As we debriefed with this year’s Elementary Design Team (see THIS POST for background), we were curious as to what surprised these teachers. Here is the question we posed, and here are some of their responses:

What is a major insight,  “aha” moment, or take-away from this year’s work?

Kids are capable of so much more than we believe.  Every day was an eye opener!  (Note: There were many, many variations of this comment.)

Don’t be scared to try something new. I learned the most when I completely invested into the SeeSaw program. It was a leap of faith to be completely on board, but I love it, my students love it, and my classroom has never been the same since.

Both kids and families have been positively involved in the online learning.

The students are very capable. The more freedom you give them, the more opportunity they have to surprise you!

Students are starting to realize that their classrooms are no longer four walls.  They are able to connect, learn, share, and integrate technology with classrooms from all over the world.  They are able to celebrate their differences and passions for learning at any given moment. They are the drivers for their educational journey. I am just a facilitator.

As educators we are able to connect their learning to the “real world” in a way that we never have before.  They are able to connect content to its use and intent in the real word, extend questions, and find answers in real-time.  This has propelled self-motivated learning in a powerful way.

Some pretty powerful take-aways! Are you surprised? Skeptical? As our district has adopted the use of iPads as learning tools over the past several years, we’ve learned that many  of our fears have simply become non-issues once we’ve gone 1:1. The kids have truly risen to our level of expectation. Aha moments indeed.