I am at a loss as to what learning trends are. I feel that one thing I'm learning about myself as I continue this blogging challenge is that I do not pay enough attention to the changes in my own profession. I have become immured in my own "world" in my small-town Mid-America public high school. I was asking a colleague about this very post earlier today...and I said I had no idea about which "trend" I was most interested in because I didn't know any.
I am not a trend follower, in general. I never have been. I didn't do the mile-high bangs in the 80s; I didn't go "grunge" in the 90s; I never even understood the trends of the millennials. I think it's because I am a lover of classic things (music, movies, books) that I am finding it difficult even wanting to jump on to the bandwagon of some new trend in education.
So many trends in education are cyclical. Right now it's hip to do "this" or "that" but, really, it's just a new name or alphabet soup of acronyms for something that teachers have been doing for ever. I guess I'm feeling a bit cynical about whether it makes sense to go all out for some new learning fad because something even shinier and newer will be coming 'round the bend.
I say all that to say that I don't know enough about the current trends to be able to say which captures my attention. In the meantime, I will chastise myself for not being more aware of the changes in my own profession and set one of those goals I talked about in the first blog post of this series: find out what the trends are and do some research to find out if any of them appeal to my educational philosophy, content, and teaching personality.
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