Week 2 T2P essay

Areas I want to cover:

1. Classroom management

2. helping students be reflective in the classroom

3. helping students bring creativity to constructing their own knowledge

The first area that I wish to reflect on about this week's class is the area of classroom management.  As a teacher, I would like to explore the idea of "order" as opposed to "control."  I found the readings very provocative because I tend to have a strong reaction against anything that coerces or controls other people.  One of my learning goals is to find a way that is comfortable for me to enable students to be in a respectful relationship with themselves, other students and myself.

I found some inspiration for this in the "science is messy" video because I observed that the teacher was engaging students in a very high level of dialogue.  He didn't merely discuss facts; instead, he inviting students to inquire, reflect, and make their own observations about their learning and about the subject matter they were studying.  I believe that expecting students to have contributions in this way creates an atmosphere of trust and respect and I would envision conducting my classroom with this as a cornerstone.

While I didn't resonate with the first example in the Hansen article, I did take something from the teacher who used hand raising as a rule.  While I tend to recoil from setting up a lot of rules at the beginning of a class, I could envision a basic one like this, involving turn taking, that might be part of setting the initial tone of the class.  I also am learning that some rules might be worth articulating, repeating and affirming early on in the life of the class in order to create order which allows for learning.  Again, for me, it would have to be a very limited number of rules, at least to start, but I am beginning to consider that some initial tone setting might appropriately include rules.

Finally, the most exciting part of the day for me was the re-doing of our concept map about learning.  I personally decided to take some risks, make some choices about what I thought it should look like, let go of external expectations, and let my creativity flow.  When this happens, learning becomes very joyful.  As I teacher, I would like to keep exploring ways to invite students to do the same thing.  That is, to move from a linear, analytical way of thinking, to a non-linear and multisensory thinking.  I believe this can happen through modeling so I hope to use music, video and other media and modalities in my teaching.  I also think that giving students time to create in small groups during class is very empowering of creativity because students can learn from others' ideas as well.

I also think that students experience a greater level of internal knowledge building when they do creative projects such as we did today.  I am learning by doing projects like this that many things that I don't traditionally think of as "knowledge", such as preferences, feelings, wishes, experiences, not only are what make up my knowledge, but without those, my knowledge and understanding can have no connection to me and so disappears after the exam is over.