December 7, 2012 Messy Learning and Tidy Classrooms Posted by
John Spencer My students will be making towers with straws
today. Every Friday, we do a quick design challenge. It will get
loud in here. Chaos will ensue. It will be safe, but it will be
messy. Students will forget to throw pieces of straw in the
trash. Kids might get frustrated and I'll step in and help
navigate the conflict. It will be just as messy when they write,
though less so in the physical space and more in the mental
space. Here, students will move around periodically, but spend
most of the time on their Chromebooks. The mess will involve the
writing process. We don't follow a rigid system of pre-write to
write to edit to re-edit. Instead, students alternate between
writing, editing, researching and re-writing depending upon the
need. Writing is messy. For all the tidy objectives, graphic
organizers and scheduled lessons I do, I want my class to be
messy. I want students to struggle with questions rather than
finding simple answers. I wa