Overarching Instructional Strategies
Many of the following instructional strategies are rooted in my own philosophy of teaching. The work of Paulo Freire, Bill Ayers, Stephen Biko, bell hooks, Ted Sizer and Lisa Delpit have all informed the strategies that I pursue. The classroom is, ideally, a space where hierarchy is minimized; power dynamics are actively challenged and ultimately exists as a proactively reflective environment. Diversity is a buzzword that is thrown around by many educators, but for diversity to mean anything, it must be fostered in an environment that demands critical reflection and egagement. I want my students to ask themselves if they are learning optimally, and to demand that I do things better and differently. If I am doing my job right, they will be constantly challenging their internal ideas, the ideas of their peers, the ideas that I present them, and the ways that I am presenting them.
Before any of the aforementioned things can begin, the students must feel safe in their environment. To accomplish this, students will do significant amounts of group work at the beginning of the school year in order to invest themselves in the structure of the class. They will be empowered to create shared rules and guidelines, including punishments through a classroom constitution writing process. However, there will be many non-negotiables especially in terms of oppressive language and behaviors. All of these implied concepts: democracy, oppression and liberation, will be reinforced through the specific content that will be covered later. I will challenge them on their own prejudices directly, not to humiliate them, but to create an awareness within them that will make them think about how their actions impact others. Without this awareness, they will not be able to access the curriculum easily. The curriculum is optimally accessed only after the students have looked inside themselves and begun to address their own prejudices, preconceptions and actions towards themselves, their classmates and broader communities.
I believe that students learn best by having educational experiences. This can be done in a variety of ways, but memory is strongest when it is associated with specific acts of doing that are varied yet consistent. Though there is no strong empirical data that supports Howard Gardner's theories on multiple intelligences, I am a strong anecdotal believer in them. Given this, I will try my hardest to incorporate elements of movement, writing, speaking, and cooperation as much as possible. Below is a list of strategies that will be embedded throughout the unit. Each will have its specific rationale subsequently justified.
Direct Instruction/Discussion: though often frowned upon, lectures and PowerPoint presentations allow rather large amounts of material to be covered rather quickly. Note taking for my students is not a static process of copying. All lectures/presentations that I deliver require them to interact with the material that they are recording, by doing a reaction and connection segment in their notebooks. They will occasionally be asked to react to specific pieces of information in their notes or draw connections to their own lives or other current events. The notes will be collected and graded. This allows them to have greater ownership over the material and makes me accountable for checking their notes for more than just their abilities to copy information.
Graphic Organizers: Students will be given a wide variety of graphic organizers to help scaffold their learning. I have learned that a fatal assumption to make about students is to assume that they know how to easily access information. My work with Special Education students has forced me to break the information I am presenting them into more discrete units. Students who have auditory processing delays require a great deal of assistance in accessing lectures or even documentary film. In order to address this particular disability I design graphic organizers that require pair work, group response or space to revisit material that may be absorbed with greater difficulty. Also, having opportunities for students to move around the room and use graphic organizers to access content that is placed at a variety of locations throughout the room gives students who have problems staying in their seats a guide to access material without feeling confined.
Group work: For students to truly have a meaningful and libratory classroom experience they must work with their peers, regardless of ability. I will try to incorporate as much peer interaction into the specific lessons for this unit as possible, ideally in every lesson. Education, as it is currently structured, is a very isolating experience. Students are not encouraged to show weakness, or admit not knowing. They are not rewarded for having empathy with their peers. I want all group work to foster a sense of empathy in my students. I want them to feel responsible for their and their peers' understanding. Structuring group work so that there is a rotation of responsibilities, all of equal weight and importance is the best way to achieve peer-to-peer empathy. A simple example of this playing out is having the students receive a teamwork grade and an individual grade. If a student is the timekeeper, s/he will be evaluated on how well, he or she does his or her particular job, but also how well he or she answers particular individual response questions. There will be group response questions that the group must reach a consensus about that would be recorded by a group scribe. This prevents some members of the group from cruising, and having rotating responsibilities makes sure that every member of the group, throughout the course, knows what it was like when their peer had that position prior to them.
Rubrics: I believe that giving students a heads up on how they are going to be evaluated before they are evaluated is essential to creating a classroom based on trust and fairness. Before the students do any major assignment I will give them rubrics so that they can best meet my expectations for them. I have found that students perform most optimally when they know what they must do to do well. Having clear expectations for major and minor assignments is essential for growth.
Art inclusion: Allowing students to express themselves artistically in relation to specific content is something that I think is seriously undervalued today. If a student can create an image, or expression through sound, that conveys the impact of material on each of them as individuals, that expression should be valued as much as written or oral expression. Offering opportunities for students to react to material artistically, with few, if any boundaries, allows students who do not excel in the traditionally valued realms of expression (oral and written) to have their work and contributions valued.
Oral Presentations/Performance: I believe having the students stand in front of their peers and deliver a poem, dramatic reading or their own oral position brings out the best and worst in them. However, if properly scaffolded and supported, oral presentations have the potential to unlock things in students that they never knew they had within themselves. This element is often times the most difficult to foster and develop, especially given the general fear that many people have of speaking in public, so it will be done relatively frequently so that the students can get increasingly comfortable with speaking in front of others. An oral component will be essential to any culminating project that comes of this unit.
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