The How of Teaching

For the last three years, I've been lucky to (simply put) highlight what works in schools so other educators can benefit from the insights and hard work of their peers. This journey has afforded me the opportunity to visit schools and learn from principals, teachers, coaches and perhaps most importantly students about what works and why. Throughout this time, I became increasingly curious about the "how" of what works. In other words, it's one thing for a school or an individual to share why they think something works but learning or understanding how something happens, learning about the steps that lead up to a successful moment in the classroom is what I've been very curious about... How does it feel? How do you make this seem so easy? How do fourth graders have a mature and rich conversation about a text they read on Molly Pitcher? How did you get 7th grade students to so beautifully execute the Socratic method? and on and on...So, when my local Girl Scout volunteer coordinator called me up and asked me if I would be interested in teaching a 10 week course as part of their partnership with a local after school program, I responded with an enthusiastic, "Yes!" I surveyed the three curricula that had been developed by the Girl Scouts and settled on MEdia, which was about helping young women to understand how media impacts their lives and how they could use media to affect change in their own communities.At this point I feel confident about teaching this course because I use and make media all the time and in the last few years, I have helped to shape the way the DOE creates content to make it the most useful and accessible for adult learners.My next steps are to meet my partner, identify the end goal or major task / project that the girls will work on throughout our time together and write the unit outline and first lesson plan. I can't wait!