Creativity
One of the main reasons I became a teacher was to make learning fun and engaging. Instead of having my students copy and paste information from the textbook , I use my creativity to make lessons more memorable. It was for this reason that I pursued Graduate Serious Games Certificate. These opportunities to learn through play are not only more engaging for the students, but I enjoy designing them.
Pioneer Simulation
It took numerous hours to create this lesson, but this is a resource I continue using in my classroom today. This was a turning point in my student teaching internship because I was beginning to change my instruction to better engage students and help them learn the content in a way that was personal, relevant, and fun. I constantly look for new approaches to learning and opportunities to utilize my creativity for the betterment of students.
United Skits of America
This pandemic has presented us teachers with quite the predicament this school year: how do we convey our teaching style to students remotely? After the first few weeks, it seemed like students were not engaging with the content. As I reflected on why that was, I decided to make the way I presented the content a little more entertaining. With the help of a video editor and YouTube, I created skits for my students to watch about American history. My students told me they enjoyed the videos as the content became a lot more clear and a little added humor helped. One student even emailed me saying, "Hi Mr. Witgen keep being cool and making good skits. This really helps learning in a positive outlook I'm not like 'ughhh another assignment' I'm like 'yeah another skit!' so thanks for making this kind of rewarding and just fun." As teachers, we are part educators and part entertainers. This pandemic has forced all of us to adjust in a variety of different ways, but hopefully my students have an idea of what I'm like in the classroom.
Serious Board Game
My final project for my serious games certificate is to design a serious board game. My goal was to design a game that helps people work as a team to accomplish this goal. In Sabotage Saturn, you and your teammates are trying to stop aliens from destroying the Earth. Your goal: sabotage their plans. However, each of you is stuck in your own separate room. Can you thwart them before it's too late?