goal.
Harapnuik, D. (2021, January 18). Collecting dots vs connecting dots. YouTube. Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7o3Jh1KZLw&t=26s
Annababette Diemecke's Digital Learning Journey 
I love a lot of the things Godin said! My favorite part of this quote is that grades are an illusion. It really has me rethinking how I am going to do things in classroom from now on.
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Connecting the dots is so important. It sounds like you have created a safe place for your students to connect dots. A quiet class doesn’t necessarily mean that students are learning. I remember a teacher that worked at my school. His class was always a little loud. Anytime you walk past the classroom, you could hear his kids. The admin never bothered him because his kids had the highest level of growth.
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Connection leads us to mastery! Relationships and trust in the classroom are imperative for reaching one’s full potential. We have to continue to perfect our practices in the classroom to build and create significant learning environment for our learners to have choice, ownership and voice! Those administrators will see the benefits at some point. We have to continue to expose them to it! My administrators are seeing it every time they come in my classroom. I am no longer nervous during those times. I have even had district level admin in my class because of what I am doing. It is a great feeling to been seen and heard as a classroom teacher. I am leading change, even if it is small at the present time. Keep up the hard work! Giving that control to students is difficult, but we do it because we care about them and their future.
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