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| 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.
