This Week in My AEE World: Conquering Interest
This week the #psuaged23 cohort took a deeper dive into what interest approaches are in our lessons, and how we can successfully develop and deliver them in a way that is relevant to the content, and engages our student's curiosity. We were asked to come to our lab section on Wednesday with a lesson we felt we had developed a good interest approach for, and we would be presenting those interest approaches to our peers.
I chose a lesson plan that I had written for my introductory lesson to my unit on Arc Welding, in which I would lay out some images for students to pair up and go around the room and analyze for two things:
1) What the image was?
2) What are some properties/functions? (uses, what it's made of, etc.)
Once they viewed each of the 4 images (bicycle, truck frame, dumbells, and a ball hitch) with their partner, I had them come together as a group a discuss what similarities they found between the four pictures that they viewed. My peers did a great job, after a little bit of facilitation, of coming to the conclusion that all of these things were welded in some way in order to function. I tried to connect things with my own personal experiences, which could hopefully lead to my peers coming to some conclusions on their own as well. I then talked about the importance of these welds holding for us, and how we rely on things that are built using welding on a daily basis.
After looking over my video and talking with my peers, I've noticed that I have made consistent improvements each time that I have taught in lab, and I am starting to get more comfortable up in front of the room and delivering my lessons. In general, I am very enthusiastic about the things that I am teaching, however, I struggle sometimes to display that in different ways. I do not tend to be someone who is able or going to put on a show in front of my students, but if I can start to instill my passion for the subject into my lessons more and more then my students will feed off of that as well.
That's all for now! I am excited to keep growing and learning what makes me Mr. Shunk!

Baylor, I definitely agree that we all are continuing to get more comfortable being up in front of the classroom. While I wasn't in your lab, I watched the video and you did a really good job! This activity looks very interesting and like it would be a good way to get your students up & moving. Keep up the great work! -Carly
ReplyDeleteBaylor, I greatly enjoyed your interest approach this past week in lab. Although you alway go first in our lab section, I think you set the bar extremely high! As you keep going I can't wait to see your passion shine through, I know that with some more experience I am sure you will find ways to be enthusiastic with your students.
ReplyDeleteHey Baylor, I really enjoyed this lesson! Specifically, I liked how you used pictures but you didn't just have us try to figure out the general message of the picture, you had us think deeper! I can defiantly see your improvement ever week, keep up the good work!
ReplyDelete-Grace