1. Promote, support, model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
-As a future educator, promoting, supporting, and modeling creativity in the classroom is one of my main priorities and I hope to demonstrate that as best as I can in my classroom. In this course, I was able to practice this skill by allowing my students (peers) to have a bit of creative freedom within the lessons. On lesson in particular that I felt really harnessed students' creativity was the creation of a short film when teaching The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The instructions given were intentionally rather vague for the sole purpose of wanting to see what my students would come up with on their own with this bit of freedom they had in class.
2. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.
-Luckily, we live in an age where news can be found with one Google search so there's always going to be a resource at hand when it comes to identifying real-world issues. That being said, in my classroom, I would certainly want my students to utilize these sorts of tools in order to keep up with real-world issues and solving authentic problems. I would implement some type of assignment, whether it be required or simply for extra credit, giving my students the opportunity to explore the issues going in the world and presenting them to the class as though they were reporting the issue themselves. Of course, there would definitely have to be a clarification between news (gossip, pop culture, etc) to actual real-world issues (politics, societal views and changes, etc) in order to make the lesson meaningful and to have students truly understand the issues and problems while having the content easily accessible to them as well.
3. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding, thinking, planning and creative processes.
-Student reflection is incredibly important and I think that it's interesting to see the progress that a student is making during a lesson or throughout the class in general. That being said, I would enjoy using a blogging platform like we did in this class in order to clarify what students are thinking and why they are wanting to do things a certain way. A blog is the perfect place to discuss these sorts of things; I feel as though a lot of people to find blogs to be an online journal, a relatively safe place to reflect on things so I would want that sort of mindset to carry over to the classroom as well. Promoting student reflection could be a regular thing and to be really honest, it's a lot more fun than writing reflections!
4. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others face-to-face and virtual environments.
-Creating a comfortable classroom environment is a bit difficult, especially considering that all students are different and do not do well with others watching. There's a sense of judgement among students that lingers, I feel - at least that's how it's been in nearly every classroom that I've been in, especially in high school. However, a classroom definitely shouldn't be hostile or a place where students could feel judged, so perhaps a virtual environment would be a bit of a better alternative. Virtually speaking, it's relatively easy to stay in contact and connect to collaborate with others via social media or even education boards such as BbLearn. That being said, utilizing some sort of online presence may not necessarily be a bad idea for teachers to have, especially because they are not always with their students and students are not always with their teachers. Having a virtual environment of sorts may eliminate any roadblocks, seeing as it would be easier to communicate and touch base with others as needed.
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