Waching daily Jan 29 2019

(Upbeat music)

Um...Experiences make the math fun.

Experiences open minds.

It teaches them to see the power they can have in their writing and their words and

to convey that to a larger world.

It gives students the opportunity to learn things in a real-world setting vs. just reading

about it in a book or talking about it in the classroom.

They get out and are able to utilize their skills.

They're able to practice them.

It's critical thinking, it's professionalism, it's reasoning.

It's all of those things put together.

Hi, I'm Kelli Cole.

I teach in the English Communication Department.

This fall I used experience to take my CCR 092 students to TEDx Mile High.

I'm Maren Waldman, and I am a dance instructor here.

And I teach studio classes, which means dance classes in the studio for technique.

And then I also teach dance history class, which is a reading and writing intensive class.

So, in my math class was Math for Elementary Ed Teachers.

And it was a situation where in the classroom we can do a lot of practice teaching and exercises

where students are working on their communication skills and how they might present a lesson

in a classroom.

But it's really hard to recreate the types of questions and types of experience that

they might get with a five-, six-, seven-year old.

Their main project for the semester was to create a game, a math game, and then elementary

students from community came in and played the games with my students.

For two semesters now, we've taken our students to see a live dance performance at the Mackay

Auditorium in Boulder.

So for six semesters, we have offered this special luncheon where we engage in a community

dialogue about topics of gender.

They've ranged from everything, from women in politics to women in the workforce.

And this last one was all about gender and the topic of privilege.

And we had some wonderful speakers who gave a variety of perspectives and personal experiences

on the concept of gender.

It's been really well received.

We typically fill up the Rocky Mountain Room.

We have somewhere between 60-90 people show up each time.

We get an opportunity to just engage in lunch and have open dialogue and we hear from some

great speakers and then we share our own experiences.

We highlight certain choreographers who have really had an impact on the history of dance,

and we got to see one of those performers this semester.

Now we got to dig in a little bit deeper into what he did.

Then we got to see his most famous piece that has lasted in dance for decades.

My students felt really grateful for the opportunity to attend this event.

And it provided us with a framework that we could use to talk about writing and parts

of an essay.

So what I've noticed with my students.

One of the main things is bonding.

That they have the experience of going to see something together and talking about it

afterwards....exposure to live performance at a really high level.

And I know many of them have never been to see a live performance before.

Also, something I didn't expect is just how impressive the space is, the auditorium.

Just being in this majestic space has just brought them some awe.

I have them write a reflection, no a review of the performance, and so they are studying

how to write about dance.

learning more vocabulary, and having to think about the performance.

I think my students really leave with a greater sense of being enabled to engage in dialogue.

And they all walk away having used some of the tools that they learned in class and being

able to be leaders at their tables in discussion.

Then they leave event being able to feel like they can have conversations in the public

because they've had some practice.

Um...experiences make the math fun....

There ya go!

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