CEP 818: What's the Big Idea? Week 1

Chapters 1, 2 and 16: “Sparks of Genius”

I found the introductory chapters of this book to be very interesting. I like the connections that are made between art and science – two seemingly very different fields where most people assume respective left and right brain functions are solely utilized. I’ve been known to tell my students, “Don’t approach this class from a mathematical standpoint… 1+1 may equal 2, but in this class I don’t want you to think so “black and white.” There are many ways to obtain a certain outcome and I want you to think outside the box to get there.” I feel that some of my students get this because they are used to being restricted in many of their classes, but I also feel that this leaves them confused because they haven’t been taught HOW to think outside the box.

Many of my students come up to me and ask, “Ms. Milczynski would it be okay if I tried it this way?…” and I can just sense their uncertainty and insecurity in their voices. I remember how I felt in school years ago when asking teachers similar questions and being told, “No, I’d like it done this way,” over and over again. While I understand that limits and requirements are important, I feel that in education we have to learn to loosen up a little bit to allow our students to feel comfortable thinking outside the box and to simply encourage those types of thought processes. For me, if a student suggests an alternative approach to the assignment – even if I’m not really sure if it will work 100% effectively or not – I’ll tell them to give it a go 9 out of 10 times just because I feel it’s important for them to learn to take risks and explore. In the end if it’s a success oftentimes I’m learning a great deal from them as well! One of my favorite quotes from author/educator Randy Pausch (http://www.thelastlecture.com/) is, “It's better to fail spectacularly then to pass along and do something which is mediocre.”

Another idea that really hit home in this book was the idea of students truly grasping content and being able to apply it to real life situations. Reading through this made me think of my own personal goals that I set to provide a real life application for my students whenever possible. In my Independent Living course (taught to Senior students only), I can talk all day to my students about the importance of time management, organization and goal setting. In the end though, unless they are given an opportunity to apply the knowledge I provide them with, it’s really useless. One assignment I tested last year was to have my students create an actual “mock” college course schedule. I called a local community college and had them give me a list of typical classes that incoming Freshman take. I went to the college and grabbed a class set of course scheduling books. I had my students create a mock schedule where they had to not only pick their classes but also map out times for sleep, recreation, food, etc. The next day, we reviewed these schedules as a class and I threw some curveballs at them. I canceled a few classes, told them that their boss changed their work schedule and required them to alter their classes to work around this, informed them that a certain professor was more shall we say “enlightening” then another and encouraged them to switch their Monday 11am class with the earlier 8am course because of the academic benefits, etc. This stirred up great conversations and many questions as well. The students were frustrated at times with the assignment but in the end, I could tell they really learned a lot. I’ve since had students come back and tell me how beneficial the assignment was for them when they attended orientation at their college and were faced with making a real college schedule for the first time. All of the tips on organization and time management came back to them and because they had practiced these skills before, they felt much better prepared. Some students even shared that they were helping their peers who where overwhelmed because they had never done this before.