My MEL Experiences

• Student/Teacher Relationship:

Student teacher relationships are key for a successful learning environment. The best connection towards a class was when the teacher of the class knew the students. I think that when there is extra time spent to make the personal connection it allows for a more of a respect between the teacher and the student. If I know the teacher has an investment in my education, and wants me to learn then I almost try harder to not disappoint them.

• Hands on Experience:

My senior year of high school I took statistics. Each week was exactly the same work. On Fridays we would turn in the packets that we worked on each week. There was no difference week to week with what we worked on. It was miserable. I easily could have handled the work, and for the first month it wasn’t bad, but as time went on and the work didn’t change the course became unbearably boring and my grades slipped as the year went on. The course was something very manageable but without mixing up what we did, and without any hands on experiments or anything, I got bored, and a bored student is an ineffective student.

• Multiple Intelligence:

The most successful class, and also the most enjoyable, was the German class I took in high school. Now, granted, my mother was the teacher, but she was a huge proponent of teaching in ways which would allow for peoples’ multiple intelligence. She called the technique story telling but it really captured many different ways for a person to pick up the language. The story-telling technique is apparently a closer way that a child might learn their first language. We have a list of words, given at the beginning of the week, with just the German on it. This helped the visual people. We took 3-4 words a day and spent a lot of time on them. We would first translate them and write down the English meaning, again helping the visual people. We would repeat the words multiple times for the auditory learners. At the same time as we are acting out the words by either doing action of the word, or making up a symbol to do. This would help the physical learners. After about 15 minutes of learning and repeating these words, we would then select a few students to act out a story in which the words were used. We would follow along on out own copies of the story. Another component of the class was a music project. Each day we sang a German song. Songs changed every 3-4 weeks and at the end of the 3-4 weeks groups of four presented either a play or music video on the song being studied. Students acted out some or all of the song. These projects allowed me to become very acquainted with video editing, filming, and many other technological aspects through creating music videos. It was a great experience for me. For our senior year, I directed and filmed a German video that won first place at the German competition at Colby college for high schools in Maine. In all my other classes, I was not able to be exposed to such a variety of learning styles, and was not able to express myself through various means like films.

• Interest:

As a History concentration I think this will be something that I can use effectively for group projects. I already remember my history classes and having a teacher, Mr. Edmondson, who would give you a time frame for a project you would have to do. Lets say we were studying the Civil War. Individuals could then choose aspects of the civil war which interested them and could do their own individual research on the topics. I know some members of the class focused on the military aspects. I focused on medical procedures and the use of amputation. That interested me more then military maneuvers but for the students that found that interesting they could focus on that. I anticipate implementing a very similar technique for my classes.

• Autonomy:

From the German class example mentioned above, I understand the importance of letting students express themselves in various means. For the German class we had an exit project. These were the things you think about the entire time you were in the German class. Project were presented on parents night. I like to talk, and being very organized, myself and another student planned the parents night and then were the MC’s for the night. Other student baked German Food, one girl organized and led our parents through the traditional German dances we learn on Friday afternoons. The final projects were presented that night, 2 students wrote German music and sang it, videos were presented, parents were taken upstairs to look at the replica of graffiti from the Berlin wall that had been painted outside the classroom, or the ceiling tiles that were hand painted replicas of paintings done by German artists. I know that with whatever I teach, I am going to give students the choice of how they want to present themselves. With German it was easy to give almost free reign, with history I think it will be more challenging, but I will find ways for students to do it.