COVA

I used to tell my students that learning was “a messy process, so get use to the clutter.” The problem with this statement is that traditional classrooms and schools in general, leave little room for mess or clutter when it comes to learning. Our students are taught based off of the standard set for their grade level and within a particular content. Seems difficult to tell students to trust the process, and be okay with it being messy, when the system TELLS them that they need to show that they’ve learned “x amount” of content in a specific manner by a specific time frame. This brought me to some of the points discussed in the Ted Talk presentation with Giovanni Corazza, as he unpacks the importance of encouraging out of the box thinking. The skeptic in me, finds this challenging in a school environment where so much is regulated by outside stakeholders, however the optimist in me, sees where disruption can make waves in a big way.

Where I find myself feeling the most challenged is in the ability to express my own personal voice in my creations. Like the students, I’ve spend years as a learner in environments that are heavily structured with little autonomy given to how and what is produced. As a result, I feel that I’ve become great at “following instructions,” and “producing what’s expected.” This does me little good in a program like this one, where so much of what and how we produce things is up to us. Likewise, I find that as I iron out details for my innovation proposal this seems to be a hot topic. How much autonomy should we give the students? Should there be a standard template, that includes suggestions on wording and layout? As I brainstorm ideas, and best ways to roll things out, I’ve tried to start with the end in mind, wanting students to have a collection of artifacts that showcase their progress over the year. Hopefully this helps the process.

As for myself, as I search for my voice and work towards creating authentic material through these assignments, I look forward to getting comfortable with having more autonomy over my learning.