Sharing is Caring

The week of April 7th meant the last days of ECS 350 and of my fourth year!

On Tuesday we began the class by creating a six word story to describe our preinternship. It was my first time doing a six word story and I thought that it was a fun activity to recap all of our experiences in a brief manner. The six word story that I created was “Coop was awesome. Sharing is caring”. The reason for this is because my coop was super helpful and resourceful, sharing all of his lessons and files with me. He said that there is no point in trying to reinvent the wheel and that teachers should try to “steal” as much as they can from other teachers. The other mathematics teacher at the school also shared her files with me, making a large contribution to my collection. I am was grateful that they were willing to share their work with me as it provides me tons of resources to use and adapt.

On Thursday we shared our inquiry projects in groups of three. One of the projects I was able to hear about was Tessa Thacker‘s inquiry on Treaty Education. Tessa shared that she wanted to learn more about Treaty Education, how she went about her project, and some of the resources she discovered. One resource she shared with the group was a 100 Years of Loss curriculum package. The package included lesson plans, worksheets, and activities that could easily be implemented into a class. The best thing about the package is that is it totally free for educators, they just have to submit a request for one. Check out Tessa’s inquiry project by clicking on this link to her blog.

One thing that I will always try to do as a teacher is share resources that I’ve discovered with others. I believe that professional collaboration is an important aspect of being a teacher, and sharing ideas is one way to accomplish this. We are not only teachers to our students, but also to our coworkers and we should try to learn as much from each other as we can.

Preinternship Reflection #3

Of all the things that I was able to learn during my time as a preintern, there was one thing that surprised me the most. I was blown away by the amount of time students were given to do their work. Before internship I thought that my lessons would have to be filled with me teaching from start of class until the bell rang and that every lesson would be like that. Boy was I wrong. At the end of each lesson/section, students were given at least half a period to work on practice problems. The more practice problems they had, the more time would be permitted. Often if they had a hand-in assignment or a project to do, they were given one full period at minimum to do their work. Although it surprised me, it made sense that they would be given more time in class to do their homework. Students have plenty of things going on after school that doing their homework might not always be their top priority. Allowing students to do their work during class time allows you to monitor the students work and ensure that they are on the right track. It also makes it easy to answer any of their questions and allow them to continue on with their work. The key understanding for this is to plan an appropriate of time to do their work in class. Be prepared for students to finish their work earlier than you expected, or to need more time than you thought they would.

Preinternship reflection #2

During preinternship I was lucky enough to get to do some teaching in one of my minor subjects, phys. ed. I was able to teach four consecutive lessons in a physical education 20/30 class. It was a small class in comparison to other PE classes, such as Wellness 10 that had 33 students, as there were only 7 males and 6 females. The PE teacher said that they were going to start a unit on volleyball and that I could begin it with them.

To start the unit I did an activity called Bound Ball. I first learned about Bound Ball through Brian Lewis of Growing Young Movers (GYM) when he asked HOPE members to participate in a game that he was going to describe and record. I took part in the activity and instantly loved it. I was able to transfer my volleyball skills and the game was able to last long since the ball is allowed to bounce. You can see the video below!

I thought that playing this game would be a good way to start the unit as it is a differentiated approach to playing volleyball. Having no net and allowing the ball to bounce between hits meant that every student could participate and be active no matter their skill level. The students needed time to get used to letting the ball bounce, but by the end of the lesson everyone got the hang of it and were actively participating! I was able to monitor the game and give advice to students on how to improve skills such as bumping and setting.

