Iron Teacher is a contest based on fun but with serious intent; bringing together cutting edge educators with sharp ideas to infuse new life into traditional lesson design. We aim to revolutionize the way teachers look at teaching and learning through the use of innovative methods and unconventional ideas.

Basic Premise: Like Iron Chef, participants are presented with key “ingredients” and required to come up with a final product that is judged on Originality, Adaptability, Student Appeal, and Ability to Meet Outcome.  The Iron Teacher goal is two-fold:

1. To help teachers discover new strategies, ideas, or tools that will get their students to care, communicate and create something of value around the curriculum.
2. To help articulate the lesson design and creative brainstorming process used by  master educators.

Rules: Basically, it’s pretty simple. Take a look at the current Iron Teacher challenge. Got a good idea to meet the challenge? Post your solution to your own blog along with a discussion of how you came up with the idea and why you think it meets the challenge.  Each Iron Teacher is welcome to develop the idea individually or in a team.  Link your solution to the challenge posted here on the Iron Teacher site either via trackback or a comment. (Don’t have a blog? No worries, post your solution in the comments for the current challenge)

Judging: For each contest, 3 or more judges will be selected.  At least 2 of the judges will be master teachers in the subject area covered in the challenge and will be joined by the teacher who created the challenge in determining the winner.  Each entry will be judged on 4 elements:

• Originality: How unique is the approach taken?
• Adaptability: Can the idea be adapted to multiple grade levels or ability levels? Will the idea be able to be used in a variety of classroom situations depending on the time and equipment available?
• Student Appeal: Does the idea appeal to modern learners?  Will it be able to sustain interest in the activity above and beyond what is required in the classroom?
• Ability to Meet Outcome: Does the approach taken honor the intent of the teacher? Will the identified outcome be met by the end of the activity?

The judges will provide their commentary on the relative strengths of the submissions and will determine the final winner.

What do I win? Good question.  For starters, you’ll win the appreciation of a teacher who will use your idea in his or her classroom.  And really, isn’t that enough for anyone? You’ll also win the right to place the official “I’m an Iron Teacher” badge on your blog, which will let the world know you’re a blogger who gets what cutting edge teaching and learning is all about.