My Best Structured Learning Experience

My Best Structured Learning Experience

My best structured learning experience is probably very different than my favourite structured learning experience.  But every one of my teaching experiences that I have truly enjoyed have one thing in common.  They brought students together to show what they have learned in a positive and uplifting manner.  That doesn’t always happen.  Sometimes you just need to teach a student about space whether they want to or not.  But when you get to be creative, and students get to be creative the experience is unforgettable.  Here are two of my favourite teaching units ever.

The Real Game – way back in 2001 I was loaned a resource from another teacher called the Real Game.  It was a huge unit based on financial literacy.  Students got to chose random jobs.  They learned about taxes, budgeting, and a host of other skills.  This unit was a huge undertaking and I later learned that the teacher who loaned me the resource had the school buy it but then she decided it would be too difficult to try to implement.

It was my second year teaching and I had an interesting combination of students, but I jumped in because it looked interesting. The “High Five” were overall lessons from the unit.

1. Change is Constant
2. Learning is Lifelong
3. Focus on the Journey
4. Access Your Allies
5. Follow Your Heart.

Right from the start I loved this unit.  Kids were excited and engaged. If we missed a day, they let me know it. They looked for places to live through local realty offices, planned vacations based on their savings and had curveballs like layoffs, and unplanned events happen to their character.  I used this unit, and adapted the unit for years after.  Parents got involved, kids worked hard it was always great! 

The unit was very lesson based.  You had to complete one in order to understand the next.  You had to have specific skills to continue, and there was a ton of learning that went on with the unit but it was worth it to see the kids excited about the learning.  Oh we have to learn to find the percentage of a number, well we need it for the Real Game and they were good.

I think the reason it was memorable was the student engagement, and not just for me.  I am teaching the child of one of those students this year and one of the first things he asked me was if we were going to play the job game.  It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, but he made it obvious that his dad remembered the learning that happened that year.

Olympics Unit

A decade ago, a colleague and I decided to work on a Winter Olympics unit. Students were randomly put into country groups.  They did research on their country including making their flags and learning some of the basic language so that they could cheer on their teammates. They did research into different events and the history of those events.  An Olympic Committee put together an opening ceremony where the countries got to walk in to our gym to their national anthem and holding their flag. They all competed in several events from Wii snowboarding, slalom and ski jumping.  Then the luge (sledding), biathlon (running and throwing balls through hoops), and a group ice dance performance they had to choose music for and choreograph and curling in the gym.  It was amazing.  We held medal ceremonies with cookies as medals, checked out the medal standings daily and basically had a lot of fun.  The students loved it and seemed to barely notice the learning they had to do to get there.  How to use a spreadsheet to keep track of standings, research, use of technology, sportsmanship, teamwork, perseverance and planning.  At the closing ceremony there were lots of cheers for the athletes, and a lot of excitement.

Once again the amount of teacher preparation in the unit was incredible and having a supportive and valuable teacher partner made it all possible for me.  What made this unit memorable was the fact that students were so into the idea that the learning was easy.  No forcing anyone to figure out the top 6 medal countries in the winter Olympics, they were all into that debate.  For the record it was decided that it would be incredibly fair to have a Canadian team. 

Overall with any, and every learning experience I have good memories of focused on engaging the students so much they almost couldn’t help but learn.  Most of these ideas are a part of the learning theories I described in a previous post.

They include:

1. Start with a hook – begin with a captivating hook or idea
2. Use whatever multimedia and visual aids you can
3. Provide hands-on activities
4. Offer choice and autonomy
5. Promote active learning
6. Make it relevant and relatable
7. Provide feedback and recognition
8. Incorporate storytelling

And none of these would be possible without the consistency of teaching and creating an environment where students feel safe to push themselves, to risk a little and sometimes be a little silly (imagine a group of 6 kids, in socks, ice dancing in a gym.  I wish I had videos!)

Incorporating technology makes a lot of these ideas easier now and I appreciate that and can’t wait to see what comes next.