Activity 6. 2

While I watched and was interested by the Marshmellow video, I was very interested in Dan Meyer's  video on teaching mathematics. I now know that I can blame all my mathematical deficiencies on the text book. It makes me feel better.

On a different note, I was pleased that one of Meyers "to-do's" in his classroom (#1 in fact) was multi-media teaching. I am a huge proponent of multimedia teaching and have planned many of my future units around the concept of integrating several different mediums of information into my class curriculum. I would consider multimedia teaching as the modern day exemplification of how James hopes teachers will stimulate interest in their students.

James writes in his compilation Talks to Teachers on Psychology that "one teacher's mind will fairly coruscate with points of connection between the new lesson and the circumstances of the children's other experience. Anecdotes and reminiscences will abound in her talk; and the shuttle of interest will shoot backward and forward, weaving the new with the old together in a lively and entertaining way, " (67). 

With the interest and experience of students existing more than ever in the technological realm, it seems dangerously erroneous to continue teaching in the same format as decades past. Teachers can embrace the interests of their students, and then direct their attention to the necessary curriculum based on those interests. 

As for multimedia teaching, I often choose books for my units that have film or musical counterparts. You could even analyze book covers and movie posters. Everything is fair game. This engages the students, allowing them to interact with different versions of the same story. For example, if I were to teach a unit on utopias and dystopias, I could assign The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. (There has been a big push for the use of popular literature in classrooms to stimulate interest among students. Very Jamesian of them. ) Since The Hunger Games has a movie adaptation, that allows for many more avenues of discussion and interpretation, even among formally timid readers. I would ask questions like: 

(for character analysis)
Are the characters in the books portrayed the same way in the movie? What's different? How can you tell?

(for discussions on intended audiences and tone)
Why do you think the film makers chose to make those differences? How do those differences change the tone? Do you think the film makers had the same intent as Suzanne Collins when writing the book? What can you tell about the film maker's intent by evaluating the casting choices?

And so on...

I could go further about my classroom decisions (I have A LOT of ideas on how to use art work, music, non fiction elements) but I won't write them all down.