'Sup guys
Last week my EDU 222 class began a lot different than it normal does. Our instructor had us get into small groups and handed us card from the The Extraordinaires® Design Studio PRO card set each of which had a unique character that we had to interpret to be one of the students in our classroom. Though we could only make assumptions from the design on the front, on the back there were three other pictures that gave deeper insight to the "student."
As a group, we had to make inferences about the students, who they are as students, what their learning style is, and other various factors that give us, as educators, deeper insight into our classroom dynamic. In the beginning, we had to make inferences of one student, known as "Tribal Child" (Mowgli as our group so lovingly referred to him... straight up this kid looked like a carbon copy of Mowgli). Mowgli, we assumed by the picture on the front of the card, that he came from a low-income family and had had little schooling in his life time, which contributed to his distaste for school. Additionally, we made the assumption that he valued family very much, as in the picture he was being taught by an elder how to use a bow-and-arrow, while his younger brother sat close by.
While we made assumptions about Mowgli and who is as a student, eventually we were given three other cards with different characters whom also suppose to be "students" in our classroom, and of whom we also had to make inferences about who they were as students based solely on the front of the card.
Eventually, after we finally overturned the cards, we learned more about each student as an individual that we would not have been able to conclude had we just looked at the front of the card; we learned that one of our students was a father, the second lived in a restrictive household and felt isolated from her school community, and the last one was a very awkward kid who turned out to have a passion for music. Without filling these cards over, we would have had had a full picture of these students.
In the grand scheme, we had to design a GRASPS project in a subject other than our concentrations (we picked economics) that would accommodate the differences between all of the students and allow for them to thrive in their own unique ways. As a group, we decided to create a role-playing version of life, in which students would pick a career that they were interested in pursuing after high school, researching said career and figuring out what they would need to do in order to achieve their career goal, as well as figuring out how to budget based on the income of their career-of-choice.
As a future educator, I feel that this activity is very beneficial as we begin our journey as an educator. As we begin planning units, we need to be aware of the differences amongst our students, as well as their backgrounds as it can influence their ability to understand the material or complete the work their assigned. By being aware of students' background gives us insight as to how we should approach material, whether or not students will be able to complete some assignments (ex. if a student does not have internet at home, they may not be able to complete some assignments requiring internet access), or if they have a home life that prevents them from being able to work on group projects as they do not have access to the transportation need or they have over protective parents that prevent them from going out. By being able to recognize the different backgrounds of your students, you'll better be able to plan a unit that everyone is able to participate in, rather than a unit that students from "picturesque" backgrounds.
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