My final blogging steps

And now our final blogs…

A full semester, gone by just like that. My first steps in the blogging world to my last, but what have I learned? More than just what I’ve learned, what have I learned to do, to be? We’ve talked in class about the KNOW’s DO’s and BE’s in curriculum and the expectations from learning further than just the knowledge.

Of course this class has broadened and extended our awareness of curriculum design and different types of assessment (the KNOW’s, the content), but in my opinion the most important part of any class is how you can use content, the DO’s and BE’s.

One aspect of this course that I really enjoyed was our Curriculum Assignment. Although at times it caused myself and my group feelings of confusion, loss of direction, and frustration, it truly forced us to understand the curriculum. I’m leaving this course with the ability to actually put my own curriculum together. Understanding of that this is just the tip of the iceberg and there is much more to be learned, I feel like I’m leaving this class with more applicable knowledge than any other course thus far!

Forcing me to be creative and collaborative, coming up with my own ideas on what my curriculum will look like and also keeping an open mind to how others learn.

All this being said, the biggest thing I’m taking away from this course is my newfound confidence with curriculum. I remember in high school teachers telling me how difficult it is to bring new things into the classroom, as the curriculum is too ‘packed’, and there was simply just no ‘room’. Perhaps this is still an issue but I definitely do not feel as ‘confined’ as I did before. Especially in math, where things seem to be so static in its ways, after this class I feel enlightened and that there are ways to bring new teaching ideas into the class while obliging to curriculum expectations.  

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I’d like to thank our professor Susan Drake and our teaching assistants Rachel and Nicole. A class based around holistic learning such as this would not be possible without such helpful teachers, always available for feedback, clarification and thoughtful input when needed. Especially to Nicole, who was assigned to our blogging group. Every week giving us thoughtful feedback on our blogs and always engaging in our blog discussions and bringing new ideas for us to consider. It was a pleasure, thanks for all your help!

--  Sam 

The 20 Strategies That Blew My Mind

Creating our own curriculum activities. I’m surprised that it has taken this long into my university career in the Concurrent-Education program to tackle such a task. But at the same time, perhaps it would be unreasonable to do so without everything else I’ve learned along the way.

Our assignment group has decided to make our curriculum activity integrated, pulling together Math subjects and also Geography. The main thing that we all agreed on before we started our project was that we wanted the outcome of whatever we made to be fun and engaging for the students. After seeing all the examples put forward in class and ones that some of us have done though our own education, it becomes clear that the more fun a student is having, the more interested and engaged they will be in the material being learned.

After our first brain-storming session together I couldn’t stop thinking about what I could bring to our activity to make it more engaging. Although I was way ahead of myself and our group was not nearly at this stage in the process, I decided to do a little research.

The same basic ideas kept coming up on my computer screen; full-class engagement, address all types of intelligences, students must be an active part of the learning process, engage, engage, engage. But not a lot came up about the specifics in how to go about doing this, and then I remembered. Two years ago when I started my new job at the Dufferin-Peel CDSB I was able to attend a teacher development session they were holding for new teachers. I was working with the Staff Development Department so opportunities like this came up a lot and they always encouraged me to go knowing I hoped to be a teacher myself.

The first session blew me away! It was given by Marcia Tate, an educationalist who has studied how the brain works and develops and the need to start teaching students in order for them to retain information more efficiently. Thinking back to the presentation, one thing that stood out to me was that I remembered so much of what Marcia talked about. From two years ago, I still remember much of the presentation. She had developed 20 Strategies to implement into every lesson given to your students in order to engage their attention and more importantly their Brain.

Marcia’s 20 Strategies were:

1. Brainstorming and discussion
2. Drawing and artwork
3. Field trips
4. Games
5. Graphic organizers, semantic maps, and world webs
6. Humour
7. Manipulative, experiments, labs, and models
8. Metaphors, analogies, and similes
9. Mnemonic devices
10. Movement
11. Music, rhythm, rhyme
12. Project-based and problem-based instruction
13. Reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning
14. Role plays, drama, pantomimes, and charades
15. Storytelling
16. Technology
17. Visualization and guided imagery
18. Visuals
19. Work-study and apprenticeships
20. Writing

 Now obviously she was not implying that all 20 Strategies be implemented in one lesson, but if 1-3 were put into practice the difference would be tremendous. The presentation went on to discuss all different strategies and we were all given workbooks that have explicit instruction on how to bring these strategies into any classroom.

Looking back to this presentation and all the ‘Brain Engaging’ strategies, it’s amazing how well they apply and help with our ongoing curriculum assignment. We have already made plans to implement many of the strategies into our integrated curriculum such as Storytelling, Technology, Visuals, and Role playing in order to further engage our perspective students. I also will continue to keep these strategies in mind when thinking about my own personal curriculum philosophies. 

Inq-Curious

This week we were required to read a chapter in our text focused on Inquiry-Based learning and Interdisciplinary models. Inquiry-based learning is used to promote student problem-solving in the real world. ­­Projects in this discipline emphasize critical thinking, focusing in and thinking like an ‘expert’ on an area.  It has been described that this type of learning ‘liberates’ students from educational ‘constraints’ by giving them the freedom to explore and express ideas within a subject discipline.

While reading the different project examples that fall under this type of learning like the ‘Cigar Box’ Project used in a grade 6-7 history classroom, or the ‘Mountain’ Project created for grade 11 students to better understand the climate zones, transference of energy, and biomes. I couldn’t help but immediately think of the assignment we will soon be involved with: Genus Hour.

