A survey of inspiration

I’ve spent a lot of time the past year or two to researching inspiring or game-changing ideas and innovations in the classroom. Mapping them all out has helped me inductively conclude what sort of things apparently have been fascinating and inspiring me in K-12 education:

• Project-based or inquiry-based learning
• Environmental education/ experiences
• Open source/ free educational content
• Innovation incubators
• Individually paced learning
• Systems for communication between teachers and students
• Professional learning and classroom management systems for teachers
• Research and policy for school improvement

I also had a ninth category, called

• Wow!!

In this category, I saw that I was putting initiatives built around authentic project-based learning, where students recognize a need in the actual world, analyze it, and interact with it—especially the ones related to conservation or the environment.

I don’t have an E for environment or C for conservation in my blog-acronym. Blogcronym. But I consider experiencing and interacting with the natural world a matter of relevance. And Necessity. N.E.A.R. to the Ground? That works, too.