Teacher in Development

Keyword: Balance.

Key thought: Learning should be fun, but in an engaged - flow state - sort of way.

I picked up this post over at Godfrey Parkin’s site.

Parkin’s Lot: Who says learning should be fun?

“The distinction between engagement and interactivity is crucial, and it’s one that many instructional designers – and those who commission the development work – do not appear to understand. Engagement is intense mental absorption; interactivity is often just busyness or sugar-coating. It is vitally important that learners be engaged. Interactivity, entertainment, and fun can contribute to cognitive engagement. They can equally well distract from it.” Godfrey Parkin

Reflection: How is my classroom? Am I working to create ENGAGED learning experiences? Or am I just handing out sugar coated interaction?

I think true engagement (The kind Parkin is referring to) means slipping into a flow state. It’s where real fun and real learning takes place.

The Power of Personal.
I’ve been wondering how to push relevant content to my legal English group. I’m not satisfied with our school’s present offerings anymore. They are…irrelevant to what my students do and need.

So where should a guy go for content around law? Thanks to a post over at the gapingvoid I followed a really weird breadcrumb trail and fell into Business Week’s Blogspotting section. I ran into this post:Where are the good law blogs out there?

Amazing. Exciting.

Welcome to the headshift: English teachers - Any teacher for that matter - should no longer be married to their course books. We should be constantly asking ourselves: is this relevant? Is it speaking to my students where they are, and what they are doing? We should be brave when and if we realize that our content is no longer engaging our students, and change it.

Work toward standards and competencies, but don’t get tied down to something that doesn’t matter anymore!