628 Week #8 - Authenticity.

​My experience designing and building my DEMO UNIT was pretty authentic!  I figured it would be a breeze because I’ve done a similar unit in the past.  But, once I really got into the meat of it and that paperwork of it, I started really thinking in a much deeper way than I have before.  That plus all that I’ve learned thus far in this program, I think I created a pretty strong unit!  It’ll be interesting to actually deliver it and see how that feels and works!  I feel pretty excited about doing that and I’m looking forward to 629 where I’ll actually do that, so by the end of this program I’m gonna have an amazing unit ready to deliver!  YAY!!!  I for sure felt like I was doing the work of a 21st century teacher because I know so much more now about 21st Century learners!  There’s pretty much no going back now – and really, why would I even want to?  I didn’t have changes when I imagined a student going through the unit because I was pretty careful to consider that in the design in the first place.  It didn’t make it to the paper until I had put myself in my learner’s shoes – like that would even be possible with my size 15 feet!  LOL.  But I did spend time with that before finalizing anything, so I was pretty good on that front.  My experience with this project and this program in general has been transformative!  The word “authentic” has a whole new meaning for me and it feels great by the way!  I love teaching and learning and I just love the educator I’ve become!  In some ways I’m doing what I’ve always done, BUT, I’m coming at it in a much more informed and knowledgeable way!  I can back up/clarify/explain anything I design now because I have so much knowledge behind me.  As for what more we could have done in this class to make it more authentic for me, very honestly, nothing!  As the prompt states, short of going out and doing it, this experience has been incredibly rewarding and transformative, sometimes repetition is called for!