The Artifact
Please follow the link below to an EXCEL file that display the map of “myself”:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgoaw4ghpu2kmar/City%20of%20Vincent.xlsx?dl=0
Description and Reflection
Teaching is a complex task. Throughout this term, I have discovered a lot more about education and how we as educators can influence students in the future, because every single student is so unique that they can develop differently and expand their understanding widely with our helps. Taking myself as a student learning for almost 20 years as an example, I was thinking about a way to visualize my development on different areas and depict the complexity of my progress as a whole. I then thought of a way to connect this idea to one of the city-building games I play, by mapping out a big map with a city sitting on it, representing my development on different aspects, what personal characteristics I needed to develop them, and how I could make connection among them.
The city sits by the coast with big ocean on the left and a huge desert underneath, this geographical property represents physical body structure that I am born with, meaning much weaker eyesight on my left eye and dry skin. The city includes the regions representing my development on original identity, academic field, professional career, cultural insight, natural life, sports interests, and passion in music. The colour blocks represent my personal characteristics that are involved in developing these fields, including mathematical/logical, social, emotional, mental, creativity, curiosity, confidence, self-discipline and history. Part of the map is copied from the game[1] and part of it is just my own decoration. When I was working on this map, I never thought of being able to create such a huge map and prosperous city; I focused on a group of blocks or a certain area at one time, and slowly every piece comes together and form a big scene. This is just like when we are working our ways through the life we rarely think about the big picture of everything, until we look back and realize we are developmentally richer than we thought we were. In total, this map took me about 3-4 weeks, but I never thought I had spent too much time and never felt like giving up, because I was just so into it and couldn’t wait to see the whole map being completed. In fact, I started making this map before I even took the course, and I was just thinking of mapping a certain area of my city in the game onto the EXCEL file, then I realized how this is so connected to how I view my life and thought that this assignment would be a great chance for me to share. This is analogous to the fact that if we really do enjoy teaching, we will be naturally dedicated to this career and never feel like giving up on any student, and sometimes just a little, and even irrelevant experience in our lives can trigger great motivation that help us achieve much more than we thought. Lastly, the regions in the city is connected with different transportation facilities, including roads, bridges, highways, subways and so on. When I get back to my practicum school, I hope I can look at every student’s “map” in the same way and help them expand their areas and draw connection among them using different methods.
During the dialogue circle, we had a great time sharing our experiences among the colleagues on the table, although most of us only had a structural idea about what to do. On the gallery walk day, I was glad that a number of people came to me and got amazed when I zoomed out from the pictures I included within the city to the whole view of the map. The most valuable moment was when we all share about our own experiences and how one’s artifact can inspire all others because we are all here having the same ideology and goals. Jan-Lin got a big leaf from one of her father’s plantations and a cardboard showing all the phrases that inspired her. I was impressed on her adventures and reflect to myself that sometimes taking risk may be full of danger, but it is one of the good ways I gain more insights about life and learn more from the unfamiliar areas. Bonnie’s word cloud slideshow let me understand that all the experiences and self-identities can make us proud and unique. Caelin’s experience had me think about how important our surrounding friends and family members and even environment can shape our personality and move on from grieving experience. Rhonette’s fantastic collection of exotic postcards reminds me about my dream about traveling around the world and gain different insights from traveling, because I believe life is all about traveling, to different places, with different people, at different ages. Everything coming up is unpredictable, but that is what makes life exciting and enjoyable. I do wish to see all of the artifacts as many of the ones I saw have already inspired me in different ways.
As I mentioned in the lesson plan and addendum assignment before, I always think that building up a city with all the transportation connecting across the region is a great metaphor for teaching kids the knowledge they need and trying to connect their understandings altogether, keeping in mind that each individual has different geographical properties. Also, every person that we come across in our life can be our teacher, not necessarily academically, but in any other aspects. Before I try to understand the every single students in my future classes, I use exactly the same way to show how I map out myself. This is my unique place of mind, my wonderland, my gorgeous castle. Welcome to the City of Vincent.
[1] Social Quantum Online Games | Megapolis. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2014, from http://www.socialquantum.com/megapolis