Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Further Outside My Comfort Zone?

As I concluded my preparations this afternoon, excited to start my 9th year teaching School Law to graduate students at Cardinal Stritch University, the changes I am incorporating caused me to reflect: is this even further outside of my comfort zone than what I did less than 3 months ago?

Consider:
1. Graduate Class - 24 adult students in downtown Milwaukee, Wis.  School Law for aspiring Principals or Curriculum Directors in a degreed program, taught using a real-life, application, problem-based, inquiry/discussion format incorporating Smartboard use, BYOD, Twitter and backchanneling.  (I am very excited to start!) Tomorrow night.

or

2.  Teaching 1st-7th graders, class sizes of 35-55, literally halfway around the world (South Sudan, Africa), no electricity, no student textbooks, no lighting, no running water, no computers, no WI-FI, cultural differences, using the Ugandan curriculum.  Two and a half months ago.

It's fun to just contemplate - which is further outside my comfort zone.

I am committed to having my grad class model some of the components the students need to see in 4K-12 classrooms by having them experience it first-hand.