You can find the lesson plan I made by clicking the following link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-_zglN-OUXyOUFEN3VCaWJJQVE/view?usp=sharing

Classroom management

Classroom management can be one of the most challenging issues for becoming teachers. As a student teacher, having the role and responsibility of a teacher was strange for me at times during preinternship. During the first week of observing and teaching I paid special attention to how my coop managed the students and used techniques that he used as the students were used to them. An example of this was walking around the room while students took notes or worked on assignments to ensure that students were on task and engaged. One thing that really helped my classroom management was getting feedback from my coop. The feedback he provided had plenty of suggestions and comments on what worked and suggestions for what I can improve on. I was able to use that feedback to develop my teaching practices and classroom management skills. An area that I can improve on is getting the students attention. How I usually did this was by stating something along the lines of “ladies and gentleman, can I get your attention please”. I would start with a loud voice to get their attention and then use a normal voice once I saw that they were looking and listening to me. While this approach would work for the majority of the time, I would like to try to gain the students attention with non-verbal cues so that I am not always raising my voice.

I wanted to find a video that could help me with classroom management and discovered a video called New Teacher Survival Guide: Classroom Management. The video is about a first year teacher who wants to improve her classroom management skills. I found the video to be very interesting, as the teacher recorded her lessons and watched them to see how she could improve her classroom management skills. The video includes tips for beginning teachers to use in their practice. One of the tips was to use physical proximity to prevent potential disruptions, much like what I found to be helpful during my preinternship. Another tip that I think would be helpful is to develop individual strategies to redirect students who act out. I think that I would like to try recording one of my lessons during internship in order to critique my teaching.

Field Trips: Pre-Impact, Impact, and Post-Impact Planning

For one of our classes we went on a “field trip” and revisited the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. It was my first time going there since I was in middle years, so it was purposeful for me to experience what the museum has to offer now that I am older and wiser. We walked through the exhibits on the bottom floor, consisting of Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, and First Nations galleries. The purpose of the trip was to keep close attention to the First Nations gallery and observe what we saw and what we didn’t see. Before we entered the exhibit we were given a hand out that students would be given to guide their learning. The sheet acted like a game in a sense that people wanted to be the first ones done. This really narrowed down what people were looking for as they had tunnel vision to find the information that they needed. At the end of the tour we discussed how the sheet was counterproductive, as some of the fill in the blanks were more like a checklist of things to see and required a low-level of knowledge. We also discussed issues that we had about the exhibit. The main issue of debate was how the exhibit lacked information on residential schools, as the only thing that mentioned them was a quilt made by students of a one that was only display like a piece of art.

This field trip highlighted the importance of pre-impact, impact, and post-impact phases of planning for field trips. I was first introduced to this approach of planning in an Outdoor Education course that discussed that proper planning is the most important aspect of a field trip and should not be overlooked by teachers. The pre-impact phase should introduce students to what the experience will include and prepare them for the trip. Discussing appropriate behaviors and what is expected of them should also be mentioned in the pre-impact phase. Any kind of preparation should be considered and addressed during this stage.

I am going to quote Nick Forsberg, Twila Wilson And Nancy Morrell’s explanation of the impact phase from their research project “Education Beyond Traditional Classroom Walls: Voices from the Valley” as they describe it best:

Very often this phase is viewed by many as the key component in the whole process. While acknowledging that it is very important, it is no more important than the pre-impact or post-impact phases. For one only has to see that if it were not for extensive planning and preparation in the pre-impact phase, the trip itself would not come to fruition or be as effective. And were it not for a post-impact phase, what is actually being completed during the impact phase has no context or relevancy if it is not transferred back to the ‘school’ and into one’s own life. Thus, the impact phase serves as the ‘place’ where students, teachers and student teachers engage in the teaching and learning that is very often associated with curricula. This phase brings to life the importance of values such as responsibility and caring for each other and the democratic skills necessary to live and learn in a warm and nurturing environment. (1999)

The post-impact phase is the follow up stage where students revisit, reflect and analyze their experiences of the trip. It is important to debrief the impact phase in order for students to fully comprehend their experience. The emphasis of the trip should be the pre- and post-impact phases in order to ensure that the trip is as effective and beneficial as it can be.

Preinternship Reflection #1

During my preinternship I taught a Pre-Calculus 20 mathematics class in the last period of the day. The class has 33 students enrolled, and students were antsy for the bell to signal the end of the school day at times. Students had to sit through 3 days of note taking to go over content prior to this lesson, so I wanted to engage their learning through a different approach.

