To be honest, I was stumped when I was asked the question “what are you best/worst learning experiences?” I know I had a ridiculous amount of experiences within the classroom from grade school to college. I could think of all of my teachers, classes I’ve taken, projects I’ve worked on, etc. After reminiscing for a while, it seemed that I could only think of general attitudes or feelings towards a teacher or a class when I tried to think of my negative experiences. However, when I shifted my thinking to my best learning experience, a recent one came to mind very quickly.
In my second year of college I took a Human Development for Educators course. The majority of our final grade was based on a semester-long project. Each week a different student of the class had to present the chapter we were learning to the class. Everyone in the class was to read the chapter before we got to class, but it was the responsibility of one student per week to make a SMARTBoard presentation, present it to the class, and make sure all the students of the class understood the material. During the semester, I created activities and assessments to make sure I knew what the students understood prior to the lesson, and to ensure that the material I was trying to relay actually made sense to them after I taught the lesson. After working so hard all semester on perfecting my SMARTBoard presentation, I felt elated after having presented it to the class. I think this was such a positive learning experience for me for a few different reasons. First, the class overall had such a comfortable, inviting and relaxed atmosphere since everyone had a chance to lead the class. The students were all very supportive of each other, so I felt so confident when I was giving my presentation. The professor was constantly giving feedback, and since he gave more positive than negative feedback, it was not a very big deal when he corrected us because we knew he supported us and was just trying to help. The information in the class felt so relevant and important to what we were studying, so we were all eager to learn it. Since a different person was presenting each week, it was always presented in a new and interesting way, which kept the class fresh and exciting. It was also very rewarding to have worked on something for so long and then get to show it off to others.
Every aspect that I liked of the classroom and project that was involved in my best learning experience is the exact opposite of what was involved in my worst learning experience. I absolutely loved my freshman year of Spanish in high school, so I was thrilled to take a second year of it. I had a new teacher for the first semester of the second year, and after about two weeks into the class, I could tell it just wouldn’t be the same as it had been the first year. Before entering that class, I could tell you exactly what we would be doing that day, but not because we could see a schedule or because it was posted on blackboard… we did the exact same thing every day, just with different material. We would come in, sit down, and the teacher would go around and check our homework to see if it was done. Then, she would sit in front of the class and go up and down the rows for the answers. After, she would assign three activities from the book, and we could work with the person next to us, and tell the class our answers, just like with our homework. Finally, she would assign our homework for the next day. The repetition and lack of diversity in the activities created a disinterest in everything we did in that class, and I loved Spanish and it had been my favorite class the year before. Working with the same person who sat next to me the whole semester was also terrible, because I seemed to always do the majority of the work and was so sick of it. I felt discouraged, disinterested, and disappointed in what seemed like the lack of effort put in by the teacher. I was there every day but felt like I hadn’t learned anything because the answers were just given to us but we weren’t applying them to anything relevant. There were so many bad things about my worst learning experience, but I think the worst part was that the teacher didn’t know my name until the second to last week of the semester.
In my second year of college I took a Human Development for Educators course. The majority of our final grade was based on a semester-long project. Each week a different student of the class had to present the chapter we were learning to the class. Everyone in the class was to read the chapter before we got to class, but it was the responsibility of one student per week to make a SMARTBoard presentation, present it to the class, and make sure all the students of the class understood the material. During the semester, I created activities and assessments to make sure I knew what the students understood prior to the lesson, and to ensure that the material I was trying to relay actually made sense to them after I taught the lesson. After working so hard all semester on perfecting my SMARTBoard presentation, I felt elated after having presented it to the class. I think this was such a positive learning experience for me for a few different reasons. First, the class overall had such a comfortable, inviting and relaxed atmosphere since everyone had a chance to lead the class. The students were all very supportive of each other, so I felt so confident when I was giving my presentation. The professor was constantly giving feedback, and since he gave more positive than negative feedback, it was not a very big deal when he corrected us because we knew he supported us and was just trying to help. The information in the class felt so relevant and important to what we were studying, so we were all eager to learn it. Since a different person was presenting each week, it was always presented in a new and interesting way, which kept the class fresh and exciting. It was also very rewarding to have worked on something for so long and then get to show it off to others.
Every aspect that I liked of the classroom and project that was involved in my best learning experience is the exact opposite of what was involved in my worst learning experience. I absolutely loved my freshman year of Spanish in high school, so I was thrilled to take a second year of it. I had a new teacher for the first semester of the second year, and after about two weeks into the class, I could tell it just wouldn’t be the same as it had been the first year. Before entering that class, I could tell you exactly what we would be doing that day, but not because we could see a schedule or because it was posted on blackboard… we did the exact same thing every day, just with different material. We would come in, sit down, and the teacher would go around and check our homework to see if it was done. Then, she would sit in front of the class and go up and down the rows for the answers. After, she would assign three activities from the book, and we could work with the person next to us, and tell the class our answers, just like with our homework. Finally, she would assign our homework for the next day. The repetition and lack of diversity in the activities created a disinterest in everything we did in that class, and I loved Spanish and it had been my favorite class the year before. Working with the same person who sat next to me the whole semester was also terrible, because I seemed to always do the majority of the work and was so sick of it. I felt discouraged, disinterested, and disappointed in what seemed like the lack of effort put in by the teacher. I was there every day but felt like I hadn’t learned anything because the answers were just given to us but we weren’t applying them to anything relevant. There were so many bad things about my worst learning experience, but I think the worst part was that the teacher didn’t know my name until the second to last week of the semester.