Companion Piece

  • Post author:
  • Post category:ONID

My “Author’s Notes” are legion to the How I Teach post. They warrant their own post.

1. I have used portions of my research proposal for ED603 to jump start my response to this assignment.

2. Why I teach is far different than “How I Teach” I make a salary that cannot cover my expenses as a single mother. I supplement my income by teaching and by being a landlord. TEACHING IS FAR more rewarding than being a landlord.

3. At the eleventh hour I considered a great image to add to this post a Meyer’s Brigg’s type diagram a little more robust than the Venn diagram offered Educational Origami to represent NeoMillenial Learning Styles or something pretty snazzy but not as complex as the MBTI infographic created by the philosophical boy with help from Artist Chris Morris.

4. I really do love Venn diagrams. I love flowcharts more.

5. Learner as “Do-er” is a tee-shirt I’d wear.

6. Asking for a philosophical statement regarding how I teach and how I learn is deeply seated in who I am and how I perceive myself. “Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Cook Briggs worked together to create the system to measure psychological  preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.” NWHM website I believe our approach to teaching and learning is very similar to the lens we use to see the world and how we choose to tackle it.
Natural Women’s History Museum http://www.nwhm.org/blog/historical-women-who-rocked-myers-briggs/ Accessed 8/16/2014

7. While I enjoyed reading about the FIDeLity method I cannot see providing immediate feedback. Discriminating, sure, also supportive. I’d actually like to write more that is supportive and encouraging, hence the need to revamp a bit of the structure of some of my assignments. That being said, when I read this material I thought of the UAF CS faculty who has programmed and immediate feedback loop for some assignments. I thought that was lovely… and then I started thinking, HOW can I do that… Okay, how can I do that without using quizzes?

8. Also while doing the reading for Unit 4: Assessment & Feedback Strategies I fell in love with forward looking assessment. I’ve reproduced a portion of forward looking authentic assessments drawn from these two pages.

“Are realistic. […]
Required judgement and innovation.  […]
Ask the students to do the subject.  […]
Replicate or simulate the contexts in which adults are tested in the workplace, in civic life, and in personal life.  […]
Assess the student’s ability to use a repertoire of knowledge and skill efficiently and effectively to negotiate a complex task.  […]
Allow appropriate opportunities for students to rehearse, practice, consult resources, and get feedback on and refine performance and products.  […]”
(p. 86-87)

I cannot say I was working off of this model when creating approximately half of the series of assignments my students now perform. But I do know that my approach closely matches the majority of the key concepts listed above. So much so that I’d like to rework several assignments so that almost everything matches, or scaffolds to the forward looking assessment.

… That’s it. I’m done. I have no time today to actually make the diagram. But suffice it to say it looks like a cross between hopscotch and a pretty Venn with such entries as situated learning, constructivism, connectivism, active-learning… and a smattering of old-school pedagogical devices such as auditory, visual, and kinetic just to rock it old school. Why? Because at times I’ve been an INTJ, an ENTJ and I’ve been called upon to dig deep and drag my P roots. -FIN-