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I believe my philosophy is influenced by what I learned through today’s materials. I feel very inspired by the three-step process of designing a course backward, it makes a lot of logical sense to me and also validates many experiences I have had in classrooms. I would want to not only implement this designing method in my course creation but also let my students in on it. I would love to dig deeper into what may count as evidence of learning with my students. Tests/evaluations are often some of the more stressful aspects of a class, and students put a lot of energy into them. I would like to work with my students to gather evidence together, maybe with our ultimate evaluation tool based in something meaningful to them.

For example, I think of classes i have taken in my major of speech-language pathology. In certain classes, we learned the skills to do real-life assessments on the clients we would eventually have, and our exams were centered on executing those skills well. This was very meaningful to me because there was a clear goal, clear and measurable evidence of my ability, and it felt completely reflective of what we had dedicated time to in our classes.

Practical assessments and evaluations consistent across the class timeframe would provide a greater chance for students to improve, placing greater emphasis on feedback than on grades.

questions:

how would a teacher assess a class that is creative? I understand how an individual evaluation may be done, but would a whole class assessment be useful for creative classes?

How do you make assessments more meaningful to students?

when conducting an evaluation where the goal is not to look at learning, what do you then look at? What constitutes performance in class besides a student's learning?

I am excited to add more to this post as I give this topic more thought.

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I learned a lot through this module. I had an understanding of the principles of active learning from my experience as a student of teachers implementing active learning strategies, but  I was struck by the idea of space as the third teacher, and impressed by the amount of evidence to back up the positive effects of changing our learning environments.

I found a research article outlining the importance of classroom spaces, and these are the pieces that stood out to me the most;

The space of the classroom can reveal the teaching philosophy and can advance a hidden curriculum.

Traditional “lecture” style classrooms date back to the Middle Ages when paper and literacy were both very rare, so the function of this layout was to deliver the knowledge directly from the source THROUGH the instructor.

In the SCALE-UP program, the alternative classroom saw a dramatic decrease of failure rates in women and minorities in the classroom

The table design promoted more communication between classmates, more collaboration, and participation in class.

There is a “golden” seating area in traditional lecture halls which students prefer and seems to promote better learning. It offers eye contact with the instructor, a good view of presentation materials, and a small enough radius to promote community. These seats are limited and a student may not take one of these seats in favor of sitting far back with a friend or may lack the confidence to claim these prime seats. In this way, some students have better learning opportunities than others.

Through this and our module reading, I have really understood how much of an impact space has on the learning of each student. I believe that an alternative classroom layout is beneficial for everyone and promotes classroom community, which is one of my personal values in education. I think that a strong classroom community can facilitate that collaboration and improve an individual’s self-confidence which in turn promotes active learning

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One of the biggest things that stood out to me was how damaging high stress levels can be to the learning process. I knew from experience that just the right amount is required to have some real breakthroughs in learning, but I do think teachers often push past that right amount. I thought about it in this way; these readings describe a threshold of stress that our brain can tolerate and still be productive, but teachers do not always know how close each student is to that threshold. Teachers may come into the classroom with the assumption that everyone’s stress level is similar and low enough that they can handle being pushed “just enough.”

A question I had is this; if you are not stressed academically, but you're stressed financially, emotionally, professionally, etc., can you're brain actually differentiate that you have not met your “academic stress' ' threshold? Or is it more like your stress level is a cumulative thing that can’t be isolated. I would posit after these readings that it is likely the latter. If your brain is as interconnected as described, there would be no way to “turn off” the other stress points. Your financial stress may contribute to feelings generalized anxiety, your relationship stress may make you feel depressed or insecure in your self image. These are things that are directly harmful to your learning because they directly inform our ability to learn.

Because of this, I wish there was a way to take into account each student’s threshold each day, as to best tailor the lesson in a way that doesn't push them past that critical point.

This really speaks to my teaching philosophy in the sense that I believe promoting a community space that is attentive of everyone’s stress levels, and maybe invites conversation around that each day, is a great way to truly improve learning. Similar to restorative justice circles which invite a community grounding activity at the start and an invitation to share where we meet each other (emotionally stress etc.) on that day.

I also really liked the idea of understanding what type of learning you want to target when making your lesson plan. This put many things into context for me in my own learning. There are often times when you feel like no matter how prepared you are for an exam, it is never going to go well because the way you learn is actually very different from the way you are tested. This I feel has very little to do with whether or not you actually know the content which has actually nothing to do with whether you know the content or not. I would like to always take into account the type of learning I am promoting in order to test them on THOSE relevant skills.

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These materials expanded my teaching/learning philosophy considerably. I had previously not thought of the environment as a factor in facilitating learning, but I now understand how it can be both helpful and hurtful in different contexts. I feel that at university, our spaces can be challenging since classes are confined to the classroom layout, which may or may not work for any given class. I have been in classes where the layout worked against our learning.

I wanted to ask about listening and responding. There was a term "popcorning" used in the video, and it is something I have seen often in my classes. I am wondering how a professor, LA, or student can help "discourage" listening to respond without stamping the life out of a dialogue. Also, I loved the focus on understanding what we are building with open communication. This is something I feel would be an excellent addition to every class. I would love to always know what the professor expects of class time and what the students expect so that everyone can work together in building and maintaining that thing.

In addressing diversity and inclusion, I think space is a large part of how I would do that. One thing I also thought of is having materials reflect those goals. If the teaching materials themselves are inclusive and represent diverse experiences, students may naturally feel more comfortable in the classroom, without a teacher saying outright "this is a welcoming and inclusive space." This can sometimes feel disingenuous.

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I have limited experience teaching directly, but I will draw on what is meaningful for me as a learner and what I have seen work in past classes.

I believe in consistent structure, engaging discussion, and active application of material when appropriate. Classes with these things have been the most useful for me and were I teaching, these elements would be prioritized. I appreciate when professors teach material during class instead of asking their students to teach themselves and come to class only for application assignments. I believe that it is the teacher's job to teach and that they are the most qualified to explain material to students. I love a class format where one day is devoted to lectures and one to activities.

As far as philosophy goes, I believe in creativity as a part of learning. I believe in learning one thing thoroughly above learning many things without depth. I firmly believe that answering the question of "why" things are relevant, established a certain way, or used is very important to facilitate true learning as opposed to memorization for the sake of a grade.