Teaching in the First Year Seminar over the last couple years at NAU has been a lot of fun and it’s cool that they’ve allowed me to teach my own course. The added value is having a “Peer Facilitator”, who helps me with different tasks and keeps me in line. What I really like is that Adalynn participates with the class and has done all the activities I’ve asked of the students. Today, she gave her personal pitch.
In education, I believe modeling as an activity or behavior is very useful and needed for deeper understanding. I asked Adalynn to model an assignment that requires students to create a 12-slide personal pitch deck, which they create in google slides. The first slide should be a baby picture and the last slide should be a present day picture. All pictures in between should take the audience on a chronological journey of their life.
Over the years, I’ve seen this activity create an amazing classroom culture as students have the opportunity to hear personal stories of one another. A very important aspect to this activity falls on the audience because they are the listeners. Therefore, I asked each student to provide the following for Adalynn’s personal pitch:
— 1 photo of Adalynn giving the pitch and / or a photo to encompass that experience in today’s class.
— 1 sentence describing the photo or something meaningful that you took from Adalynn’s pitch.
Finding the meaning as a listener is where the magic resides. Providing the meaning back to the storyteller provides a sense of validation with the notion that “I hear you” and “I see you”…belonging, connection.
Big ups to Adalynn for modeling this activity.
The part of Adalynn’s story that sticks out to me is about her dad owning a dance studio and they were performing the Lion King. Adalynn was very young at the time and it got to the point in the story where Simba is held in the air. That’s when Adalynn became Simba and was held in the air by her father. After that experience, Adalynn pretended to be Simba for quite a while, which included the consistent vocalization of a roar.
So, that’s my 1 sentence + a little more, and here’s my 1 picture.
