I want to start off by saying that I really appreciated this class and all of the things that I got out of it. I went into this class not really knowing what to expect. What I got was a class that really challenged me on my ideas of what it meant to be a creator. Specifically, I want to take this time to discuss a few of the topics that I found interesting, and that had a profound impact on me as a student.
The first topic that had an impact on me was the discussions about including citations and making sure that we are creating while giving proper credit to the people who created those pieces of media. I personally, did not realize how much effort goes into creating and maintaining copyright and making sure that my own work was protected. I had never thought about the need to protect my own work because I never thought that I would write anything worth copying. Even if nobody is going to be copying my work, I still want to have those protections for myself and any of the creations that I make.
The next topic that I really enjoyed discussing was the idea of failure. I have obviously experienced failure in my life, but I really enjoyed reframing failure simply as one iteration of a creation. I looked back at my slack response and I discussed my failure when it came to using Flipgrid. I still do not like hearing my own voice on a recording! The difference now though is that I can look at it with a more positive outlook. This also forced me to be ok with the fact that nothing will ever be perfect. The sooner a creator is able to accept that not everything is going to come out perfectly the first time, the better off they will be. The process isn't easy, but it is very rewarding at the end when you finally see the finished product. I experienced this a few times when I would see feedback from Dr. Gallagher if I was told that I didn't need to do any revisions. This is because I made sure to in most cases review beforehand.
The last topic that I wanted to discuss was the ideas of constructionism. As I said in my Slack post, I do find this topic to be fascinating. As a teacher I am always trying to understand how my students learn and what that process looks like. I have caught myself really connecting with constructionism and the fact that we are the ones who build our schema based on our prior experiences. I find that very endearing and I find myself using it more and more in my classroom now to describe to students their processes. I also find that this is an easy topic to explain to students as well, which helps. I usually use the example of a kid learning to not touch a hot stove. This mystery of understanding how people learn is not one that I am likely to solve, but I can't wait to continue learning more and trying to adjust my practice. This will hopefully let me be more effective for my students.
My creation that I constructed for this final unit took together three topics we have discussed and turned it into a reflective learning activity I could use for my students. In my creation, I had my students using Flipgrid, thinking about their study space. I asked them to first describe their study space. I had my students do this because I think that while students often do not get much of a say in constructing their learning space at school, they can construct their space at home. Next, I asked students to reflect on things that they have tried in their study space before that haven't worked. This is to get students thinking about failure and what does, or doesn't work for them. Lastly, I asked the students how the previous iterations of their study space helped them construct their current one. I focused on implementing ideas about failure, constructionism, and learning spaces here in this creation. I am quite proud of it and plan on using it with my students soon.
Below is a link to a video that I made as an example response video for my students.
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