Explain Everything/Shadow Puppet Reflections

One of the quintessential aspects of being a quality educator is the ability to digest complex information within one’s content area, and be able to illustrate the central themes in a way that makes sense to all students.

I am taking two ED classes currently (Literacy & Curriculum), and within these two classes, we have recently worked on creating a visual tool to display our content areas, as well as our preferred content theories in a way that demonstrates our comprehension of the material. For my literacy class, we were assigned the task of making a Shadow Puppet presentation with a partner, to demonstrate collaborative efforts, as well as presenting our content areas in an engaging manner. Additionally, for my curriculum course, we were designated the responsibility of designing an Explain Everything presentation that shows our ability to both navigate through multiple apps so we can utilize programs effectively with our future students, and to display our understanding of what content theory we best align with.

Within my study of political science, ideologies and texts is continuously expanding since it is very much a study of the human condition. When Katelyn Crandall and I worked on our Shadow Puppet Project, we both collaborated and discussed what might be our central themes within our respective disciplines (Katelyn is a math major). We both were working together to firstly figure out what essentials can we pick out from our other majors to ensure that we convey the key elements to both math and political science. We both had a conversation, and drafted an outline of a script to ensure that we could attempt to condense the breadth of our studies into a five minute presentation. When we both finished our script, we provided evidence for P.C. 5.2  to show our collaboration efforts and that link is provided HERE:

Through this collaboration, we were also able to articulate the primary ideas within our respective fields of study, which connects P.C. 4.1. Being able to condense an augmenting field of study and showcase the provisions within a content area demonstrates a high level of comprehension in regards to working with the material. Within our Shadow Puppet, I discussed how civics and history are more than just text oriented documents, they are living breathing accounts of the world in which we currently live, and to better understand who we are as a society, and as the human race, it is pivotal that we understand the major events and socio-political movements that preceded us.

In addition to history being a study of the human condition, it is necessary to break the barriers between your students and your audience when dealing with the misconceptions of a particular study. In our shadow puppet, we both described common misconceptions of the way people view literacy within both math and political science which connects to P.C. 4.2.. For example, people may assume that history deals with primary and secondary documents. Though this statement is true, it is also misleading in the useage of the word, “documents.” Documents can be more than text oriented artifacts, the discipline of history and political science deals with all aspects of human life, whether this is artwork that demonstrates personal or societal struggle, or perhaps history is analyzing Star Wars, and viewing with a critical eye and connecting parallels between the fictional Sci-Fi Thriller, and World War II. There is tremendous brevity in regards to how an educator could demonstrate that history and political science is more than books, history is the culmination of our lives!

Furthermore, I utilized Explain Everything, an app that allows people to make tutorials of presentations to educate others. For example, my Explain Everything was about Humanism, which is an educational theory that promotes personal choice, and having an educator act as a facilitator in order to best engage the students which instills the desire to learn. Within this Explain Everything, I discussed what drives me to excel as a future educator. We have a substantial population of youth in the United States, yet the interactions between adults and students are so sparse, in terms of having a meaningful dialog about what future do we envision for ourselves, whether it is a vision of government, education, or how we treat others. When the current education system has largely (not in all cases) decided that education is a top down process in which no experience or learning can be received by educators, administration, or policymakers when students are talking, we completely shut off and hinder how successful our society will be. I vehemently oppose the notion of having a classroom be a top down process, when we have the ability to learn from each other and grow as citizens in our world. I don’t merely want to teach my students, I want to learn with my students and ensure that we are doing our part to create a better world and better community. I believe this aligns well with the Saint Michael’s Education Department and their mission statement including the section on having passionate educators.

Outside of school, I have been working closely with high school students in Vermont, and Washington D.C. to create student advisory councils, or an entity of students that can present information to the state boards of education. These two boards also have student members that preside, and by allowing the student representatives on the board to have a constituency, they can work together to implement and promote well-constructed educational initiatives that will better the lives of all stakeholders in education. When I work with these students, I do not simply tell them what they should do, nor am I trying to teach them a lesson. To the contrary, I believe that the only way one can truly learn is that one must genuinely believe they are the least important, and least knowledgeable person in the room. When I work with these students, I ask them what they want to do on a local, state, and national level and what their short term and long term goals are. From here, I do my best to suggest the best practices involved with making their goals an actuality. Through my political science, and secondary education program at Saint Mike’s, I have learned both theories and strategies that help me take my content area and apply it to meaningful issues on a local and national level, to ensure that all students can be heard, and I believe this connects with P.C. 5.1.

In the future, I do want to be an educator, but I feel that I would be better suited for working at an educational agency, or consortium, in which I could do field work to learn more about what is going on in all of the classrooms, and what experiences are missing in schools, in order to enhance the quality of learning within school systems. I want to continue to work with secondary students from across the country to build the largest stakeholder in education and to affirm their role and solidify their voice so other stakeholders will be able and willing to hear their voices.

A Lesson on the F-Word (Failure)

An Example of How People Can Learn in Different Ways:

Since I have been home over spring break, I have had the opportunity to catch up with my Mom, who has been my rock throughout my entire life, and has inspired me to be the better person every single day. She has worked as a diagnostic technician in the ER for 25 years and has recently decided to move into another career. The issue was that she had to take a typing test in order to get a job, as well as take an extensive anatomy and physiology test. The concern my Mom had was that she is dyslexic and is not able to type to the standards that the test requires. She asked me if I would be willing to help her study and practice for the exam and I replied saying that I would be more than glad to help.

