Prompt: Share a story about your best learning experience (could be a formal course or something more personal). Why did you enjoy it?
In elementary school, I went to an alternative learning program once a week. Although our learning was still somewhat classroom-based, Vicky– an incredibly eccentric, slightly scatterbrained, most caring teacher– would create lessons somewhat on the spot based on what the 15-or-so of us were interested in that week/month. We once spent a Friday researching the history of the Illuminati while Vicky handed out supplies tailored to each kid in the class to have us share our learning based on our individual strengths (drawing utensils, dictionaries, whiteboards, abacuses, research-specific books, bins of scrap fabric and paper!!). Fridays were the most exciting time of the week for years.
Looking back on those experiences, I would say Vicky used a combination of cognitivist and constructivist perspectives when creating lessons. She is a pretty hands-on, ‘let’s take this apart to see how it works’ kind of individual, which is how she led our lessons. She took the time to understand how each student learned, through observation and conversation, and would then tailor our learning specifically to each of us. Oftentimes, rather than leading with a lesson, we would begin with experiments or hypotheses, inviting us to create our own understanding and meaning, usually followed by a group discussion.
My best example of this was our survival unit, which lasted a month and was by far the most fun. We had been divided into teams, and were given access to survival guides and a list of items we as a team were allowed to use. Vicky had drawn several ‘islands’ on paper and laid them across the classroom, putting each team on one. There was a series of tasks, scenarios, natural disasters, and challenges we had to go through, such as surviving a severe storm with nothing but a tarp and the wilderness surrounding you (each island had its own climate, vegetation, etc), regrouping after a bear stole the food cache the team was saving for winter, and the best competition: building a model of the boats that would sail the teams to freedom and victory… if it floated the longest. I am pretty sure my team lost and accepted our hypothetical lives on our island were doomed. For each decision we made, we had to explain to the rest of the class how and why we did it, mapping out the best course of action. Looking back on it, the general setup was kind of like DnD without the dice, but either way it was an awesome experience and I still use a ton of those survival skills when camping or spending time outdoors.
Vicky is now retired, but gifted me a bucket of cool rocks before she left, bless her.
