Designer: Rachel Bartholomew

Rachel is a teacher – she just finished her masters degree and has started teaching reading in a junior high located in Salt, Lake City. I asked her what she designs each day and how she does it. She wanted me to be more specific but I told her just to think about what she designs and tell me about the process. I will speak as if coming from her viewpoint.

The first and foremost thing she designs is her classroom environment. The seating arrangement is very important to me. I don’t like desks and the feeling of being trapped so I was to design an environment that lets them work in groups, lets them work with my teaching style.

I also take great effort to move things in my room to where I want them. For example, I put the stuff I want them looking at and paying attention to right in the front and less important things on the sides. I also have designed my desk location in such a way that I am not totally closed off, but I also can have some privacy and room for myself. I had to design the place for the students to turn things in specifically so that we don’t have problems with them stealing each other’s work and things like that.

The biggest thing I think of when I think of design is my lesson plans. I always start by thinking: “What is my purpose?” and then I work from there. I used to have lots of fun games and activities but I found that neither the students nor myself could relate the purpose when we were done and that’s less effective. I have been give standards and a curriculum from the state that I have to teach, so what I do is prepare a lesson around a purpose and then find which standards fit into the lesson.

Tying in Rachel’s comments with what we talked about in class I see designing instruction as simply modifying the environment of the student so that they naturally have a learning experience. When I use the word environment I think of everything around them from what the teacher says and does to the classroom, the walls, the pictures, etc. If we can create the right environment I think that learning will naturally occur. Putting a picture on the board of something the students never thought possible (i.e. a man on mars) and then placing a stack of newspapers on the floor with the same picture on the cover would be an example of this environment. It would take very little other stimuli to create a natural learning experience among the students.

As Rachel naturally did things in her classroom such as decorating, arranging desks, and planning lessons she was designing without realizing it - she was simply designing an experience that she wanted to create for her students - all those things she did playing a different part in this experience.