Dr. Angela Brown Remembers a Special Class Assignment

This summer, we've asked some of our Piedmont faculty to answer a simple prompt: tell a story that matters to you. Today's highlight, Dr. Angela Brown (or Dr. B, as she is often known), is a treasured part of the faculty of our College of Education. She has an extra special treat: an account of a particularly memorable class assignment, told by her on video! Click the button below to hear her tell it, or read on for a transcript of her memory.

Hello, I’m Dr. Angela Humphrey Brown, and I’ve been asked to share a story related to something that I care about at Piedmont and my time here from the last 28 years. The story I choose to share with you is one that relates to me teaching a course called Critical Thinking and Creativity in the Classroom, it was EDUC 6642, and it was a class in which I taught face-to-face, and it was a class that had about 12 students in it. And it was a class that met at 7:30 at night for 2 hours and 10 minutes. And one of the reasons I like to share this story is because students often refer to that class when they come back and talk to me or when they reach out and tell me how they’re doing.

In this particular class, I started the class off by having different colors of containers of Play-Doh on the front table and then I had music playing when students entered the classroom, and I had directions on the board asking students to pick some Play-Doh and to create something that they thought represented themselves. And they couldn’t tell anyone else in the classroom what they were creating.

And so they came in, of course, it was 7:30 at night, many of them were working full-time jobs and so were coming in after that. Some had had a 5 o’clock class and this was their second class. So just imagine adults —  working adults who have been working all day, or have been in class at 7:30 at night — they walk into your room and there’s music playing, and their first instruction is to do something with Play-Doh. So this sets the tone. Part of what I do as a teacher is I like to model good instructional practices and things of that nature. So, I started this class off with modeling, trying to get them thinking about creativity and critical thinking, but not saying that I was doing so.

So after they created whatever it was that they created that represented themselves, then we had to do a show-and-tell where everybody got up and we did a gallery walk going from feet to seat looking at what the person created. The person that created it could not tell us what it was they created. We had to look at it and make guesses and brainstorm what it might be. And so the class started brainstorming what it might be, and I was actually getting them to do one of the creative thinking skills of being fluent. They didn’t know it at the time, but we practiced that, trying to figure out what it was. And then once we thought about what it could be, then we started creating stories about why they chose this thing and how it might represent them as a person. So we were looking at things related to flexibility, because different students were looking at it from different areas, and we were comparing and contrasting. And then we were doing the creative thinking skill of elaboration as we tried to develop more profound stories. And after we did this exercise at the station, then the student could tell us what it was and basically introduce themselves to us. So with this one activity, I had started breaking the ice, getting them to do some creative thinking skills, even though many times adults come in and say they’re not very creative.

The other thing was they were getting to know each other, and I was setting the classroom climate and the classroom tone. And so we did this and went around to all 12, then I did mine. And what was so wonderful about this was that one lesson taught six different vocabulary words and about 10 different concepts that we were going to be learning and reading about over the next four weeks. So over the next four weeks, we kept referring back to this one activity when we talked about what we learning, vocabulary and things of that nature.

And why this stands out in my mind is that this was so profound for these particular teacher candidates in that the teacher can make such a difference on something they thought was going to be very difficult: having to do something that was creative, having to engage in critical thinking. Many of those 12 that came in really dreaded the notion of taking this class because of those two words. And so what was wonderful about this is that I could show that a teacher, in terms of how they set up a class, could actually win students over, could engage them, could deal with difficult concepts. So I was very good at modeling, and we had a blast, and we talked about it over and over.

And what was interesting is when these students came up for their capstone semesters later, they all — each and every one of them — mentioned this class, particularly this activity, and what I did with it over those four weeks in their capstone, and how that inspired them or motivated them to think about things that they could do in their teaching.

And I share this story today because it reminds me of the beauty of Piedmont. I came to Piedmont because it was a small school focused on teaching, and there was so much emphasis on personal connection with students. And this particular activity let me get to know 12 students that I was teaching, do content in a very wonderful, engaging way that was impactful for my students. And the other thing about this was that students felt that they were learning, they could take things away. The constructivist nature that many of us in the College of Ed like to teach was on display here. The modeling was on display. And I think that my teacher candidates were better teachers coming out of this program because of what I did and how I did it and how I helped them to understand the key tenets of critical thinking and creativity. I hope you enjoyed my story. Have a nice day!