This year I took on a new class, Principles of Health Science. It's a CTE course in the State of Texas that allows students to begin learning about the health field. At many schools, the entire track of classes allows for them to become certified in a variety of health fields. Since we don't have the entire track at our school, I suggested that we teach the class through the lens of the MYP Design Cycle.
Teaching this class through the design cycle has given my students opportunities to explore critical thinking through each phase of the cycle. They get to apply what they have learned through our modules (Applied Educational Systems has been amazing to use!) to create amazing things. One of my students said early in the beginning of the year, "So really this class is like the philosophy of health science?" I suppose so! We don't just memorize health facts, root terminology, medical lingo-- we are having rich discussions that lead to moments of understanding that the medical field's foundation is helping others. So in the 2 months, we used the design cycle to create a Winter Wellness Campaign. Every student had the same goal: to decrease the amount of sickness throughout the winter season, but every group contributed to that goal in a different way.
At the end of the project, we all could not believe how far we had come. We looked back to the moment we began dreaming up how we could help others and realized we came up with an amazing project that impacted our K-12 school, and our community. My students enjoyed the design process and saw its power, they developed more than just health skills (but communications skill through their use of technology), and they provided several solutions by acting with integrity and taking ownership of their own actions. I couldn't be more proud of the work they have done together! I've been teaching through the lens of IB for over eight years, and to have this opportunity to utilize our 1:1 iPad environment at it's best capacity has been so fun. It's allowed me to grow my own skills and to see how designing the learning environment to be engaging and authentic matters--I see it in the way my students are learning and how their desire to help others is growing daily!
When Apple Education asked for the Apple Distinguished Educators to reflect on their year, the only thing I could think of was the blog I posted a few weeks back called Why I Broke Up With Twitter. That simple task of quieting the commentary and noise of social media has helped me to focus on continuing to do fun things with my Digital Leading and Learning Community (focused on COVA and CSLE) and also to rediscover my own creativity as a lesson designer. I'm slowly getting back into the social media world, but for now, here are the lessons I learned in 2019, and what was birthed out of quieting the noise!
