Saturday, December 07, 2013

Think Day

What would happen if educators had one day a week to think, study, and learn--a day that's not intended for response or planning, but a day to simply surf the web question after question leading to discovery, understanding, and new ideas.

Like a world tour, a think day brings you to places you didn't imagine at the start of the day.

Today was one of those days.  I started with a morning thought about creativity in response to a few classroom events. Then I began reading about creativity which spurred many more ideas related to our current curriculum, collaboration, and professional learning.  After that I learned and relearned of a number of new tools and inventions for exploration and study, tools that would benefit my students--tools similar to those we asked for earlier in the year, but tools too new for the greater learning community to support at this time.

I conferred with a colleague about the new learning online which prompted new questions and research threads. A think day in the Internet age serves to free your mind, invigorate new ideas, and prompt you to refocus once again.

When was your last think day?  What did you discover?  Where did it lead you, and how did you revise your priorities afterwards?