Fun is fundamental to my instruction. I believe that learning is more of an experience when students and teachers are enjoying themselves and finding connections between their current realities and the new content. Incorporating games, actions and songs for new skills or topics is one of the ways that I do this. However, there is a time and a place for fun and games and there is also a time for focus and diligence, taking the time to personally digest material and make sense of it.
I also try to focus on combining curriculum with experiential character education as much as possible. I look for ways to insert valuable life skills within lessons so students get a thorough learning experience. As educators, we are preparing young people for a future that we cannot predict. Many jobs that exist now will not exist in 20 years and there will be a new crop of options to pick from. For that reason, I want to help students develop the skills that will help them with this adaptable and unpredictable future that lies ahead of them and set them up for success.
I like to give students a sense of choice and autonomy over their learning. This way, they will be more interested and engaged in material when they have a chance to pursue or expand upon a topic of interest. One way I have done this in the past is through Choice Challenges during math class. After the lesson, students were given a variety of worksheets and activities that related to that topic or the previous ones. Students had time to pick and chose the work they wanted to complete for the remainder of the class time, either reviewing previous topics, a chance to expand upon the current topic, or challenge themselves further if they believe they have grasped the concept completely. With my few students who were ahead of the others, they enjoyed their chance to work on different puzzles and other activities that pushed them beyond the lesson. During Choice Challenge time, students were welcome to work with one or two other students as well, or to find a quiet spot alone. Which CC activity the student chose is a personal choice of that person and not to be questioned or judged by others.
Finally, in my teaching, I try to find ways to link incorporate parts of my teaching philosophy of the 3 Rs.
Responsibility: I want students to care about their own learning, develop a want to learn more and work hard.
Respect: For a person to feel comfortable and able to take risks, they must feel respected by those around them.
Relationships: From my past inquiries, I have learned that a lesson is most impactful when it makes a connection with students’ previous knowledge. Therefore, I work to find ways to bridge together the old and new, usually through creative similes, metaphors, images and stories.
An example of my philosophy in practice:
During my long term practicum, I taught a unit on problem solving. Once a week, my class and I worked towards identifying what a problem was, the different types of problems, and ways we can solve them.
We discussed 3 levels of problems: small, medium and large. At first I looked at resources my SA gathered and ones I found on the internet to identify the specific definition of these categories. Instead, I found it helpful to define each category with the students. So together, as a group, we came up with characteristics that would help us classify our problems.
Following these lessons, we began to read through a book from the series SuperFlex. My SA recommended this book to me as she has heard positive things about it from other teachers and the school counsellor. It comes from a package called “Superflex: a Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum.” Specifically, I read the comic book styled novel called Super Flex Takes on Glassman and the Team of Unthinkables. Glassman is a character who over-reacts and thinks of every problem as a large one. You can read more about this package here.
This book displays and explains evil characters called the Unthinkables who “take over your body.” I liked the way the book explains this as it does not blame the issue on the children themselves. Instead, it helps them to think of themselves as heroes who need to save themselves from these evil monsters.
The book identifies multiple techniques that children can use to defeat the Unthinkables. As a class, we tried many of them and discussed how different ones work better for different people.
My students LOVED this book. They were eager to hear more and were quickly using the language from the book. They would identify the Unthinkable character that was causing a problem for them and worked to recall the techniques. I would highly recommend this book to other teachers and am interested myself in looking more into the curriculum package.