Please download my teaching portfolio for a comprehensive collection of my Kindergarten - Graduate level teaching experience and licensure, and professional development workshops related to Studio Thinking.
I co-designed and co-taught the new course Psychological Perspectives on Schooling with a fellow doctoral student, Mahsa Ershadi. The course was a 9 member seminar class of mostly undergraduate education and psychology students at Boston College.
It consisted of three parts:
1) themes in the history of American public education (segregation, feminization of teachers, the role of religion);
2) psychological perspectives on alternative approaches to schooling (a psychological construct was paired with an approach to education and used as a lens for analyzing the approach);
3) the design of a psychologically-informed school (including the role of students, the role of teachers, the nature of learning, the physical space, the climate, and a school mission statement).
Below, I describe three unique components of the course.
It consisted of three parts:
1) themes in the history of American public education (segregation, feminization of teachers, the role of religion);
2) psychological perspectives on alternative approaches to schooling (a psychological construct was paired with an approach to education and used as a lens for analyzing the approach);
3) the design of a psychologically-informed school (including the role of students, the role of teachers, the nature of learning, the physical space, the climate, and a school mission statement).
Below, I describe three unique components of the course.
1. All students designed one hour of class activities to help their classmates engage more deeply with a particular approach to education. This was heavily scaffolded to help students act as teachers to create meaningful, active learning experiences. Before teaching, students used a three-step Planning Guide to help prepare and met with me or Mahsa to talk through the appropriateness of their lesson plan.
Learning from one's peers, and working together to create common understandings of areas of confusion, is fundamental to social constructivism. I enjoy helping students bolster their teaching and presenting skills, as these are life-long abilities nearly everyone needs in their lives. Additionally, research suggests that students retain more when they know they need to teach the content.
Learning from one's peers, and working together to create common understandings of areas of confusion, is fundamental to social constructivism. I enjoy helping students bolster their teaching and presenting skills, as these are life-long abilities nearly everyone needs in their lives. Additionally, research suggests that students retain more when they know they need to teach the content.
2. Only so much can be learned within the confines of the four walls of a classroom, but modern technology can bring the corners of the world on to campus. Each week during the second section of the course, we video conferenced with experts in the the approach we were covering -- headmasters from Waldorf schools, Montessori teachers, alum from Free/Sudbury-inspired schools. Students used these opportunities to clarify points of confusion, to ask burning questions, and to get a first-hand perspective of how the approaches we covered look in real-life.
3. To conclude the course, students worked in small groups to design psychologically-informed schools from the bottom-up. This scaffolded project led each student to specialize in one of four areas: the nature of learning, the nature of teaching, assessment, and school climate. Students then had the opportunity to present their schools for feedback to leaders in the field - local teachers, educational consultants, and professors of education and psychology. This was another chance for students to connect what they've learned to the world outside of Boston College, and create personal meaning. Their schools reflected both their personal values and their beliefs about learning which had been influenced by course content.
Here you can find a syllabus for a course I designed, Psychology of Thinking, slated to run in the Woods School summer program at Boston College during Summer 2017, but cancelled due to low enrollment.