My Showcase | rosenbaumm

My Educational Design Showcase

Throughout my course work within the MAET program, I have been armed with numerous resources and tools to become a better, more developed teacher in today’s constantly changing world. All of the course work I have completed up until this point has provided invaluable experience and has helped me to expand my comfort zone and skill set. It has provided me with ideas and experiences with which I can further create a more innovative, successful learning environment for my students.

Truthfully though, with all of this professional development and experience, I was still unsure if I had truly changed or improved as a teacher. Sure, I had all of the resources, and had gained some valuable experience, but what has all of this course work really done to affect me as a teacher day-to-day? Then, the missing piece to the puzzle, the glue that has helped to bring all of my other course work together, was identified. How to be a good and efficient designer. The ability to design lessons and implement all of the other amazing ideas and experiences I have acquired through my degree work tied everything together. I cannot see a more fitting platform for my showcase of work then to focus on the design process and aspects of education design.

Please be sure to click on all of the links within each component of my showcase.

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Technologies Role in Design All teachers know that there are many challenges to finding new and creative ways to engage students in their education and learning experience. As a science teacher, there are unique challenges with how to create these innovative experiences for students. Both in chemistry and in biology, so much of what is explored and discovered cannot be seen with the naked eye. An important aspect to a good design is to use available technology that improves the design.	Physical Design In one of my first courses within my MAET degree, I used the design software SketchUp to redesign my classroom. In addition to getting experience with new, innovative technology, this assignment helped to begin refocusing me on the importance of design within education, starting with the physical space, and design of my classroom.	The Organization of Design After thinking about the different challenges I face within the classroom, one well-structured problem that occurs within my 11th grade chemistry curriculum, is chemical compound nomenclature. To aid in finding a solution to this problem, I turned to the enormous technological reservoir of resources available to teachers online. Sure enough Popplet seemed to do the trick. This will help the students to organize all of the naming systems, exceptions, examples and can act as a “go to” resource.
Embracing Features of Design As designers and as educators it is important that we address one large educational shift toward preparing students for the world ahead: embracing failure as a learning mode within the classroom. Failure is a part of life, and more importantly a part of the learning and design process. Take a look at the work a group and I did on using failure as a learning model.	Understanding your Users An important part of the design process is to empathize with the users (students in my case). Getting students in the routine of making their thinking known and being able to analyze their thoughts helps to develop more advanced critical thinking and reasoning skills. During CEP800 module I interviewed two chemistry students. Click to hear an interview with students where they are asked to rank the size of a cell, atom, electron, organ and compound.	Essentials of Design For an CEP 812 assignment we were asked to examine how we bring passion and curiosity to our designs and how we use technology to instill these same ideals in our students. With the vast flow of technology and information in today’s classrooms, students and teachers are challenged to shift how they think about education. Today, being educated extends much further than simply knowing factual information, students must focus on innovation and creativity within their designs and learning.
Designing A Solution As teachers there are often problems, conflicts or issues we encounter in our daily routines that we resolve through various, often quick means. As a part of my CEP 817 course work I identified a Problem of Practice that I then proactively analyzed and resolved through the use of the Stanford Design Thinking model. Attached is a complete report of this educational design process.	Repurposing within a Design Utilizing resources and examining designs with the goal of repurposing is an essential part of the design process.	The Individuality of Designers Acknowledging and embracing individuality is instrumental to my personal growth as a student, as an educator, and as an individual. What would this look like in my classroom? The remix I made presents the features of individualized learning within a classroom. Having educational strategies that can reach your students on an individual level is essential to creating innovative designers and to the paradigm shift that is needed in classrooms today.