Revitalized Unit

     The process of revitalizing my "World Issues: Asia Unit" was an awesome opportunity and use of time for the coming school year.  I love assignments where I get the opportunity through the course to utilize what I have learned, for the betterment of my course and ultimately student engagement and learning.  It can be overwhelming to think about implementing a bunch of changes at one time to the courses you teach, but through thinking through how you would apply these teaching models to one unit, provided an avenue to make the process manageable.  I am excited to start teaching this unit making the transition from direct instruction to more guided instruction through all of the different teaching models I have chosen.  It was amazing to me, that as I thought through my different goals and activities to achieve those goals in my World Issues class, and through the Asia unit specifically, I was able to find much better ways to achieve those goals, and many times, the teaching models allowed me to exceed my goals and meet more than one.
     As a result of my completed "Revitalized Unit" I now have a road map to engage my students from the very beginning through introducing the content of the unit with Suchman's Inquiry, identify and solve problems through Creative Problem Solving, organize their evidence through Concept Development, and form an analysis through Cause and Effect. The best part, is if those initial teaching models are not the right fit for the class I am teaching, I have two other models for each one to meet the same goals in a different way.  I feel like I am heading back to school with more tools in my teacher arsenal, than I ever have before!  Thank you Dr. Grant!

Teaching Demonstration II Blog: Synectics Model!

Teaching Demonstration II Blog: Synectics

By: Jyl Mason  

Creating a teaching demonstration using the Synectics Model was truly a learning experience from the beginning, because I had never even heard of synectics before.  I thought I was really in some trouble when just the name “synectics” took me a couple of times to pronounce correctly.  I attempted to closely and appropriately follow  the model throughout the activity, but as it turned out, I should have separated the phases and gone through them individually so each phase was hidden when a new one was started.  With that said, I think appropriate learning was attended, because creative analogies were created, but the process could have been even better with the phases separated.  

I do think that “all facets (were) thoroughly explained in the process and the knowledge of how to duplicate the process best, was achieved.  I chose the topic of “Education” for my colleagues since it is a clear and shared interest and I think it worked rather well since the process led us to the metaphorical relationship between education and chocolate.  From my own practice using synectics to my participation with the group, I noticed how much I enjoy participating in creative processes with groups rather than on my own.

Once again, I thought my colleagues did a great job discussing the strengths, weaknesses, and class connections of synectics following the presentation.  I really enjoyed the collaborative effort in deducing how to use synectics in our classrooms.  In addition, I have never thought of myself as a traditionally creative person and synectics has served as another reminder to me this semester, that I can be very creative, creativity is within my reach, and I now have the ability to help my students gain the same insights and tap into their creative potential.

As the 2016-2017 school year is quickly approaching, I have been brainstorming ways to make even the most mundane tasks (classroom expectations/syllabus) engaging and novel to my students and these strategies have provided me with more tools to meet this challenge.   Stay tuned for my revitalized unit!  

Teaching Demonstration Reflection: Cause & Effect Model

Teaching Demonstration Blog: Cause & Effect

By: Jyl Mason  

The Cause and Effect Model was my first teaching demonstration and I had a lot of fun using the strategy after I got over my nerves.  I read the information on the Cause and Effect Model over and over because I really wanted to utilize the strategy within my classroom this year.  I do a lot with helping my students to determine cause and effect and yet, this strategy helps take students deeper to prior causes and subsequent effects...it’s genius!   I think I used the model closely and appropriately followed it throughout the activity.  I tried to pick a very interesting topic to demonstrate the process and the result of using the Cause and Effect Model.  I started off with my activity right away as outlined in the rubric, but I wonder if it would have been better to give my classmates the background information (Bajau Laut people) in an email before we got started.  I was trying to be considerate of their time outside of our synchronized time, because I know they are working on other things.

I think “all facets (of the cause and effect model) were thoroughly explained and demonstrated; type of learning for model clearly explained and employed; clear, concise, and complete explanation of model.” Although I feel I was clear, my classmates seemed to struggle at first with determining appropriate causes or effects and it made me wonder if I wasn’t being as clear as I originally thought, or if they needed some think time. In addition, I’m wondering if a short story similar to what Allison used for the Socratic Method would have worked better than the situation of the Bajau Laut people I chose to use.

Overall, I think my presentation was relevant, creative, organized (with the use of PowerPoint), and varied presentation tools; material and activity was easy to follow for the most part.

The handout I created was clear and definitely concise, as well as user friendly, and correct citations, but I wonder if I should have included another example or maybe an additional website they could utilize.

I thought my peers did a great job of discussing the strengths, weaknesses, and relationships to the thinking types, research, and other teaching demonstrations we have studied in class.

I don’t think I self evaluated after my activity as much as I could have, however, I think I ran over on time as well so I was trying to close.

Overall, I am really looking forward to using this strategy in the coming school year and with my daughter (16) who has trouble developing a strong analysis in her writing.