What I found most upsetting about the scenario is that it is very relevant to today's teaching methods. Many teachers tend to create assignments and prompts that are driven towards "knowing" something, but not understanding a concept or performing a certain skill. Unfortunately, this is often true about many classrooms and the toll on student performance is apparent. What's worse is that I was laughing at this scenario as if it was a satire. I jokingly related it to George Orwell's 1984 and how it was based around limiting creativity and thinking all together. Yet, as I continued to read, I realized that these things are true about our society today, and this greatly disturbed me. We are literally living in the world of Orwell's 1984. While this may not be true about many other classrooms, it is still unnerving to think about the many classrooms that do embody this Darth Vader scenario. As a teacher I want to make sure that this type of scenario does not become a truth in my own classroom.
Due to this realization from my reading, I was very interested in what the text had to say about the "Ten Design Principles". The entire list seems like something that I should add to my teacher toolbox for the future. I agree with the entire list, but I specifically can vouch for numbers 7 and 9.
Principle #7 was always something that I have believed in. I have always believed in the idea of using many different assessment formats: essays, projects, reenactments, letters, poems, songs, videos, drawings, etc. To be honest, I have always loved English and oftentimes like writing essays where I can state my opinions and support my arguments, but it gets boring after a while. Different formats are oftentimes looked down upon by many educators because they seem to be informal or childish and are falsely accused of not being good way to assess students. This is not the case, however. Throughout my time as a student, I have always enjoyed when teachers would give me many different formats to chose from. This way, not only can the assignment cater to the student's individual strengths or interests (mine was always film-making and poetry writing), but it also allows the student to have fun and be involved in deciding how they learn. All of these assessment formats have the ability to measure exactly what is needed to be measured, while still also both engaging the students and catering to their strengths.
Principle #9 is also something that I have always agreed with. I've always found that I write much better when being allowed to choose what I am writing about. Even if the student isn't allowed to choose EXACTLY what he or she wants to write about, given options of prompts to choose from is always something I have enjoyed. This allows the teacher to set up a barrier as to what the student can and cannot write about while still allowing the student to decide which prompt he is most interested in. When a student feels like he has a strong connection with one of the topics and specifically chooses it, he is more likely to deeply interact with the text while trying to discover his own truths and opinions and more likely to try harder when his own beliefs are being tested. Students tend to like ranting about how they feel. In this way, they can choose something they are interested in and then rant in a formal manner. Giving an entire class a single prompt, on the other hand, is less likely to motivate most or any of the students. Plus, as a teacher, don't you want to read essays with different topics? Reading the same topic is more focused, but it also can be boring and can influence your grading. At least I believe so.
As a side note, I also had never heard of the "CRAFT" acronym until reading this chapter. I think it could be very useful to keep in my teacher's toolbox for my future career. It's really a great way to guide a teacher in designing an assignment. I would have thought that I would have heard of this in SED406 with Professor Kraus, but I guess not! Still, it's better to find this stuff out while still in school so that I can have time to practice it.
I think my favorite part of the entire text was when it showed examples of assessments that worked. I specifically enjoyed the rectangle letter to the council of parallelograms. To be honest, it kind of made me want to be a Math teacher for a moment because I thought it was so cool and new and inventive. This is the type of teacher I want to be in my classroom. I want to think of new and fun ways to teach my content while still extracting the best work from my students. I especially enjoyed the way that the teacher responded to each student:
Not only is this a great way to respond to the student in a beneficial and critical way, but it is also fun and does not dishearten the students. The teacher allows the students to fix their issues and explains what they did not talk about in their essay (what needs to be revised) while still role playing and participating in the activity. The fun names "Rhonda Rhombus" and the formatting of this entire assignment is something that I want to bring to the table at whatever school I teach at. THIS is what makes a difference in a classroom.
Finally, my last comment is on a quote from the second to last page of the text. It reads as follows:
I remember thinking, "Is it really that simple?" I think that the answer is no, but I also believe that, at the simplest level of explanation for good teaching, this is very accurate. Good prompts (that are engaging, motivating, useful, beneficial, and targeted at a specific goal), student models (that help exemplify what is expected and give students a good idea of what is expected), and advice (helpful corrections, meaningful critiques, and praising of strengths) are, at the base of teaching, what makes a good teacher. So, yes, I do believe that this quote does apply. I also agree that a teacher should never go back to the stand-and-deliver approach for teaching. While it is important to sometimes explain things in detail, it is not effective to just spew knowledge at students and expect them to intake it and make it mean something. My concern with this quote is that teaching is much more than what it implies. There is A LOT more that goes into good teaching and motivating students. Yes, what it says does "work", but it also does not work for all. In order to become a better teacher for my future students, there is much more I need to learn to do and deal with, but that's to be continued.
Hey, Taylor. I'll start by saying that I loved 7&9 on the list of design principles, too! Number 7, which is using creative formats for writing assignments, is definitely an idea worth saving. The possibilities are endless so much that you don't even have to use the same idea twice. Number 9, giving students choices, was always important to me, especially as a high school student. I like that you said this doesn't mean students get to do whatever they want, but making a choice will help motivate their writing for sure. It's funny that you mentioned the example of the writing prompt for math class with the letter to the parallelograms because I loved that idea! The creativity was beyond my imagination. It's exciting to realize writing can be fun in all content areas with this kind of invention.
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