In order for my mom to pass the typing test, she needed to type at least 30 words per minute (WPM) and she was, at the time, only typing about 0-5 WPM (if typos are taking into consideration). In addition, my Mom was only allowed 10 mistakes on an exam with 100 matching responses. My Mom also told me that we only had three days to study, which made me a little nervous, but I did not want to express that, because I believed in my Mom, because I have seen how much she has been able to provide as a single Mother.

As an aspiring educator, a lesson that I quickly learned in working with my Mom was that I need to further step out of my comfort zone of instruction, typically, I tend to be encouraging and nurturing as a tutor, because I don’t want students to shut down if they get the answer incorrect. With my Mom however, I quickly realized this was not the teaching strategy she needed, or wanted for that matter, because she is use to high pressure and stress, and encouragement doesn’t allow her to focus to the best of her ability. One of the first ideas I had to accommodate for my Mom was to have her be engaged in her typing test (she has told me that she has a lot of difficulty concentrating on a computer). I think one of the greatest problems with online typing tests is that they typically pertain to arbitrary topics that don’t allow people to necessarily see the big picture and importance of being able to digitally communicate in the 21st century. What I ended up doing is relating the typing test back to my Mom’s work environment, where the Emergency Room is high stress, I wanted to convey that sense of urgency by telling my mom she had to pretend that she was typing in the information for an injured patient, and the information had to be completed within a minute, in order for the patient in critical condition to have a greater chance of surviving. This instantly boosted my Mom’s typing speed up to 10 WPM, which made both of us happy, because progress was being made.

My Mom hit her first hurdle at 10 WPM, so I had to up the ante in terms of providing the work environment my Mom is able to thrive in. She told me that she is an auditory learner and she has great difficulty writing words on a screen. I decided it would be a good idea to ask her who the most demanding Doctor is in the ER in order to get the most efficiency out of her typing, she responded by saying “Dr. X” is the best in terms of motivating people, due to his high standards and fast-paced work ethic. “He is also known to be a hot-head and not accept excuses,” my Mom explained. I was a bit nervous to have to act as an a loud doctor towards my Mom, because I am not the type who likes to put direct pressure on people, nor do I like to raise my voice, but I was also willing to try this in order to best replicate her work environment, in order to show the application of typing skills in the real world. When my Mom began typing, I would yell off the first sentence once, while also stating the time she had left, to illicit pressure. Additionally, if I saw she was over-concentrating and getting stuck on a word (typically it was a smaller word) I would try to lower her level of concentration by telling her the condition of the patient. At this point my Mom was typing at 15 WPM, which is the halfway point for the typing test.

I had one more idea to have my Mom act as if she were really in the hospital working, and I had two ideas: The first idea being that she cannot look at the screen and type at the same time, so I told my Mom to say the sentence under her breath while she was typing, since she is an auditory learner (and also I was not allowed in the testing room so I could not read the sentences for her). Secondly, I went online and found stock ER sounds (EKG machine, the sounds of stretchers, etc…) to simulate her work environment. Before each test, I would tell her to take a deep breath and only focus on the task at hand. At this juncture, her typing was up to 20 WPM. Unfortunately, she was having difficulty consistently getting above 20 WPM, and she was getting discouraged.

I emphasized to my Mom that she was capable of getting to 30 WPM, because I had seen her at points typing upwards of 40 WPM, but she would break her stride by either getting too focused and caught on a single word, or she would have too many typos. I couldn’t stress enough that she already has the capacity to type above the threshold she needed, and that boosted her confidence a little bit, but ultimately she did not pass the typing test.

In terms of the Physiology test, I know that having multiple people practice with each other yields a greater chance of acquiring deeper learning, so I learned the definitions and terms, and we both quizzed each other, and I made sure that when I was reading off either definitions, or terms, that all of my explanations were auditory based, because that is her best way of retaining information. For words that were similar, I would use alliteration and other mnemonic devices in order for the information to be stored in our memory. When we practiced the test out loud, she excelled and was not getting any questions incorrect, but when she went to take the exam online, following the typing test, she also did not pass the physiology test.

Failure Can Only Exist When There is no Commitment to Learning & Teaching:

In my mind, I thought I had failed my Mom at first when she did not pass these two tests, but I realized that she had demonstrated her proficiency in the content of the skills she needed, but her tests did not necessarily accommodate her needs as a test-taker. When a test is only given through one medium, it doesn’t allow the test-taker to project their comprehension if they have a learning disability, and this can easily be applied to the macro scale with common assessments, do we want to test everyone to have the same level of proficiency, or are we testing everyone to have the same proficiency in a particular format? We can’t have the expectation that people learn in the same way, but in a profession, I understand the necessity for people to demonstrate their proficiency.

My Mom and I were not upset in the end, because she was thankful for how much she was able to learn in a short period of time, whereas I was incredibly proud of my Mom for how much she grew in three days. I’m a firm believer that the growth of someone is much more indicative of quality education than what they can demonstrate in a particular form of assessment. I saw my Mom step out of her comfort zone, and she ended up having a fall back strategy, which my Mom and I talked about in the event she didn’t pass the test, I told her that my Professor told us that we should at least have three other options if our first plan does not work out the way we would have desired.

The biggest lesson I have learned is that failure cannot possibly exist when someone can grow in their learning and grow as a person. If a person does not succeed the first time, that does not make them a failure, but they simply haven’t reached their desired outcome, there is always a lesson in success, and there is an even greater lesson in failing, it allows us to see how we can grow when we didn’t get our desired outcome. It is incredibly easy to thrive when we are used to succeeding, because we have a sense of confidence, but when we fail, is really where actual learning begins, because it makes us re-evaluate, it makes us plan, and it makes us grow as people.