vision – My STEM Journey

Time to Play

What resonated with you?

Having spent several years in the childcare industry working with very young children in a centers-based classroom model, I identified most with the discussion about role playing. This is an essential element to early childhood education and allows young children to act out the scripts of life they are familiar with – the home including cooking and eating and washing clothes, going to the grocery store, or even a trip to the post office – as well as new ones they are introduced to in class – such as being a scientist or artist. Now that I’ll be working with older students, I can apply this concept to my unique set of courses. The students will be role playing engineering careers, so I want to make the experiences as authentic as possible by simulating a work environment. I’m glad that organizational culture was addressed in the video too because it’s something I’ve been reflecting on recently with a reread of the Fish! Philosophy (see my blog post Going Fishing). The coincidence between the message in this video and one of the four tenets of this philosophy is not lost on me. There must be time to play which is necessary to getting the creative juices flowing.

What might you need in order to have the security to take risks and be creative in your classroom?

The video identified trust and security as being the number one factor to promote risk-taking and creativity. Building relationships with students instills trust, which will provide them with the security to do just that with their learning goals. But don’t I need this trust and security too? My goal is to build relationships with my colleagues and superiors to prove I can also take risks and be creative. Everything will be so new, I will have to experiment with a variety of methods to find the right one. I want to feel I have the freedom to develop my system and style.

How might engaging students in lessons with open possibilities, role play, and thinking with their hands bring more creativity and authentic learning experiences into your classroom?

The beauty of the classes I will be teaching is these ideas are exactly how I must implement my lessons. Students will be presented with problems that have open-ended solutions after which the students must design and build a final product. As for role playing, I addressed that above in the first question. I am committed to designing and facilitating meaningful and authentic experiences.

Escaping Death Valley

What resonated with you?

How the speaker focused on three human characteristics – diversity, curiosity, and creativity – which should be cultivated through any education system. Yet the American system appears to encourage the opposite – conformity, standardization, and closed solutions while looking to solve the problem of why our students are not up to par with other countries. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?

What did you wonder about?

The idea that America is going in the wrong direction in regards to how it educates the young. And as the speaker pointed out, we want to compare ourselves to Finland but cannot because variables such as size and homogeny would create an apples to oranges comparison. But we can at least take paradigm shifting ideas from them, such as the drop-out mentality mentioned in the video. Why doesn’t Finland have a drop-out rate? Wasn’t No Child Left Behind supposed to solve that issue? I am reminded of some articles I reviewed in graduate school which addressed how Finland understood the need to move from a manufacturing-based economy to a knowledge-based one. I wonder how the role I’m in can facilitate this.

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success

From Finland, An Intriguing School-Reform Model

How may this video impact your practice?

It again brought me back to my role as a facilitator of the education process and not just the instructor. I will role model the classroom culture, build relationships, provide resources, organize materials, and assure students are making progress. I will be a mover, one who makes things happen, and not the one being moved. I want to water those seeds lying dormant in Death Valley and watch them bloom!

How do you know that you are creating learning and not simply teaching?

What is amazing about the position I’ll be in is how easy it will be to create learning. Once I have provided the students with the basic knowledge and skills they need for their projects, it will be up to them to create the final products and learn from the process, not me telling them what they should be learning.

I’m In The Zone

What are three big “A-Ha’s” that you had watching this video?

Falcon has a unique, yet long history which I need to be aware of to be part of the vision of the future
because of innovations in technology, many new learning methods exist and must be utilized to prepare our students for jobs that do not yet exist
the phrase “engaging environments” in the video stood out to me because this is exactly my vision for my own classroom – it’s the students who should be doing most of the work with myself serving as a facilitator

What is one key takeaway you have related to where Falcon Zone has been and where it is going that applies to your classroom?

It is so refreshing to learn that I am not the only one realizing education is going through a major paradigm shift in how everything works. Gone are the days of passive learning. Students must be self-aware of their own strengths and weaknesses and how they contribute to them being the best learners they can be.

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