This week's topic got me thinking and reflecting on myself as a designer. There were things I learned, what being a designer means to me, and how it impacts my practice as a teacher.
These are the things I learned: I learned how much teachers really are designers. We think about and consider a lot of things when going through the entire school day. We design lesson plans and consider the needs of all our students in order for them to succeed and be the best learner they can be. We constantly come back to our designs every year, at the least, to better support the students we have. What might work for our students this year may not work for our students next year. Therefore we tweak our current design with lesson plans to support the constantly changing needs of our students. We also design the way our classroom is set up. Every detail we put into our classroom setup considers the needs of students to best support them as learners. Then we come back to that design plan, as needed, throughout the school year. The design could be tweaked or altered to fix a problem that may have occurred. This problem could be that a student may need to be closer to the board or that a student may be distracted by others around them. With these problems that arise, we come back to our design and alter it to better support our students.
Now on to my thoughts on teachers as designers. To me, teachers as designers means that we put together a course of actions to reach a desired outcome. Our desired outcome is to see our students succeed and grow as better learners and people. The course of action to reach that outcome includes designing lesson plans, desk setup, our schedule, and general classroom setup. There’s a lot that teachers consider throughout the school day to support their design process in order to reach their desired outcome--students succeeding and becoming a better version of themselves.
Finally, how does being a designer impact my practice? Thinking of myself as a designer will impact my practice because I will be more thoughtful with my lesson planning, classroom setup and everything minor and major I do as a teacher. I will continue to consider and think about different needs and perspectives of my students that will best support them. My designing will be even more meaningful and deliberate with knowing what my desired outcome will be. I think teachers, like myself, already do a lot of this but this time it’ll be more intentional with our design.
Though I did not consider myself as a designer prior to this and last week's topics, I now understand why teachers are considered designers and 100% agree with it.
