What artifact could you have improved the most? How?
>> The lesson plan that emerged from the empathy work was poorly implemented. The overall project for the day and the goals of the lesson were purposeful and clear; however, the lesson involved untested technologies that backfired on me. I did not test the lesson in that workspace myself, and I didn't even think to test everything with a student's skill level using the devices we would use on the real lesson.
In order to improve the lesson, I would have thought through the small technical details in much greater depth. This could have led me to try pre-sorting parts into kit bags, purchasing better LED connecting leads, or avoiding any live coding (instead preloading ALL devices with a simple blink program for varied tests.
What was your biggest challenge in this course? Why?
>> My greatest challenge in this course, and in my GCD course design, is teaching and designing alone. For the past two years, I have been co-teaching Algebra with amazing teams. In college, I became spoiled with all of the teaming opportunities I had on the projects I worked on. I do my best work with a dedicated group, especially creative work like the design process, and working alone proved very challenging.
Were you able to overcome that challenge? How?
>> Though it wasn't perfect, I believe I overcame the challenge of working alone by connecting with students, mentors, and my professor for ideas, next-steps, and feedback on my work. Though I was the only person actively generating new ideas on my own course, I was constantly in contact with many local people and many online peers who were ready to offer support.
Long term, I addressed the challenge of teaching GCD alone by working with two other teachers to turn it into an interdiscipliny course. Assuming sufficient enrollment to make the course exist next yer, I will be able to bring my design kit and skills with me to the new group. All of the design skills learned in this college course, despite many being used alone, can be shared and used with a new team for next year.
What skills did you learn that will benefit you the most as an educator, as a leader?
>> The most useful thing I learned this school year is the importance of consistently gathering data from students to make sure that root problems are identified and dealt with. Like students, I can get overwhelmed with the complexity of managing the GCD class project, but I cannot give into the temptation to avoid feedback when I don't think it will lead to results that I want to hear. In particular, a question that monitors the level of challenge for each student gives me a great pulse on who needs more difficult work, who needs more support immediately, and who I should more closely watch for signs of either situation.
Flickr Photo by Lori Greig, "this is far from over".
Downloaded from http://goo.gl/va8JLp on July 20, 2014.
Which artifact are you most proud of? Why?
>> I am proudest of my final presentation. The final collection and review of student data helped me fully reflect and reorganize my own thinking on real-world learning. Going into the presentation, I knew that I was actively learning and trying new things, allowing me to generate small insights during the process. However, quantitative survey data with qualitative data to support it gave me a better sense of how I was doing overall and how I could help specific individuals.
I also felt that the big-picture story of Grand Challenge Design is becoming clearer and easier to communicate with each presentation. I spent the first five minutes of my talk sharing the vision for the course (mostly developed as part of a Genius Hour project in the Self-Directed Learning course in this certificate program). From this base, I connected to the specific things that I am trying and students are working on within the class. This ongoing story changes in its details and most recent updates, but the message of the core vision further solidified in this presentation.