Effective implementation of lessons requires the educator to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving. The educator should engage learners in challenging and questioning assumptions to foster problem solving in authentic local and global contexts. The educator also needs to engage learners in the development of creative and novel approaches that lead to original work.
I demonstrate this standard through the Observation Walk and Gallery Walk class activities, which directly link Transcendentalist ideas to the students’ everyday environment. To start our Transcendentalism unit, students began class walking around the school searching for instances of conformity and nonconformity (nonconformity is a more readily accessible Transcendentalist theme). Students noted their observations and used them for inspiration to draw large representations of a conforming person and a nonconforming person. Then, students took a gallery walk around the classroom observing each’s groups depictions of conformity and nonconformity and writing on the posters the key details from the depictions. Many of the depictions included major brands of clothing that are popular in the school.
I also demonstrate this standard through the Post-Consumer Waste Poster Assignment. One of the major themes of the Transcendentalism Unit is humanity’s inherent connection to nature. I took this theme deeper and spent a day working with the students exploring environmentalism and the problem of post-consumer waste. Students researched the issue of post-consumer waste in the United States, and then researched/brainstormed possible solutions they could implement in their own lives. After their research, they created a problem-solution poster that related this environmental topic to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophies.
I further implement this professional standard into my teaching by tasking students with creating a literary postcard. Our Transcendentalism unit ended with Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, and throughout the book Krakauer uses extensive sensory details to make the reader feel like they are really living the story. Students had to select a passage that contains an especially large amount of sensory detail and then create a literary postcard. On the blank side of the card, students had to draw the scene they selected, focusing on depicting the sensory details. On the other side, students had to write a postcard note either from themselves to a character in the book, from a character to them, or from one character to another. With this assignment, students had both linguistic and visual/spatial opportunities to work with the written sensory details in Krakauer’s story. This allowed me to assess their work in multiple ways.
For more information about my perspective on this professional standard, please see my reflections on the application of content.