My Teacher's Lens

"The preschool child enters an imaginary, illusory world in which the unrealizable desires can be realized, and this world is what we call play" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 93) Vygotsky sees play as a transitional stage in imagination development of higher mental functions. He viewed play as the leading source of development in preschool. "Play provides a transitional stage in this direction whenever an object (for example, a stick) becomes a pivot for severing the meaning of horse from a real horse" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 97) Play creates an experience by which children learn meaning, symbols, and roles. When children are at play they use their imagination, they assign meanings to objects, and they make up rules and try abide by them. According to the book, purpose, as the ultimate goal, determines the child's affective attitude to play.  There are a lot of available interactive activities we can use to teach concepts. However, this also poses new problems. In a socie...

"People generally learn words in the context of ordinary communication. This process is startlingly fast and successful." (Brown, 1989, p.32) Situated Cognition is an educational theory which emphasizes that people's learning is linked to the activity, context and and culture in which it was learned. When students learn vocabulary in the real-life context and in a meaningful way, the learning process is more effective. With this knowledge, teachers has then the ability to create an experience by which students can fully grasp the meaning of a concept. In my Physics class we have a unit where students had to learn measurements and conversion of units. So, to allow them to experience what each measurement is like in real life, we did an experiment on estimation. They used standard measurements as reference and made estimates of length, weight and temperature. We had different fruits and objects around the room. We even have different water sample of different temperatu...

"In Education, shouldn't we do something definite, have something clearly in mind, have a particular goal which will modify the behavior of our people so that they can arrange some system of hunting and fishing that will keep them better from starvation?"... "We can teach them how to think not what to think". (Benjamin, 2004) What resonated with me in "The Ends Principle" and Saber-tooth curriculum is that along with the constant change in the way of life, is the evolution of the mind. The creativity by which people have used their education in order to live has long been beyond survival. Evolution of the mind was, I think, the underlying theme in Saber-tooth curriculum. People were constantly brainstorming, negotiating, and thinking alternative ways to survive and solve problems. Those who were successful are the ones who were able to think outside the box and find new solutions. Human relations also were portrayed timelessly in that we see fast le...

Viewing teaching as a design means having a paradigm shift. Instead of looking at teachers as implementors of curriculum, we have to see ourselves as innovators of the learning process. This article defines design thinking as a strategic approach to analyzing and finding solutions to messy real-world problems. Designing involves different phases and stages which involves variable processes. The stages include empathizing, defining the problem, brainstorming, prototyping and testing. It is so much like the scientific method. The only difference is that instead of simple isolated science problems, we as teachers have to design a solution to real life situations and problems. I believe for a teacher to become a good designer one has to learn how to become a visionary, has to have enough courage to do something different, realistic and practical enough to come up with a relevant effective design. And humble enough to start over if the the design needs to be revamped.