My MEL Experiences

• Student/Teacher Relationships:  In high school, I used to show up to whatever class I had first thing in the morning or directly after lunch early and read or complete a crossword puzzle.  Everyday, my English teacher senior year would come in, and ask me about my book or my crossword puzzle.  He would show genuine interest, ask me questions about the story or the puzzle, and start a conversation with me about my passion for reading.
• Context: My senior year, I had to take a class about law and government.  In that class, my teacher had us prepare and create our own court cases and such for either the defense or the plaintiff.  We then had a mock trial within the classroom to try to plead the case for our side.  Then, after we would practice within the classroom, we participated in a mock trial against two other schools to practice and see how the laws and rules we learned in class applied to the real world, or how becoming an expert on your area was important to become successful.
• Interest: In my senior year physics class, our professor taught us all the components of trajectory, what it is, and how to find it, etc.  To demonstrate this, he brought in a potato cannon that he had at home.  Each of us got a chance to fire our own potato, and then determine the trajectory and the speed of the potato from how far it went, how long it took to get there, and the angle at which we had the cannon.
• Autonomy: In my sophomore year biology class, my teacher gave us the opportunity to choose whatever topic under the sun that had to do with biology that we were interested in learning more about, and create a lesson that we could teach to the class.  We got to create it and make it look however we wanted, in whatever format we wanted.  We had to provide the class with some form of assessment in whatever format we wanted, grade them, and return them later.
• Avoid Rewards & Student/Teacher Rewards: A bad example of both of these is, in that same sophomore year biology class, my teacher could not "control" the class.  No one would listen, people would talk over her, and such.  So, on the days we were "good" or that she did not want to teach, she would simply put a movie on about biology that would keep us busy for 45 minutes, so she would not have to teach.  She often exuded the attitude that she did not want to be there, or that she did not enjoy the content or class.  She would often talk about things that were unrelated to biology or things that might not have been appropriate for the class.  The class knew she did not want to be there, and acted upon it by acting out.

These bullet points are the components of the MEL Model by Mike Muir.  All components belong to him and are not my own.  All rights reserved.  The components can be found here: http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/theresa.overall/public.www/melwebquest/learning_model.jpg.