In class we used the snowball exercise to review information from the syllabus. We continued with a matching exercise on active learning modalities and discussed the ones we liked the most. We then finished by reviewing each other's teaching philosophies.

Going into the discussion on active learning modalities, I favored discussions dialogue and problem based learning (PBL). While there were many other modalities from the list that I did consider beneficial, I considered case studies to be one of the ones that I would avoid. This is because I have not had good experiences with case studies in the past as a learner. I am usually fine working with concepts in abstract and I prefer to apply the concepts I learn to solve a problem on my own whenever possible. So case studies where we merely examine a problem that was solved by someone else always seemed like busy work to me. (This prejudice was probably partly due to the way these activities were presented to me in highschool) Upon further discussion it was brought to my attention that this attitude was not necessarily universal. These case studies can show students the real world utility behind concepts that might otherwise appear completely superfluous. It is now clear to me that this would be psychologically beneficial to students that are concerned with the utility of the information they are being required to learn. I am still unsure if I will be able to incorporate case studies into Calc I but I do believe it would be helpful to find examples of calculus that are immediately useful for students. 

When reviewing the teaching philosophies of others I realized that I had focused on the individuality of students in my initial philosophy, but the collaboration between students is a potentially more important part of learning. While as an LA I don’t have complete control of the structure of the classroom I am still a part of it. I need to pay attention to the interactions between students and ensure that they are collaborating in an inclusive and productive way. This should be part of my teaching philosophy as well.

Considerations for diversity, equity, and inclusion are always a lot more subtle than I think before going into a discussion like this one. One of the things that surprised me is the idea of choosing groups for students. For me this initially seemed like it would create a less comfortable environment for students since allowing them to choose groups would let them form groups with people that they already know they can work with. But on the second examination it is clear that this will create even more of a sense of othering for students that don’t already know people in their class. Even a random choice of groups will force students to engage with those that they might otherwise have ignored. This also fits with the idea of growth mindset because even if a student is less comfortable in a random group compared to the one that they would have picked, this discomfort promotes interaction with new people which is almost always beneficial.

One of the things that I thought was interesting from the reading was the roles of cortisol and BDNF in learning and the ways that the environment of a classroom can cause the expression of these chemicals. This information suggests to me that I should try to keep the classroom from being a stressful environment to avoid adding to the increased cortisol that students experience from the stress of other classes. It is apparent that promoting (or at least allowing) movement in class would be useful for the effect of increased BDNF production. However, the exercise that can be accomplished in a 50 minute class period while still making progress toward learning objectives is probably not sufficient to achieve a noticeable learning benefit from exercise. This is why I prefer the Idea of allowing movement rather than forcing movement.

I believe that the most important takeaway from this lesson Isn’t necessarily the ways that I can incorporate this neuroscience into teaching but rather that students should be made aware of this information. I have been told that exercise is “good for your brain” before but I always assumed that this was some inexplicable effect of an increase in general health before this reading. And I was also under the impression that it wasn’t that strong of an effect either. I was also aware that chronic stress was generally unhealthy, but I didn’t realize how much of a direct detriment to learning it could be. I honestly wish I had been given this material much earlier. I think that learning about this science directly would be far more helpful to students than any strategies I can implement in the classroom.

By the end of their interaction with the class I am teaching/assisting I want students to be able to...

*synthisise general strategies for solving new problems

*ask questions and perform research for the purpose of solving those problems.

Students should also have knowledge of various core tools for the purpose of solving problems specific to this class.

by the end of their interaction with the class I am teaching/assisting I want students to...

*have a collaborative relationship with their peers inwhich students feel that they can ask for assistance without ridicule or prejudice.

*be able to comunicate with instructors and others in positions of relative authority for the purposes of improving their own learning.

I would also like to make a note on the reading:

One of the things I thought was particularly notable from the reading was that place is defined as “Any Locality Imbued with Meaning” and that this does not exclude fictional places. For me this immediately brings to mind Carl Segan’s “ship of the imagination”, a completely fictional place designed as a tool to move the learners perspective between different places of interest. In general the original cosmos is a pretty interesting example of a learning tool based on PBE. This also reminded me of a tool that one of my favorite youtubers (https://www.youtube.com/user/CGPGrey ) used that he calls “ the forest of all knowledge”. This is a place that condenses an even more abstract concept into a spatial representation. Perhaps one could use something like this to anchor the abstract concepts of calculus into a more spatial organization. I am growing somewhat fond of “the sea of mathematics” where each concept is an island.