To do so, I searched for domain and range activities on Google and found this post by John Scammell. The post has a detailed description of how he did the activities and includes files for other teachers to use and adapt, which is what I did for this lesson. John is also the creator of WNCP Orchestrated Experiences for High School Math, an online resource for mathematics teachers to find and share activities “linked to the WNCP High School Math Curriculum, which suggests that teachers should ‘orchestrate the experiences’ from which students extract meaning.” I was happen to find this resource as it has activities based on outcomes that are related to the Saskatchewan curriculum.

Since there were so many students and the activities could get pretty loud, my preinternship partner and I divided and taught to half of the class in different rooms. The students responded well to these activities and were appreciative that we were doing something new. It was an interactive way for students to develop their understanding of quadratic functions in vertex form.

You can find lesson plan by clicking the following link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ae0lAT9tBCE7tr6kcNNRkwfgKSJXmaqyDPNeDBbCxig/edit?usp=sharing

Inquiry

Thoughts that resonated with me while watching Learning to Inquire -Innovations for Deeper Teaching and Learning:

–what did you do in school today?

–you won’t understand inquiry the first time that you try it, but each time inquiry based learning is used you gain further insight and your teaching practice reflects that growth.

–“changed my way of thinking as a teacher”

The inquiry project in this class will be another step in understanding the inquiry process and how to use inquiry in my own classroom.

Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles

 

Taking your students learning styles or how they learn best into account prior to planning your lessons is a form of differentiation. It is important to grab the attention of your learners and get them excited about learning by teaching in a way that they enjoy and that they can best understand the material. This also means that you should be constantly changing your teaching strategies in order to address different learning styles, introduce students to new ways of learning, and keep the content interesting. Incorporating multiple learning styles aligns with the philosophy of Universal Design where your teaching serves ALL of your students. Often changes that you make for one student will also benefit many others. There is not one specific category that everyone will fit into, everyone possesses strengths in different intelligence areas and this is why it is so important to use different ways of teaching.

Universal Design for Learning in Action:

Treaty Ed. Workshop

The week of Jan. 6th, 2015, denoted the start of my preinternship semester, beginning with a two-day Treaty Education workshop hosted by the Office of the Treaty Commissioner. The first day of the workshop was focused upon the history of treaty making. We began the day with an “Ice Breaker” true-or-false activity about historical treaty facts, establishing a brief understanding of treaty education. The questions acted as a platform for the day as we built our knowledge off of what we discussed. That activity was followed by a game of Treaty Jeopardy where we were divided up into 6 large groups and worked together as a team to solve the questions

 

 

I really liked how the workshop leader used these two activities together to engage us as learners. I could see myself adapting these activities to teach treaty education, as the students are tested on and expand their previous knowledge. The Office of The Treaty Commissioner has a resource page with a variety of Treaty Ed. PowerPoint activities, including the activities discussed above. Check out some of the activities for yourself be clicking on the link above!

Grading Practices

Grading Practices Infographic by Adam Brock

*Follow this link for more info.

In my pre-internship experience I saw two very different styles of grading for math courses in the same school. In one situation, students were required to complete practice problems for each section, mark it on their own, and tell the teacher their mark. Each assignment would be included in their final grade. Since there were so many assignments, individual assignments were not heavily weighted. About once a semester, the teacher would randomly select a previous assignment to be handed in and corrected by the teacher to ensure that the students deserved that mark. The other teacher used textbook questions as a way to practice the material instead of being graded on them and used hand-in assignments for marks less often.

After reading the article, provided in the link above, I can see positives and negatives to both of these grading strategies. A combination of these two methods may give you a better understanding of student achievement. If you gave students both practice questions and an assignment for grading each week, leading up to a unit test, students would be aware of their progress along the way and you would be able to support students who may be struggling with the material because you would know what their current skills were. It would also be beneficial to provide different types of assignments, especially in mathematics, where students could show me their strengths in other subject areas but in a math context such as through projects.