Design Forward
An emergent exploration of critical instructional design.
Design Forward
Portfolio Part: Past Informing the Present: My Earth Science Teaching Origins
Your Teaching Origins
Past Informing the Present: My Earth Science Teaching Origins
Step One
In the boxes below, Name those things/people/experiences that have shaped your approach to teaching. Describe their Influence. Add as many as you would like.
In the Rank column, try to rank your influences (as best as you can), where the lowest number means the greatest amount of influence.
| Name | Influence | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Robert Carson | Curiosity and Purpose | 1 |
| Brian Pendleton | Commitment and Organization | 2 |
| Robert Anderson | Building the Earth Science Perspective | 3 |
| Mike Carr | Reality Check | 4 |
Step Two
Choose three influences you identified and write three paragraphs about the impact they had on your teaching.
Paragraph 1: Identify specific ways in which these influences can be seen in your teaching.
Paragraph 2: Discuss whether you feel like that overall impact has been positive or negative.
Paragraph 3: Imagine your future teaching self and write how you would like to further integrate or eliminate these influences.
Curiosity
Organization
Earth Science Perspective
First and foremost my passion for teaching comes from an undying curiosity about the world around me (often to the annoyance of my poor family). It is this drive that inspires me to keep finding new ways to share the wonders of the universe with my students, as well as connecting their daily lives to the natural systems they inhabit. This ties into the Earth science perspective I try to instill in my students. This is especially apparent in my gen ed courses with non-science students where I try to connect what they often see as a non-scientific life to the science that is all around them daily. To do this I lean on my organization skills and commitment. I take pride in developing detailed and well-thought-out course content, schedules, and assignments.
Overall, I think my innate curiosity and enthusiasm lifts my students up, inspires them, and shows them it is ok to get excited about earth science. To be honest, it is harder to evaluate if my students gain more of an earth science perspective, but I definitely encounter a lot of ‘I never knew that!’ in my classes that tells me the students are at least having some lightbulb moments of connection. Unfortunately, my desire to be extra organized is currently causing me much hardship as I spend far too much time generating course content.
I hope to hold onto my curiosity and passion for the earth sciences as I think it is one of my best attributes as an educator. I want to design courses and teaching practices that better connect students with their world and am hoping to explore some of that during this workshop. Finally, I am looking for some concrete tools to make my course development more efficient; I really want a life outside of work, which I don’t really have at the moment.
