Blog Synthesis

This year, I took a job as the Academically and Intellectually gifted math teacher at my middle school. Knowing that these children needed to have compelling experiences, this course the Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences seemed to be a good choice. I must admit that when I saw the topics we would be looking at for the course, which included photography, film & television, architecture & interior design, music, and fashion, I was very skeptical about the educational implications of any of these topics. We were asked to make analogical bridges between the work of art of experts in these fields and the work of art of teachers. These bridges were unbelievably easy to make. Although I made each of these connections in separate models, it is also easy to look back and see how they all go together.
What is it that we as teachers strive to for our students? Personally, I want to catch my students attention, keep my students attention, teach my students something, and leave them wanting more. Basically, I want students to enjoy my lessons and learn a lot from them. Just as photographers want people to look at their pictures, television wants people to watch, architects want people to appreciate their architecture, and musicians want people to listen, we want to do the same things with our teaching. Knowing the experience I want to create for my students, there were many bridges I was able to make between the work of art in teaching and the work of art in these other areas. This starts as soon as students walk into our classrooms.
As far as architecture, when a person walks into a room, they know quickly whether or not it was a pleasant place to be. A project comparing the compellingness of the environments of Dunkin Donuts versus Starbucks helped highlight the compellingness of an environment. I want my classroom to be a calm, clean, relaxing place to be for my students. I want them to feel comfortable there. This is important before the learning even starts.
As far as music, kids these days are all about music. Most students walk around constantly with their I-Pods and don’t go anywhere without them. After doing some research, reading, and listening, I came to see some of the characteristics that make music so compelling. The first and most important thing is the hook in music. A hook draws the listener in and makes them interested in the song. This related directly to the hook needed in teaching. Once students are in a comfortable and safe environment, something must grab their interest. Just like in popular music, a good hook will do this, whether it be a question, a picture, a video, an activity, or another kind of hook. Also in music, there are rhythm and patterns that establish a level of comfort. These same rhythms and patterns must exist in the classroom to make students feel comfortable.
After the learning is over, and kids leave my room, I want them to look forward to coming back. After watching an episode of the show What Not to Wear, I saw a woman who wanted to dress better so that a man would be interested in a second date with her. I want my class to be appealing so that students want a “second date” with it. It is important for us as to teacher to realize that if we want students to look forward to come back, we might have to consider a “make-over” of the way we have been doing things. Just because the way we have been doing things is “warm and comfortable,” it does not mean it is appealing to others.
Basically, we can learn a lot by thinking about ANYTHING that we find compelling. If we think about the qualities that make an experience compelling for us, we can undoubtedly apply this to our teaching to try to make experiences in school more compelling for the.
Finally, this course has pushed me to my limits technologically. I have been introduced to blogging, making videos, using youtube, using facebook, and some other new technologies. Although it was often difficult, I enjoyed this more than standard reading of textbook and writing paper reports. Isn’t this something that we as educators can use? Our students in many case of more knowledge of technology than we do. We can transform some of our old projects and reports into things the kids can enjoy more. I think my math classes would be more compelling for my students if I incorporate some of the technologies I have learned to use into my own assignments. My project about researching a famous mathematician will be a lot different next year!

A not so Imaginative Bridge: Education and Fashion

Okay, so this is definitely not the kind of imaginative bridge that we are supposed to be making, but...

I was watching Inside Edition tonight (or actually it was on while I was doing some other things), and I noticed that they spent an awful lot of time talking about Michelle Obama's fashion. From inauguration day, I feel like I have heard about this non-stop. I can not ever remember a first-lady's fashion getting this much attention. What makes people so obsessed with her fashion? It is obviously that Americans feel like they can relate to her. J. Crew is constantly selling out of clothes that the Obama's wear. Is fashion important for all leaders? If so, since we are leaders as teachers, is our fashion important?

