I am planning to create a course for the first semester of what I teach. I teach precalculus and Trigonometry is the first semester. In some high schools and colleges, it is treated like a separate course. My learners would be typical high school students taking a math elective course in high school.
I currently teach using a mostly cognitive model where I am the sage on the stage. I would prefer to switch my teaching to a discovery learning model, a type of constructivist learning developed by Jerome Bruner (Discovery Learning (Bruner), 2020), which is based on the constructivist model of teaching. This learning model encourages experimentation and collaboration between students. This model closely resembles how we learn in life outside of school. We investigate, we play, and we ask questions to deepen our learning. As we move through this process, we connect our discoveries to what we already know which makes our learning meaningful.
I have primarily been a brick-and-mortar classroom-based teacher. Over the past 4 years, I’ve built an online presence for my students, adding a new dimension each year. Last year, to deal with Covid, my district went to a hybrid learning environment where students could be on campus, or work from home depending on what they felt like each day. Teachers were required to be on campus. I was lucky in that I had most of my class materials available online already and was able to supplement for students who stayed at home the whole year. Students at home could log in to the live zoom lecture during their class period each day or engage asynchronously by watching the recorded lesson later. The hybrid environment was a struggle because I felt split between online and in-person learners. The asynchronous part went well, however. I would regularly put out additional resources for students who had questions. One thing that likely could have helped students was the discussion post I put out each day to facilitate conversation between students. It was underutilized to say the least. I need to find a way to jump start students using the discussion (possibly by grading them as is done for our courses) so it become beneficial to them.
I’m fairly comfortable with technology and the content I teach, but teaching shouldn’t be about my comfort level with my content – it should be about guiding students to learn the content. I think the constructivist theory of learning supports students learning in this way. I liked Sugata Mitra’s comparison to teaching like the “grannies” (Mitra, 2013). Students should be given the opportunity to play with concepts and ideas to figure them out, then they can teach them to one another and to me. As I observe their conversations, I can encourage them like a granny, but because I know the content, I can guide them to the right path to help them learn.
I think using UBD will be helpful in preparing my course because I can start with the goals I have for students and work backwards from there to build a course that will help them achieve those goals. I do this no on a unit-by-unit basis. For developing the course I’m building for this program though, I need to develop the big goal for the students for the end of the course to help guide the creation of the rest of the course.
Build a School in the Cloud. (2013). TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud?language=en#t-32949.
Discovery Learning (Bruner). Learning Theories. (2020, March 5). https://www.learning-theories.com/discovery-learning-bruner.html.
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