DESIGN PRINCIPLE 1: TEACHERS ARE DESIGNERS

What does it mean and how does it affect my practice?

Teaching is designing and there is both a science and an art to the profession.  To begin, a teacher needs to have three kinds of knowledge: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge and these are thought processes used “in reflection to action”.  Then there is classroom practice which entails planning, delivering instruction and assessment, evaluation and perhaps, re-teaching.  These practices are what we do “in action”.  Lastly, there is design knowledge or “design practice” which is what teachers do “before action”.  This instructional design practice is what bridges the previously mentioned teacher knowledge and classroom practice. Educators need to know the following to be designers: “Teachers need to learn to identify the ‘real’ design problems. Teachers need to learn to consider and invent possibilities as well as recognize and embrace constraints. Teachers need to understand and integrate the four design P’s- principles, processes, patterns, and paraphernalia.”

To me, design is an informed, strategic approach to instruction often called the backwards design model.  It can be large in scope and challenges teachers to begin with the end in mind.  This means that teachers first identify desired results- learning goals or standards.  A teacher comes up with an authentic problem to solve- essential questions to answer.  Additionally, an acceptable evidence of learning is determined- the finished product with a rubric or other instrument to measure student success.  After this, the teacher or team of teachers design learning experiences and instruction using best practices.  When it comes to best practices, I remember these three questions that I learned in a college course in the 90’s, and still find them so important to use as a guide in my practice when designing instruction: Is it knowable to the learner?, Is it meaningful to the learner? Is it purposeful to the learner?  Best practices also encompass the practice of actively engaging students, developing critical thinking in students, giving them ample time to practice while the teacher guides them, fostering the ability to question and nurturing the desire to wonder, allowing time for reflection on learning, and providing opportunity for students to give and receive feedback,  just to name a few.

As a librarian, this impacts my practice of being a resource to the staff at all grade levels that I work with in my building.  As the county continues to implement its One to the World initiative and expect teachers to embrace project-based learning and B-Y-O-T, Bring Your Own Technology, my role is morphing into a media specialist/technology resource teacher.  It is becoming more collaborative in nature and the county is moving in the direction of utilizing a flexible schedule in the library at the elementary level where grade level 3-5 teachers would bring their class to the library with a set purpose/need that is planned collaboratively. Time to collaborate is a constant obstacle as my schedule is fixed and set up/viewed by administration and teachers alike as a special where teachers drop their kids off so they may have daily planning time and meet in PLT’s once a week during the school day. This creates dis-connect between what I want to do with teachers collaboratively, design instruction, and what I am able to actually do.  To compound this challenge is the fact that the schedule only allows me to work with grades 2-5 classes every other week which is not conducive to project-based learning.  I strive to keep informed of grade level projects, attend planning meetings as frequently as I can to allow for more collaboration, and design my lessons to support the context of their project, learning outcomes, standards, and skills needed by the students.  I also assist teachers with their use of design paraphernalia, technology, as I am facilitating the digital citizenship curriculum through Common Sense Media to support B-Y-O-T.  One area that I am successful is in creating lessons to support students with sustained inquiry- with their process of asking questions, finding resources, and applying information.  In addition to this, I will be facilitating “Tech Tuesdays” this year as a way to support the teachers with their integration of technology into their classroom practice.  One of the One to the World key elements is “Connected with The World” and when appropriate, students use technology to make these connections with the world.  Another key element is “Public Product for the World” where students make their work public by displaying and/or presenting it to people beyond the classroom. Technology and social media are valuable platforms to support this requirement.