629 Week #2 – The Disciplined Mind

​Well it seems to me that the concept of “The Disciplined Mind” parallels pretty closely with constructivism and SLT as both have to do with acquiring knowledge/skills.  Further, to achieve the “The Disciplined Mind” there has to be some interest on the part of the learner.  For example in my world, the world of drama, students who are not interested in performing arts can succeed on course work and pass the course with an A.  But for some, they’ll really enjoy the work and will really want to go the extra mile to acquire the discipline above and beyond course requirements for simply passing.  That all said, it’s important that I provide learning experiences that accommodate those who just want to get through it, as well as those who are really engaged with it and want to take it to the next level.  I’ve always tried to do this anyway because many of the students in my class are there because the class they really wanted was full and they need to fulfill their VAPA requirement to go on to a UC or CSU and I’ve always needed to provide an authentic experience for both sets of students, concurrently.  I do this within my paradigm in a few ways.  First, I always have a sort of next level of work.  That is, I provide parameters for a project, but include ways to go above and beyond that for extra credit and I include clarification of that in my explanations which are generally written, video recorded and verbalized and posted for their reference in Google classroom.