Multiple Modes of Instruction & Projects

Students learn in a variety of ways because students are individuals. No one learns exactly the same way as the next person, which is why it is important to use multiple modes of instruction to reach different styles of learners. I try to use a variety of instructional strategies throughout the week and even each day in my teaching. I also use different forms of assessment to measure what students know since students express their knowledge in different ways. Many of my students are visual learners, so I frequently do activities that involve visual expression. This does not mean that I expect students to be artists. It is perfectly fine for them to use stick figures and symbols to represent ideas. The big posters you can see in these photos are from my Economy of a Country project I did with my Econ kids. They picked a country to research, focusing on things like the country's industries, economic system, trade practices, labor policies and natural resources. The smaller visuals are things like symbolic representations of what a corporation is, timelines of the mortgage crisis, analyses of green collar jobs, and the community projects I asked students to do. They were to think of an available space in town, either an empty building or available land. Students were to come up with a business plan for what to do with that space. What would be best use of that space for the community? They had to research the cost of their venture to rent or buy the space, the cost of hiring workers for their venture, materials, equipment and advertizing. It was a good idea, but it needed to be refined before I would use it again.