Building Agile Classrooms with Ros Jackson

Imagine a classroom full of students who move seamlessly from project task to project task; self-directed, self-managed, and self-empowered... 

While the teacher facilitates seamlessly in the background.

That's what it looks like in veteran teacher Roslynn Jackson's 7th grade 'agile' classroom. In this episode Roslynn uncovers the secrets behind her 'agile' classroom, and how we can develop the mindsets in students to allow for it. Through her 'Gamifying the Weather' and 'Simplifying Science Concepts' Projects, we learn how to:  

• Gently facilitate reflective conversations in project work
• Use positive peer pressure to elevate student work quality
• Lower stress and save time by getting out of our students' way
• Use simple processes to help students direct their own learning  

Connect with Ros: Twitter- @RoslynnJackson, LinkedIn

Resources on building 'Agile Classrooms:' Ros' Website.  Youtube Channel. 

Roslynn's Bio: 

Roslynn (Ros) is an educator with over 17 year of experience teaching. She has taught Kindergarten and 1st Grade, but her passion is for Middle School. She practiced environmental law before transitioning to teaching. Ros is a self-proclaimed "science geek", so teaching middle school science was a perfect fit. She has taught all middle grades (6th-8th grades), but currently teaches 7th Grade Earth and Space Science. She believes that the best part of science is the organized chaos of the inquiry process: asking questions, getting your hands dirty, hypothesizing, experimenting, proving and disproving hypotheses, experimenting again, etc. Through these steps students (and teachers) learn that there is not just THE answer, there is AN answer that could solve a given set of parameters. This is why Ros is a practitioner and advocate for Agile in the classroom. She believes that this framework instills a mindset in teachers and students of collaboration, communication, teamwork, experimentation, and reflection that can help us solve problems while learning content with minimally wasted time. As a Co-Founder of the The Agile Mind, she hopes to help other educators make the transformation to an Agile framework and see the power of becoming a facilitator of student agency and empowerment every day.