Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Rationale:
The rationale for this project is based on our teaching platform.
Fundamentally we believe in relation-centered pedagogy and organic
learning experiences.
We believe that learning comes most powerfully and most
sincerely in relation to people. With Harvard and Yale and many others
releasing so many good resources for learning online and for free,
simple access to information is not the goal of education. To simply
give students access to knowledge could then be as easy as giving
them all iPhones. This is all to say that our current education system is
not only a resource for more information, but an environment in which
learning is made most effective. The fundamental difference between
going to class and just Googling information would then be teachers
and peers. That is, relationships give education power.
Relationships allow students to receive personal guidance that is
made more and more effective with growing trust. This requires a
teacher who can give individual attention to each student. Peers can
also learn together and group up in order to achieve growth that would
normally be difficult or even impossible when alone (two heads are
better than one).
This is directly connected with our curriculum because the
Service Learning projects with which each student is involved is heavily
influenced by both teacher guidance and peer support. It is certainly
During the fall semester the students will be put into groups and
brainstorm ideas about how to create a project that engages students
into their schools community. The students will be a given a quarter to
brainstorm their ideas with their group members. By the end of quarter
one they will submit their ideas to the teacher. Throughout the first
quarter, students will have multiple opportunities to share their initial
ideas with the teacher and make revisions or changes.
Once the teacher approves of their ideas then the students will
create a professional-looking poster board or tri-fold that explains their
idea and how it can be applied to their community. The teacher or
district will provide all of the necessary materials to create their
presentations. In addition, the students will create their presentations
in the classroom. The purpose of having the students complete their
group work during class time is to ensure that the teacher, who will
facilitate collaboration and peer dialogue, supervises the students.
Furthermore, it gives the students the opportunity to work together
without trying to find time outside of class to complete the project.
The students will present their ideas at the annual community
engagement fair, which will be held during the first week of quarter
two. This fair will take place at each high school in the district after
school hours to allow the members of the community, who might be
working during the day, to attend. Also, it gives them the opportunity
to participate in the decision making process of picking the best
positive manner. This is one of the primary reasons the community will
play a large role in determining the project of choice.
Exploring Passions
Individualis
m
Service to
Others
Working w/ Others
Relational
Pedagogy
Student
Interest
Organic
Real
World
Learning
Facilitating
Working
Experience as
Working
for a
cause
Organizin
In School
Change
s
Impact
Reflection
Service
Collaborat
Learnin
e
Purpose
For what
g
w/resident
local symphony and the local theatre group, but rarely makes room for
more diverse productions.
With the help of Mr. Smith, Shawn refines his petition and his
goals so that the push is not only to save Concert Hall, but to improve
it and draw more performances to the center.
When the students each submit their ideas for community
engagement projects, there are many good ideas. One student
proposed expanding the local library and holding more events there, as
well as collecting more books. Another proposed adopting a
relationship with a foreign school and interacting and engaging
between schools and students. So the votes were close, and perhaps
next years students will get to try out many of these other ideas, but
Shawns Concert Hall effort ended up being the winner. The students
drew together and wrote plans and goals for repurposing the concert
hall.
Students began finding other bands and theatre troupes to
perform a wide variety of shows and broaden the vision of the concert
hall. Others helped to create blogs and connect with members of the
community to get an active conversation moving in regard to the citys
plan to tear down the building. Some students spoke with the local jazz
musicians and managed to pull together a benefit concert for the citys
local art scene in the concert hall. Even artists who painted or sculpted
helped by displaying some of their art in the hall during the concert.
Assessment:
While the goal of the project is not focused around student
assessment, there are numerous ways in which we will be evaluating
students individual work. During the first quarter, there will be
checkpoints in which students have to submit initial research, ideas,
and plans. For these assignments, there will be small grades basically
based on submission and participation; we want to ensure that
students are doing work in class so they dont have to worry about
anything outside of class. Also, this gives the teacher the opportunity
to give students direct feedback on their actual ideas and nudge them
in the right direction, if necessary.
