Teachers as designers How have your decisions in the process been an example of teacher creativity?
Teachers are often task in finding creative and unique ways to teach traditional content and standards in the curriculum. My decisions in this process show teacher creativity by allowing choice in student work and by helping students overcome obstacles (such as Covid-19 policies) by using technology. This is especially prevalent during the conferencing component of the unit. In the classroom, we must abide by social distancing rules and this makes it hard to peer-conference our writing in the traditional aspect. Instead, I chose to make the peer-conference workshop like an online interview process. I act as a facilitator, allowing students to explore interview techniques and strategies online and implement them through Google Meets with each other and sharing their Google Docs. I merely lead students by providing certain areas that they could focus on in their interviewing process such as looking for sentence fluency, presentation of ideas, and the organization of the storytelling in the writing. Students no longer view this activity as editing their partners papers, but they now find a real-world connection to the activity. They feel like they are learning a skill that may apply to their lives later on while still accomplishing the task of helping each other improve on their paper appearance along with their interview skills
How is the lesson Novel, Effective, & Whole?
The lesson/unit is novel, effective, and whole by incorporating different technology, content, and teaching strategies/pedagogy. All students learn in completely different ways, so I must teach in different ways in order to meet each individual students at their needs. The unit starts in a traditional setting with me directly teaching the content. It then moves to grouped teaching and learning with students more at the forefront. This section allows for more differentiation and student choice throughout the activities such as tiered reading circles, student choice journaling, and outline and diagraming narratives with different technology tools. The unit then moves into a student-centered environment. Students begin to become the active participant in their learning through peer-conferencing and creating individual movie posters that coincide with their own personal narrative.
How have your decisions in the process been an example of teacher as designer?
My decisions in the process have been an example of teacher as a designer by allowing student collaboration, discussion, choice, and using projects with technology. Though I do believe that this unit/lesson has various places for improvement where I could implement a more student-centered environment and become a teacher as designer. Through most of the unit, I act as a manager and conductor of learning. Even during times of collaboration, conferencing, and student-choice, there is still quite a bit of structure and guidance from me. I think I could redesign this unit to involve students more and allow for spontaneous and complex learning by asking for student in-put and allowing students to become more involved in the planning process. Instead of me structuring the whole unit, I could consult students and create a truly project-based learning unit where I act as a facilitator the whole time and not just part of the time.
Teachers are often task in finding creative and unique ways to teach traditional content and standards in the curriculum. My decisions in this process show teacher creativity by allowing choice in student work and by helping students overcome obstacles (such as Covid-19 policies) by using technology. This is especially prevalent during the conferencing component of the unit. In the classroom, we must abide by social distancing rules and this makes it hard to peer-conference our writing in the traditional aspect. Instead, I chose to make the peer-conference workshop like an online interview process. I act as a facilitator, allowing students to explore interview techniques and strategies online and implement them through Google Meets with each other and sharing their Google Docs. I merely lead students by providing certain areas that they could focus on in their interviewing process such as looking for sentence fluency, presentation of ideas, and the organization of the storytelling in the writing. Students no longer view this activity as editing their partners papers, but they now find a real-world connection to the activity. They feel like they are learning a skill that may apply to their lives later on while still accomplishing the task of helping each other improve on their paper appearance along with their interview skills
How is the lesson Novel, Effective, & Whole?
The lesson/unit is novel, effective, and whole by incorporating different technology, content, and teaching strategies/pedagogy. All students learn in completely different ways, so I must teach in different ways in order to meet each individual students at their needs. The unit starts in a traditional setting with me directly teaching the content. It then moves to grouped teaching and learning with students more at the forefront. This section allows for more differentiation and student choice throughout the activities such as tiered reading circles, student choice journaling, and outline and diagraming narratives with different technology tools. The unit then moves into a student-centered environment. Students begin to become the active participant in their learning through peer-conferencing and creating individual movie posters that coincide with their own personal narrative.
How have your decisions in the process been an example of teacher as designer?
My decisions in the process have been an example of teacher as a designer by allowing student collaboration, discussion, choice, and using projects with technology. Though I do believe that this unit/lesson has various places for improvement where I could implement a more student-centered environment and become a teacher as designer. Through most of the unit, I act as a manager and conductor of learning. Even during times of collaboration, conferencing, and student-choice, there is still quite a bit of structure and guidance from me. I think I could redesign this unit to involve students more and allow for spontaneous and complex learning by asking for student in-put and allowing students to become more involved in the planning process. Instead of me structuring the whole unit, I could consult students and create a truly project-based learning unit where I act as a facilitator the whole time and not just part of the time.