Summer School Fun

 

Sorry, Emery. Pacman is a playable character.

Just finished my first week of teaching two summer courses. The first one is for a teacher certification program. That course covers planning, management, and evaluation. It’s an odd class to be teaching when students aren’t able to put into practice the material they with which they come into contact. They are out in the field and some will actually teach this summer, but I wonder how much they will remember for the fall when they begin teaching.

My other course is secondary school curriculum. It’s my third time teaching this graduate course for secondary school teachers and I love it. Their conversations and engagement with the course content is complex, multi-layered, and challenging. Their experiences are as diverse as their educational philosophies that discussions sometimes become quite heated—but no fist fights as of yet.

We meet three times a week for approximately three hours each meeting. Here’s how I structure the course (you know I love routine as much as I love a good gimmick):

TED Tuesdays—Watch and discuss TED talks about education.

Work Wednesdays—Work on final group projects.

Theater Thursdays—Watch a film or television show that relates to the week’s readings and focus topic (We watch clips from season 4 of The Wire, Waiting for Superman, Teach: Tony Danza, and Chalk).

Each class session begins with a student-led discussion over the day’s readings, and then we move to the focus of the day. On TED Tuesdays, we watch TED talks about education including those by the creator of Kahn Academy, an innovative approach to schools in England called Studio Schools, and a TEDxMahattan talk by Michelle Rhee.

I then have my students create a lesson based on either a TED talk or an Youtube video using TED-Ed’s software. It’s really user friendly and fun to use. I think I might get Emery to create one on video games . . .

Speaking of Emery, I hope he tells you about the new game he previewed at Best Buy this past week . . . The picture at the top of the blog is a hint.