In the second quarter, the main grade will be for the poster
project presented at the fair. Students will be evaluated on how
professional it looks, if it flows logically, if they are able to answer
questions of those passing by their project, etc. We want to students to
utilize this opportunity to learn about designing effectively but also
about presenting to audiences outside of the school walls. This will also
give them the chance to take pride in their hard work and show the
community all of their great ideas.
In the third and fourth quarters, when students are actually
implementing the chosen project, we intend to make use of reflective
writing. As students work in their community implementing their ideas,
we want them to deeply reflect on their experiences, both good and
bad. To do their reflections, we will use online blogs; we feel that using
blogs allows for more creative writing versus formal essays, thus
engaging the students much more. Also, they will have the opportunity
to comment on each others blogs (all positive feedback or useful
criticism of course), building a stronger classroom environment in the
process. For these reflections, small grades will be given for thoughtful
reflection and comments, to ensure that students complete these
assignments.
Reflections:
Allyson Klovekorn
Being able to collaborate effectively with classmates is a very
important skill to have as a student but is also something that is
necessary in being a teacher leader. Throughout this semester, we
read and discussed the positive benefits of collaboration among
teachers within an entire school; when teachers work together,
learning on another level can occur. In the work for this project, this
Cody Dye
Throughout this course and, as an extension, this project,
discussion and deliberation have been key concepts. As a group we
were required to work together and sift through our own preconceived
notions and interests to narrow down our choice for an organizing
center, despite the endless possibilities that some of us saw if we had
gone in a different direction.
There werent any major conflicts that came about as a result of
our work, although slight disagreements here and there were not
uncommon. In general, I would say that this group was one of the best
I have worked with during my time here at Miami in terms of being on
the same page and working together to tackle a large chunk of
information. More often than not the work falls onto the shoulders of
one person but that was definitely not the case this time around.
I think that each and every one of our group members had
considerable contributions to the overall project, although I think my
single largest contribution that I tackled by myself was the concept
map. Although this only takes up one page of the report, it was
extremely time consuming and relatively difficult to format in order to
get all of the information in place.
As a group, we worked together to format and formulate all of
the material that is present above with Quentin taking the brunt of the
force on the narrative, Allyson tackling the assessment, and Erin doing
just trying to fit a lot of brilliant concepts into a single project. It was
difficult to pick any one topic that completely explored each persons
vision for what a school could be and how to get there. But like I
mentioned earlier, we all wanted the group to work more than we
wanted to get our ideas to dominate the project, so we had a really
good time synthesizing several of our ideas into one big project.
Most of the work I did with this project was in brainstorming and
putting together heavily conceptual work. Whereas Allyson, Cody, and
Erin were all really good at the practical elements of the project, I tend
to be more of a generalist and struggle getting my feet on the ground.
That means just that I worked really heavily in the rationale and
outlining the meaning of the project, while the rest of the group helped
to ground it in a little more measurable steps that could work
practically in a school setting and how to present the project in an
understandable way.
Erin Worrell:
The conflict that the group experienced was trying to focus the
project. The group knew that the project should focus on community
engagement but because it was such a broad theme it was difficult to
create specific guidelines for the curriculum. Later, we were eventually
able to come to a conclusion and fixed this minor issue. We had a few
ideas about implementing community engagement into the curriculum
and everything worked out in our favor. We did not experience many
conflicts besides the one mentioned above. We knew what the focus of
the project should be and how it should be implemented. Therefore,
everyone was on the same page because the focus of the project
incorporated all of the content areas of the group members.
I believe that everyone contributed equally to the project
whether it was keeping each other on task, brainstorming ideas, and
writing notes about our discussions. However, my significant
contribution to the project was typing the description of the curriculum,
but everyone contributed to what the description should entail. Others
contributed to typing the rationale, concept map, assessment, and
creating a narrative for the core ideas of the curriculum. Every single
group member contributed the specifics of the project, but different
group members typed different sections on the googledoc. For
example, Quentin typed the rationale and the narrative for the core
ideas of the curriculum. Allyson created the guidelines for the
assessment. Also she and Cody edited the entire document. In
addition, Cody created the concept map. Before he created the map,
the group brainstormed ideas about what the concept map should be.
Then, after we all came to an agreement then he created the concept
map.
In conclusion, everyone worked well with one another and each
group member had something valuable to contribute to the curriculum
project.