TEACHING EXPERIENCES

Themes that emerged during my teaching include adaptability, allowing student interests to lead, and engaging diverse learning styles by incorporating multiple approaches. 

Adaptability is essential to provide students with the best possible experience. I have learned that things do not always go as planned and often can change on the fly, so going with the flow through lessons, field trips, and team dynamics is vital to a successful day. Being adaptable meant having alternative plans or adjusting curriculum on the fly if things went wrong during a lesson, such as not being able to hang a poster up or having technical difficulties. It also meant quick problem-solving without panic when things went awry. It even looked like setting boundaries with students that work with their needs. For example, letting them run ahead on the trail if they had tons of energy, but only if they agreed to stop at certain markers. In environmental education, adaptability is vital to provide students with the best possible experience in nature while educating them on its inner workings and importance. 

In the same vein as adaptability, letting student interests and connections lead became a crucial lesson of my teaching experiences. I learned decentering myself by encouraging student interests and awe to be at the forefront got them excited to engage with nature. It also helped students feel seen, heard, and appreciated. Using the art of questioning to explore their noticings, family knowledge, or personal connections in the environment helped students feel a part of nature rather than separate from it. Finding creative ways to incorporate these interests into the curriculum became key.  

To be inclusive of all learning styles, incorporating multiple ways of learning into lessons was fundamental in engaging students in a classroom. This meant giving clear instructions, incorporating sound into lessons, modeling for visual learners, allowing students to learn by doing, and more! I learned providing explicit instructions for activities by breaking them down into three steps helped students grasp what was asked of them. I used sound to interest auditory learners by playing bird songs of species we were learning about. Moreover, I modeled what I asked of the students to engage visual learners through a show don’t just tell approach. An example of this could be writing a species’ name under a document camera if I ask students to write it, instead of only telling the name. It also looked like doing the same activities I asked them to, such as nature journaling. Additionally, encouraging students to learn by doing incorporated a kinesthetic approach that got students moving and working together. On field trips, the curriculum had students think like Pacific Wrens by working as teams to build nests in nature. In classrooms, I had students get moving by using our whole bodies to aid in visualizing layers of the Douglas fir forest.