5313 Compilation

Course 5313's main focus is on creating a significant learning environment for students. This course gave me time to reflect on creating a space for my students that promotes growth, excellence, achievement, and community. I took this course simultaneously with 5318 (Instructional Design) and I have now began connecting the dots of our courses and understanding the correlation of how these courses are building upon each other. As I continue cultivating a significant learning environment, I must consider a plethora of factors. For instance, I must analyze my own learning and teaching philosophy to identify how I will present content. In addition, I must design my curriculum according to state standards and the resources my district provides. I will take the knowledge I have gained and incorporate it in my classroom moving forward. I have provided an overview of all my learning in this course and linked the pages through the images below.

New Culture of Learning

This page analyzes Douglas Thomas and John Brown's A New Culture of Learning. Their book gives a fresh perspective of incorporating intentional play in the classroom. I appreciated their position because I feel that teaching in a testing grade has taken away some of the creativity and autonomy I possessed when I taught second grade. After reading this book, I feel that although the district and state focus on test scores, I am in the classroom with my students and I have the power to create a positive learning environment for them. While I will continue following my district's curriculum, I will also tailor my activities and assessments to my students' abilities, needs, and interests.

Creating My Learning Philosophy

I am a firm believer that we are all lifelong learners, and this does not just apply to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Everyday we face real life problems that require critical thinking and we can not rely on content that we learned in the third grade. So, it is imperative that before I can properly teach my students, I must understand learning theories and identify my own. Once I have identified my own, guiding students toward identifying theirs will be just as important. Teaching students how to learn instead of drilling content will set them up for their lifelong learning experiences. This link examines my personal philosophy and how teaching and learning are related.

Aligning Outcomes, Assessments, and Activities

D. Fink designed the Fink's 3- Column Table that helps us organize our thoughts in order to align our outcomes, assessments, and activities. This planning tool proved to be useful because we began with a backward design of pinpointing our Big Hairy Audacious Goal, then proceeding to align each overarching activity and assessment. In addition to combing through curriculum, Worksheet 1 has us recognize situational factors of the students and learning environment. It is beneficial that this model does not isolate the curriculum and situational factors because they must work together to create a significant learning environment.

Understanding by Design

The Understanding by Design template is another useful tool when creating a curriculum for the classroom. This template breaks down planning into three stages: desired results, evidence, and learning plan. The UbD Template is similar to Fink's 3-Column Table because they both have us begin with the end in mind. Wiggins and McTighe developed an intricate template that encourages us to identify multiple types of objectives, assessments, and activities. This page maps out these aspects in detail and compares the model to our Finks table. Both of these templates provide the necessary guidance to ensure students are meeting the standards of our district and state wide mandates.

Growth Mindset

Possessing a growth mindset is pivotal to working towards our goals and aspirations. The ADL program has required us to self reflect and research what a growth mindset entails; with each round of courses I am able to analyze it from a new angle. As I have reflected on my first six courses of the ADL program, I have observed that I have fluctuated between a fixed and growth mindset. The most important sentiment here, is to continue working toward my goals and always refer back to growth mindset characteristics and understanding that it is okay to fluctuate, as long as I refocus. This page revisits my previous opinions and experience with the growth mindset, and also how it has continued to evolve.

Contribution to my Learning

My contribution to my learning and learning community is a self reflection of how I worked throughout the semester individually and with my peers. While I do not feel I did as well I have done previously in the ADL program, my growth mindset has allowed me to shift my disappointment into grace for myself. I will adjust how I operated this semester and continue to grow and try my best for the next round of courses.