Motivating Question

• If we frame the teacher-student interaction as a sales pitch (just go with me for a sec) what qualities of a salesperson will repel the buyer?

You can take this any number of directions but I’ll ask you to consider for a moment the qualities of a relational teacher that aren’t also the qualities of a relational person. What I mean is, clearly, kind teachers are preferred but let’s try harder.

Tomorrow I’ll examine a teacher whose students simply don’t relate. And while his humorless, anal-retentive personality curries him few favors with the students of the Baltimore City Public Schools, one defect in particular poisons his relationships.

This defect is simple. It is potent. And, I’m convinced, it gets worse the longer you teach.

dy/av : 008 : behind the scenes from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

Tags

instructional design, lesson planning, creative process

iPod Edition

dy/av : 008 : behind the scenes (640 x 480)

Previous Episodes

dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode
dy/av : 006 : carver’s classroom management
dy/av : 005 : how i work
dy/av : 004 : thank you, teaching
dy/av : 003 : on the office
dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer
dy/av : 001 : earn the medium

The question comes up once per episode: what tools do you use?

I should have compiled a colophon or an FAQ long ago. Tomorrow I’ll take you behind the spikey-topped gates of dy/av studios, but the tour won’t cover many technical specs so I’ll use this space for the colophon:

Hardware. Canon GL2, primary camera. Canon PowerShot S800, secondary cameraa small point-and-shoot useful for shots which demand I (eg.) sniff deodorant covertly in a supermarket. PowerMacG5 (Quad Core, 2.5 GHz, 4.5 GB RAM, ridiculous). Sennheiser Microphone.

Software. Final Cut Pro, the basic sequencer. Adobe Photoshop & After Effects, the one-two punch responsible for anything especially interesting (cf. that bridge shot in the second episode; all of episode seven).

Time. approx. 12 hours per episode split across three hours pre-production (writing), two hours production (shooting), seven hours post-production (editing).

Music. Three artists, almost exclusively. Lykke Li. Jay Z’s live set at Glastonbury. Mike Skinner.

Motivating Question

The ultimate end of your classroom structures should be invisibility. eg. The best classroom management is unnoticeable. The best classroom lesson plan camouflages the planning while pushing the learning to the foreground. The extreme opposite of this is the teacher who creates a new seating chart every day.

• How have you set up your classroom routine so that the wires and pulleys disappear?

dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

Tags

motiongraphics, math

iPod Edition

dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode (640 x 480)

Previous Episodes

dy/av : 006 : carver’s classroom management
dy/av : 005 : how i work
dy/av : 004 : thank you, teaching
dy/av : 003 : on the office
dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer
dy/av : 001 : earn the medium

If this arrow isn’t in the new math teacher’s quiver, it oughtta be.

How do you answer the question: when will we use [x] in real life?, where [x] is some abstract concept or, as in my case, the 97% of math that doesn’t explicitly involve “shapes.” I have witnessed and, myself, promoted answers snarky and serious, long and short. You oughtta have something.

Motivating Question

• When will we use [y] in real life?, where [y] is the abstract corners of the course you teach?

Optional Viewing

• Mount Hermon Summer Staff Slideshow 2007, a video I made last summer which is also the fulcrum on which I’ll balance my answer.