As a fairly young teacher, I still wear many of the same clothes that my middle school kids wear. Many of the older teachers obviously do not. For example, we have all seen cheesy Christmas sweaters (actually, some teachers have these sweaters for every holiday). I have no problem with these, and actually cannot wait until I feel old enough to pull it off without being laughed at by kids. But does what we wear affect students' connection with us, like what Michelle Obama wears connects Americans with her?

Bridge Between Fashion and Education

I personally have never cared too much about fashion, so I thought I would have trouble relating this module to education. However, after watching the one episode of "What Not to Wear," I realized that there are many connections. In the episode, they were teasing Pam, saying that she would never get a second date with the clothing she was choosing. This made me think of how important first impressions are. They were trying to dress Pam in a way that was flattering and appealing.
In the same way, we need our classes to be flattering and appealing so that kids want a "second date" with the experience they have in a classroom. We want kids to want to come back. As a math teacher, I know this is hard to accomplish all the time, but it is something we can all work on. I think the old clothes Pam was wearing could be like old ways of teaching. In our discussions, I thought primarily of all of the math teachers I have worked with who sit at an overhead with notes every day, and then assign the even math problems out of the book every night. While I think there can be a place for this, there is so much new and exciting technology that can be used these days to teach. The more flattering "fashions" for teachers would be to involve these technologies.

Rythms and Patterns

I was listening to Robert Kapilow talk about how rhythms and patterns are fundamental to our understanding of the whole world. While talking the listener through the song "America the Beautiful", he discusses the rhythms and patterns that repeat throughout the song. Every phrase in the song has an identical rhythm which keeps the listeners attention. I think that these predictable patterns are also important in a classroom. I have always heard that kids need set routines, whether at home or in a classroom. They need to know what happens when they arrive in class, what will be happening in the middle of class, and what will happen at the end of class. Just like we love and are comfortable with the song "America the Beautiful," students are comfortable in a safe, predictable environment where there are limited surprised. This is an atmosphere I try to create in my classroom.

The "hook"

This may be a rather obvious "bridge" but a hook is used in music just like a hook is used in teaching. Wikipedia describes the hook in music as what you are selling. It makes the song appealing and catches the ear of the listener. The musical hook draws you in and keeps your attention throughout the song. In teaching, a hook is really the same thing. The gifted teachers at my school have been doing staff development on Understanding By Design, by Wiggins and McTighe. They suggest that the first step in planning learning experience is to "hook" the student. They suggest that every lesson should begin with a hook, and the hooks should not be the same every day. These hooks can include pictures, math problems, a question for discussion, something to write about, something to listen to, something watch, and many others. I wrote about this last week when talking about a "light to Walk Toward" in interior design. I think these ideas all relate. There must be something to grab student's attention and to hold it throughout a lesson. If the interest of a student is never grabbed, they are not likely to fully understand the material.

"Light to Walk Toward"

I was thinking today about the idea of a "light to walk toward" in architecture and interior design. Light in a space directs people toward the light and compels them to move through the space. I think in education that it is also important to have a light to walk toward. Students must have something that grabs their attention, and gets them interested in the lesson, just like the light in architecture compels people to explore a space. Students who are hooked at the beginning of the lesson will be more open to explore the lesson as they will have some desire to move toward the light.

Interior Design and the Classroom

I was reading another blog that was talking about if we could design our own classrooms and I agreed a lot with what it had to say. I would love to paint my walls a nice color other than the dirty looking white of three walls, and the remaining walls dark green. I also would love to get rid of my desks and have nice tables that kids could work together at. However, since I have no control over what my seating is like, or what color my walls are, I have to get better at the things I can control!

There are many times I have walked into other people's classrooms and thought how nice, clean, and welcoming they are. There are also rooms I go to that look quite the opposite. We all have the same basic ugly walls and written on desks with gum stuck to the bottom, but some teachers manage to do so much more with their rooms than others. I really hope to get better at this. It is hard because I struggle with decorating, and interior design in my own home and have to ask my sister to help me decorate. This goes back to me not being an artsy person! So, I am excited to do the project for this module on comparing the Starbucks and the Dunkin Donuts, and I hope to learn some things, however small they may be, that maybe I can take back to my classroom.