Eeyore

Apparently, I'm an Eeyore.  One of our first assignments in class was to take a personality survey and the results from it identified for each of us a Winnie the Pooh character identity that pertained to how we functioned on a team.  Eeyores are quiet, reflective, and creative which is pretty dead on correct for me.  I was very nearly a Rabbit - who is focused on organization, which is pretty true for me too but I think Eeyore was most correct. 

It is interesting that my first group for our first 2 projects in class was made up of 3 Eeyores and 2 Rabbits but again, it makes total sense when I look back at how our group functioned.  We were very focused and organized, we only "met" together one time for each assignment because everyone preferred to individually reflect on the project and compile a google doc as information or ideas were formed, and we definitely came up with very creative products with both projects.  The other groups both did very standard presentations whereas our group made a "padlet" (super cool btw) and a "fakebook" as final products for our presentations.  I honestly loved working in a group with people that functioned the same as me but I can see where teams could be made even better with more diverse personalities. 

The first 2 group projects went very well - the first one on the constructivist learning method was very enlightening.  I think I teach the majority of my lessons this way (it lends itself to Art very well as all of our art lessons are accompanied by hands-on projects).  It makes sense that students learn more completely by "experiencing" things for themselves.  Our second project on inquiry-based research methods was also very cool.  I can see the importance of having very detailed and particular ways to teach children how to research and problem-solve.  We focused on the Big 6 in our group which is a very stream-lined approach to research.  It was difficult to choose one of the methods over another without having seen them in action and because many of the methods were VERY similar to one another.