From Curiosity to the Classroom: The Journey of this Teacher-Creator

Summer is often a time for rest and rejuvenation, but for many educators, it's also a period of preparation and professional growth. This past summer, a personal project to enhance my resource creation skills evolved into a dedicated mission to craft complex, ready-to-teach materials for other educators. This journey was fueled by my own curiosities, which I sought to transform into critical lessons that resonate with today's students.

A New Approach to Resource Creation

My creative process began with a simple question: How can I take my own interests and observations about the world and translate them into engaging, relevant classroom content? The answer came through a deep dive into using AI to streamline the development of comprehensive units and courses.

My approach has three key elements:

1. Connecting Lived Experience to Curriculum: I start by examining a significant event or cultural phenomenon that students have directly experienced, but may not have explored in a structured, academic context. For example, I developed a multi-part unit on the COVID-19 pandemic. While students lived through this monumental time, they rarely have the opportunity to analyze its social and economic impacts in the classroom. This unit uses the pandemic as a lens to understand larger concepts, such as the future of work and inequality.

2. Using Pop Culture to Bridge Gaps: I realized that platforms like Roblox have been a significant part of many students' lives, particularly during the pandemic lockdowns. Instead of seeing it as a distraction, I chose to use it as a powerful teaching tool. This led to a unit that explores Roblox from multiple angles: as a new frontier for youth marketing, a creative economy for young creators, and a cultural force that shapes youth culture.

3. Modernizing Core Concepts with a 2025 Lens: This summer also allowed me to revisit and refresh past projects to make them more relevant to today's students. I’ve revised older lessons to have a broader reach for multiple courses, and challenged myself to create entirely new courses grounded in the realities of 2025. This includes a full entrepreneurship course with units on venture planning, financial planning, marketing, and production. These resources are designed to be comprehensive, providing a scaffolded structure for teachers to use.

The Resources So Far

My summer of creation has resulted in a growing library of materials designed to spark critical thinking and discussion. A look at the subjects covered reveals the diversity of these resources:

Some of the units I created during the summer

• Entrepreneurship: A complete course titled Entrepreneurship: The Venture that covers everything from strategic plans and timetables to the final risks and conclusions of a business.

• Media and Society: Units that explore the modern media landscape, including topics like perception, power, and polarization, as well as the relationship between political figures and the media.

• AI and Technology: Resources on AI ethics and the impact of artificial intelligence on the modern workplace. These units also examine topics like the nature of online friendship and parasocial relationships.

• Leadership and Business: Lessons on various leadership styles and the evolution of leadership, as well as discussions on environmental ethics in business.

  
  

By turning personal curiosity into purposeful creation, the goal is to provide a comprehensive, thought-provoking library of resources that help students connect with the world around them in a meaningful way.