Here is the question I will be answering in this post: "In what practical ways can a media-infused presentation like the one you created help foster the development of both the disciplined and synthesizing minds?"
First of all, the "media-infused presentation" this question refers to is a prezi I made on plant structure and function, which I will be using with my students this coming year. Click here to view it.
Before I answer the above question, I should clarify what Howard Gardner's (2006) definition of a "disciplined" and "synthesizing" mind are. In his book, Five Minds for the Future, Gardner describes the necessity of developing 5 minds to be successful in our changing world. Those are the disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful, and ethical mind. I will probably be posting something related to each one this summer. For now, I will briefly describe the disciplined and synthesizing minds.
The disciplined mind, as Gardner (2006) would describe it, is when a person focuses on what they are learning, sticks with it continuously, and masters a skill or craft, which Gardner believes to take at least 10 years to do. An example of a person with a disciplined mind would be a surgeon, whose experience and continuing education enables them to master and constantly improve at patient care.
A synthesizing mind is when a person is able to gather information from completely different sources, boil all the information down to the main point(s), and then be able to clearly communicate that synthesized information with others. An example of a person with a synthesizing mind would be a teacher, since they are inundated with educational resources, but have to pick and choose what is most important and effective in helping their students learn.
With that background, I will now reflect on how my prezi will help foster those minds. I believe that it will help my students develop a more disciplined mind because they will need (and hopefully want to) stick with the prezi until it is completed. I will make sure they have enough time to go through the whole prezi too, since a plant's structure can only be fully understood when it is seen as a whole and not just parts. On the other hand, helping them 'zoom in' on the different parts of the plant will help their disciplined minds develop because they are getting a deeper understanding of the part compared to a basic definition. Plus, there are a couple of optional interactive activities in the prezi that allow them to dive even deeper to become more of an "expert" on plant structure and function. To go even further, this prezi will be placed in the midst of quizzes, discussions, and assignments on the topic, which will help my students "master" the content according to their developmental ability.
This prezi will definitely encourage my students' synthesizing mind because of the variety of media they will be exposed to within it. They will view pictures, text, diagrams, formulas, audio clips and video clips. The references alone will show them the spectrum of resources synthesized to create one harmonious, sequential presentation. I hope it will also be a good example of a clearly communicated presentation on a specific topic, that they can remember a lot from. But more than that, I hope it can be a good example of a well-synthesized presentation, so that they can in turn create their own prezis on a different topic. This prezi was a very effective project at helping me synthesize and filter information from various sources, and so I assume it will do the same for my students.
References
Gardner, Howard. (2006). Five minds for the Future. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment