Educ 904 CLASSROOM STUFF Gillian drops off readings for summer class.

March 23 Friday

THIS COURSE AND THINKING AHEAD Mark wants us to think about the 2 questions: What is an imaginative teacher aware of? What does an imaginative teacher do?

Virgina Jagla Teachers Everyday Use of Imagination & Intuition (Sony press, 1994) a book about a teacher who interviewed other teachers. She asked when they thought they were using their imagination or when they were using their intuition This is what Mark is asking us to do or think about now

Some of my responses: 1. What is an imaginative teacher aware of? Her students (history, culture, emotional state) Her students (their pressures, the expectations levied on them) Her students world (their fears, their challenges) Her own feelings and biases

2. What does an imaginative teacher do? Respond (off the cuff) to whatever is happening in the class with an analogy that results in an aha moment for a student Move about he or she is not bound to the notes on the screen or the board. She teaches inside the classroom, around the classroom, outside the classroom. She uses her hands, makes shapes with her body, and asks students to do the same Her kids think shes kind of weird but in a non-frightening kind of way She goes outside the curriculum She dances when theres no music and asks her students to dance too (but to their own music) She uses the curriculum but only as a means to draw out a bigger picture She finds colour in the absence of it and asks her students to do the same

March 10 class page 1

Educ 904

March 23 Friday She can make her students pause, reflect, and cry about an issue unrelated to discipline or marks Gives her students a chance to stop and rest

These individual answers of ours were written up on the board and we created a big concept map. Then we taped up some quotes that would fit along that spectrum. See photos from Heidi. The break:

If you were telling your story of the movement through course, where has your growth been? Where has the learning been the richest, in the course or program and the areas where you feel you need more work to be done? We answered this question in groups of 4-5 then we came back into a larger group circle.

March 10 class page 2