The principles that are most important to me

The principles that are most important to me

Clarity – students (and teachers) take their previous knowledge of learning tasks, worksheets, and textbooks and apply it to the next worksheet or handout that the teacher gives out. I want the materials that I make to be either clear enough for the students to figure out how to use, if that’s what I want them to do, OR not evidently clear so that the students will wait for me to explain what to do. Students do what makes sense to them. So, the question that I’m thinking of when designing a task or handout is, what are they going to do with this when they receive it?

Usefulness – if a teacher who wasn’t there sees one of my handouts after a session that I did, I’d like them to think “oh, that looks useful” and then take it and be able to use it. Even if they didn’t attend my workshop, I’d like them to be able to take it and use it in some way. This speaks to an idea of use of paper that was mentioned previously. Basically, is this worth cutting down a tree for?