To the Editor,
Re: University credit offered at no cost, April 19.
Jan Thorsen’s time as District Enrichment Teacher should be renewed to full-time.
Her work at creating enrichment bins of learning materials for classroom teachers can also be copied online. But she opens the way to aid the district policy of gaining advantages by going paperless.
Thorsen’s strategy can be adapted to Internet-supported learning when students, as part of their lessons, enter the ‘clouds’ of excitement online, starting with Google searches.
Learners can each have their own digital ‘enrichment’ bin. It’s a ‘Wiki’ box that links to the classroom lesson.
Additional boxes can be created for each new item of learning. These bins can retain links to any website the child finds in Google searches. Anything the student shows a passion for can be retained for enrichment.
Since the bins are directly connected to core material, review and reinforcement of the basics comes early, but quickly expands.
Self-directed excitement expands the learning into what the student sees as purposeful and worth efforts at mastery.
Before such sparks of value join further parades of cuts, let’s grab the spark and fan it into a flame.
Joel Rosenau
Nanaimo