Up the Styx without a Drachma

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Maybe it’s the economy...or maybe the end of the world...or maybe it’s the conversation that I had with a former athlete from my high school athletic program. At the end of High school she went on to play Division 1 field hockey for UMass. We recently met up and she asked why education doesn’t prepare students for the real world. “After high school and college I am in the real world and I wish I would have learned how to do more of the basic, real life stuff like budgeting or balancing a checkbook,” she confided in words that were pretty close to this quote. It got me thinking about death and learning to live on a fixed budget. 

Oh yeah, I am going to be teaching mythology so it isn’t as big of a leap as you would think at first. One of the issues that I am running into with my plan is trying to make the content I have to teach relevant to the students and prepare them with valuable skill sets. One way I plan to do this is to have my students create online portfolios and have them use mythological content to practice skills that can be used for real world student gains. Enter death stage right. 

Charon is the ferryman of the river styx. For each passenger on his barge he is paid one coin to be ferried into the underworld. No coin, no rest. This provides an opportunity for real world student learning on how to budget and use a spreadsheet while learning about mythological content. There is an average that you can count on more or less, but there are also times when you get a boon (wars, famine, wrath of the gods, etc.). There are also times when you make a little less than average (those damn heroes, pesky resurrections, etc.). You might have to fix your boat, hit the chiropractor, and occasionally deal with a freeloader. It’s a lot like being a waitress (except you look like a skeleton, are confined to your workplace, and have to deal with a three-headed dog who eats souls). 

An interactive budgeting spreadsheet that includes real content from my classes can help students prepare for a real world issue that they will have to deal with. It can also be an important part of an online portfolio. There is a lot of reading and writing here, especially if their “budget” relies on the stories that we are reading in class (how many people died in the Iliad?). There are opportunities for student engagement and creativity. Lambert, Depaepe, Lambert, and Anderson (2007) talk about the power of online portfolios and I am more convinced now that this needs to be a cornerstone of my classroom set up this year. As I learn more about skills students need in the 21st century and the capabilities of different tools, the more I am adjusting the kind of instruction that I am leaning towards in my class. 

Assessment is an essential component of instruction (Laureate, 2009) that can inform our practice. Knowing what skills we are trying to get across and the types of learning we want our students to demonstrate allows us to look at the tools we have available and select those tools with intentionality. There needs to be more alignment of what we are learning, how we are teaching, and the world our students are going to be entering (Lambert, Depaepe, Lambert, &Anderson, 2007). This is where my learning and thoughts about my plan are starting to come together this week. Assessment doesn’t need to look traditional to be valid (Laureate, 2009). I have been thinking too much about traditional assessments and not enough about authenticity. 

My biggest questions at this point revolve around how to leverage the resources I have available (due to filtering, budgets, etc.) to provide my students with authentic assessment opportunities that allow them the double benefit of presenting content knowledge and technological knowledge in a single showing while providing them skill sets that they can transfer into their own lives. We will be working on resumes of mythological heroes as a formative assessment on resume writing skills and story comprehension. The students will have a summative evaluation where they write their own resumes which would show the transference of skill knowledge to a real world situation. I just need to keep thinking about the kinds of information that we are learning on a weekly basis and how this can inform and transform my instruction in creative ways. 

It would be a shame for us to miss the opportunity to make a difference for our students by limiting our own creativity and implementation of knowledge. That happens too often (Grunwald Associates LLC, 2010). My plan needs a minor course adjustment to accommodate the new information I am internalizing about the different options for assessment in a digital age. I am also adjusting my understanding of what skills my students will find valuable in addition to the content knowledge I have to teach them. I need to think about my goals and my actions a little more and think about some of the alternative methods I might allow for students to reach the shores they are aiming for. I don’t want my students to end up dead in the water...or even worse, stuck on the bank with a three-headed dog. 

Grunwald Associates, LLC. (2010). Educators, technology, and 21st century skills: Dispelling five myths. Walden University. Retrieved from http://www.waldenu.edu/Documents/Degree-Programs/Full_Report_-_Dispelling_Five_Myths.pdf http://www.waldenu.edu/Documents/Degree-Programs/Full_Report_-_Dispelling_Five_Myths.pdf

Lambert, C., DePaepe, J., Lambert, L., & Anderson, D. (Winter 2007). E-portfolios in action. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 43(2), 76–81.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.