Genus Hour is a way for students to be the ‘experts’ in their own field, whatever interests them. As long as the project has a main focus or question to be answered requiring research and richer and deeper understanding of the subject, students are solely motivated by themselves… well that’s the hope.  

This type of projects allows students to be active participants in their learning, posing and pursuing their own questions, which is what student-centered inquiry learning is all about.

This type of project and teaching ideas get me excited and energized to implement them into m own classroom in the future, but then I think about whether or not I would enjoy this project as a student?

Although all the right ideas are there, a project completely run by and for the student, if this was assigned to me in high school I know I would feel uneasy and anxious about it. I was the student to read the rubric before reading the activity, consciously thinking about where I can lose marks and where the teacher is looking to give them. But with this type of project, that’s not exactly the case.

Only one class in my high school career do I look back and truly think I was motivated for it. It was grade 12 English and it was summer school, and I was not excited about either. Our teacher decided to give us a culminating final project that we were free to work on whenever we wanted, as long as it was completed by the end of our ‘term’. He gave no rubric and little written instruction; we just knew that we were to make a 10 minute presentation answering the question, “What makes a classic, a classic?” Obviously linking our ideas to course material was suggested but we were given full reigns on where we wanted to go with the presentation.

Although this did not result in my best mark in high school, it did get me motivated. The project was more for me, and developing my ideas rather than simply elaborating on the teachers. I remember feeling proud of my work; it was a reflection of me and my ideas instead of a mirror of my teacher.

I think that’s what Inquiry learning is about, although it may not be the most efficient or even give the students their best mark, its more about their thinking process rather than the results. 

The Power of Praise!

At what point in life do we stop dreaming about the impossible and all that we can become if we work hard at it? “You can do anything if you set your mind to it and work hard”, is something that I’m sure most of my fellow classmates have heard before either from a parent or inspiring teacher. But somewhere along the way, some of us forget about shooting for the stars and instead 'stick to their guns'.

Last week in lecture/seminar we were shown a short YouTube video concerning the effects of different types of praise and the power acknowledgements have on children; particularly in their mindsets towards learning.

The video describes a simple study done by Professor Carol Dweck, revealing the astonishing effect that praise has on children’s development. The study took four-hundred grade five students and gave them all a simple IQ test and on completion the students were given one-of-two verbal praise: 

1. “Wow, great job! You must be really smart at this!”
2. “Wow, great job! You must have worked really hard at this!”

The study went on to show that the students who were praised on their intelligence alone were far less likely to push themselves to try harder tests and when given difficult tests would become frustrated and give up early. On the other hand the students who were praised on their effort in the testing were 25% more likely to participate in more difficult testing that was prompted to provide’ great opportunity for the students to learn and grow’. When faced with more difficult challenges these students tended to work harder, longer and seemed to enjoy doing the work more as well.  I think it’s remarkable how such a small difference in the prise given to students can make such a huge difference in their development and even more importantly their willingness to push themselves to learn more, challenge themselves, and grow.

This brings me back to my original thought, ‘At what point to we stop pushing ourselves to do more?’

A goal of the new pedagogy is the idea of deep learning. Described by Hattie (2012), this is “conceptual thinking that allows surface and deep knowledge to turn into conjectures and concepts upon which to build new surface and deep understandings” (p. 77).  Deep knowledge is almost an intrinsic/self-motivated achievement.  In order for students to develop self conjectures and to critically think about what is being learned, they need to want to learn and want to make those connections. Otherwise all knowledge being taught is face-value and simply a string of facts to memorize. Hattie’s idea of deep knowledge can be linked quite closely to Dweck’s notion of Growth Mindset.

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Through Dweck’s studies she found that students either have a Fixed or a Growth Mindset. She describes Growth Mindset as the idea that no matter how smart you are, you can still learn and always become smarter. On the other hand students with a Fixed Mindset see intelligence as a fixed trait. For me it seems that the students with the Growth Mindset are far more likely to achieve this idea of deep learning and ultimately be more successful in not only schooling but also to push and self-motivate them throughout life.

So I guess my question has changed. No longer do I wonder when it is that the student decides to stop pushing themselves, but how can I as a teacher implement the idea of Growth Mindset and motivate my students to have the confidence to push their boundaries to grow… either by using ‘effort’ encouraging praise or other concepts.   

Till next time,

Keep Bloggin'!

My First Step...

This is my first ever blog. So that in itself is a first step. I am a fourth year student at Brock University in the Concurrent Education Program and I would say that I’ve taken many steps towards my final goal of becoming a professional educator. This however, is still a first.

I am currently in a mandatory class called ‘EDUC 4P19: Foundations of Curriculum and Assessment’ and it seems to be the first class I’ve taken that really looks at curriculum and how assessment plays a role in the classroom. Although every year we look at classroom dynamics and different ways of approaching subject matter to better connect with the variety of different learners, I’ve never really considered assessment to be an integral part of the learning process, rather than just a means of measuring achievement.

So, today is September the 11^th, 2014. I am one week in and I’ve already taken many first steps into my fourth year of studies! Opening my mind to using assessment and evaluation not only of learning but also for and as learning, and taking my first baby steps in the world of blogging.

I’m so excited to see where the journey takes me.