During my teaching career prior to becoming a part of the eMINTS program, I was a classroom teacher in the driver’s seat. With my driver’s manuals (the curriculum and standards) I had a clear vision out my windshield of where I wanted my students to travel. As I monitored my students’ learning conditions, I would control the speed with which we traveled through lessons. Little did I know how a journey into the eMINTS program was going to change the atmosphere of my traditional classroom into an inquiry-based, student-centered and technology-rich learning environment - a learning environment that empowers each student with a driver’s license to seek knowledge.
My eMINTS classroom (http://schoolweb.missouri.edu/poplarbluff.k12.mo.us/lowe/) is an atmosphere where students work together much like a pit crew helping each driver to solve problems as they learn together. As important as the technology is to the eMINTS classroom, it is just a set of tools in our classroom toolbox that the drivers and pit crew use to implement the student-centered, interdisciplinary strategies that are the catalyst of student learning. Students perform independently and cooperatively paired on the Internet-connected computers in our classroom. They learn many important skills that help them grow as students and to demonstrate improved student performance, particularly on the Missouri Assessment Program.
Just as importantly, my students learn many life-skills that cannot be assessed on a state test - the kind of skills that will serve them well in their future careers and personal lives. They are skills such as creativity, perseverance, compromise and consensus. Those concepts cannot be taught from a book or lecture. Students need to experience them first-hand in order to own them. My responsibility as their teacher is to engage them so they maintain ownership of their educations. I encourage them to be in the driver’s seat and to hold on to the steering wheel with both hands in order to maneuver the course of their educational progress. As a result, they are better equipped to make decisions about their education - for it is their education, and I am their crew chief for a brief race along their educational track.
In 849 classrooms such as mine, across Missouri and Utah (and more soon across the nation), there are teachers waving the proverbial checkered flag each morning, saying, "Drivers, start your engines!" These classrooms empower learning passengers to sit in the driver’s seat and acquire knowledge with high quality teaching through the eMINTS program and its sponsors, the University of Missouri and the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education. I am proud to be one of those teachers and a small element of this partnership that is changing education by fostering students who buckle up every morning, eager to get on the road to become proactive learners.
Pam Lowe [prlowe@centurytel.net]
4th Grade eMINTS Teacher
Class 10 MAP Facilitator
O'Neal Elementary
Poplar Bluff R-1
http://schoolweb.missouri.edu/poplarbluff.k12.mo.us/lowe/
