The theme of this
year’s Promising Practices workshop was “STEM Education in Urban Environments.”
There were various workshops offered throughout the course of the day. Based on
interest, I chose to attend session IB, “Idea to Implementation: Challenges and
Opportunities of Building an Outdoor Classroom to Broaden Participation” and
session IIE, “Comedy in the Classroom.”
Workshop IB
provided information about how to establish an outdoor classroom and use it
properly for educational purposes. There is actually an outdoor classroom on
campus called the “Bee Education Center,” which was established earlier this
year. The Apeiron Insitute and DownCity Design worked in collaboration with the
college to design and build this outdoor classroom. The structure of the
classroom resembles a honeycomb. Its walls have stools built into them, and the
surface of each stool has a fact about honeybees. Overall, it provides an
informal atmosphere in which students can explore and learn.
Although we spoke
extensively about the outdoor classroom established on our campus, we also
spoke about other topics including culturally relevant pedagogy/teaching,
culturally responsive curriculums, and elements of effective STEM instruction.
We began by speaking about the three parts of culturally relevant pedagogy,
which involves academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical
consciousness. We then spoke about the idea of a culturally responsive
curriculum and the five different actions involved. These include defining
learning goals, questioning traditional concepts, understanding student
diversity, selecting materials and activities, and evaluating effectiveness.
The final topic of discussion was the elements of effective STEM instruction.
These elements include motivation, student thinking, engagement, STEM
discourse, making meaning, and drawing conclusions. I took the time to explain
these topics because they are what make the outdoor classroom culturally
relevant.
Besides being
culturally relevant, the outdoor classroom provides students with hands-on
activities. Not only does it provide a good science lesson, it could be used as
a geometry lesson in which students take measurements of the honeycomb walls. It
could even be used as an English lesson in which students write about a their
experience. I think it is a great idea, but I feel it is targeted for
elementary school children.
The second
workshop I attended was about implementing comedy in the classroom. The
students from TALL academy were very enthusiastic about the topic, and made it
a lot of fun. Comedy in the classroom definitely creates a more comfortable
environment, but this workshop was targeted for teachers of younger students.
After the
workshops, we listened to a speech by the keynote speaker, Dr. Christopher
Emdin. He spoke about the evolution and problems of our education system. He
spoke about it saying, “we are following models of teaching and learning
without knowing where they even came from.” How true is that? Think about it…
where did these practices come from? And why do we continue to implement them?
Granted, we have learned a lot about work done by Horace Mann, John Dewey, Ivan
Illich (etc.), but we are not educated on every educational model. I agreed
with him on this statement. I also agreed with the fact that students learn
better when they take the information they are learning and create something
with it. He gave a great example when he spoke about the student who made a rap
about Newton’s laws of motion.
Although I agree
with some of his points, I really did not like some of his comments. It made me
very angry when he said that individuals of African American descent have to
overcome obstacles and face resiliency. He almost made it seem as if Caucasians
never have to face hardships and become resilient. He acted as a one-way
street, often looking at the world from the perspective of African Americans.
He never switched perspectives. I just don’t believe you can make a speech and
persuade people to believe in what you say if you look at the human population
as segregated, rather than as a whole.
Overall, I had a
positive experience at the Promising Practices conference. I look forward to
attending next year.
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