Sprezzatura, what a wonderful word! It signifies a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make what one does or says appear without effort or thought. Embodying this word is easier said than done, yet with practice can be developed. In teaching environmental education, I attempt to exude sprezzatura when introducing students to…
Design-A-Leaf Arts Integration Lesson In this novel lesson, students will focus in on the details of leaves, gain botanical terminology and then get creative! The aim is to foster observation skills, use collaboration to create a group word bank of descriptive botanical terms and then ultimately the students are invited to design their very own…
How does one rapidly build trust with a group of elementary students within a four day residential outdoor education program? By fostering a strong sense of community through team building activities. An instrumental piece of this puzzle is the Community Agreement, this is a living document created by the students and it declares their expectations…
The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model is a challenging concept to successfully enact. It consists of 4 stages and all four can be present within a single lesson. The first is demonstration, which is basically the instructor doing while the students watch. The second stage is guided practice, here the instructor does and the students…
This week, I attempted to utilize a new teaching tool to more effectively communicate instructions to my field group. These tools are primacy, recency and cueing or novelty; each of these relate to an increased probability of retention on behalf of the listener. We tend to remember the first and last parts of instructions, primacy…