Reinventing the Wheel & Juggling Hats

At a point, I feel I'm repeating myself in some of these posts, but at the same time, that indicates to me that they are areas in which I'm stilling working through the thinking and that space should be valued.

I keep thinking about my Encampment experience, my TEAC 259A course in the fall, and this 905 development - and I wonder about how much reinventing the wheel is necessary. We use buzz words like "best practices" and "industry standard", but really, what does that mean? In reality, not much. What I think is best practice can (and often does) vary wildly from others who can and do teach the same things - and often with equal levels of success. Even now, as I'm thinking about 259A, I'm looking at different readings because I know I'll have a different audience, a different group of learners with different needs - not necessarily because the technology changes, but because the group of learners they want to teach are much different. Secondary school and elementary school are vastly different - and each requires a different teaching approach. But, as I read through the new readings I'm considering, I begin thinking about which readings I would take out - then the vicious cycle begins. Then I think, do I even need to the reading, or can I create a content based lesson out of the information? That type of a lesson would be a different approach for me, but maybe it's needed? Maybe it will work. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Probably both.

When I switch to thinking about 905 and the Grab Bags I'm developing, I find it hard to switch hats.

When I do manage to at least get the hat on, I find myself staring at the blinking cursor. In my head, it's clear. I know exactly how I would teach the unit I'm trying to describe on paper. The translation from what's in my head to what needs to be on the paper is still stuck in Klingon. Develop a lesson, explain the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of it: simple. Not simple. I'm stuck in the void of not knowing how to translate things that I would just do, things I have practiced and honed into second nature into something that I can pass on to someone else. Then, it's back to the gap between what I expect people know, or at least have a baseline of versus the reality. I'm constantly reminded by my family and even some of my friends that the gaps between what I know, specifically when it's related to things I've spent years studying, is wide. I also fall into the trap of snappish or overly sarcastic responses because of my assumption that people already know something, or with an example of making a PowerPoint, at least have an understanding of what a bad presentation looks like, even if they don't know exactly how to fix it.