Opening a New Hatch to Undiscovered Space

Author: Simon Harris (Page 1 of 2)

Reflection of my EDUC 491 Summative Practicum

During my final practicum, I was placed in two Science 9 classrooms and one Drama 9/10 for my ten weeks. Throughout this time, I grew larger and faster as an educator than any other time during my training. In this practicum, I was able to gain exposure to aspects of teaching that had been inaccessible during previous practicums and coursework, and this really helped me grow as an educator. For example, I had previously had little to no interactions with students’ parents, and during this practicum, I got to experience ongoing correspondence with certain parents, provided mark updates through email to parents, held parent teacher conferences (coordinating both online and in-person preferences), and tactfully diffused aggressive parent emails. I also had never reported student assessments before; during this practicum, I sent out both interims and report cards while learning to use the programs Easy Grade Pro and MyEdBC for the first time simultaneously.

I also gained the experience of what could be done when the lesson plan prepared for the day could no longer be implemented. During my practicum, there was a day in early November where it got very wet during the day and froze overnight. The following morning, the roads and highways were so slippery that half the commuters in Prince George were held up by vehicle accidents, to the extent that UNBC actually cancelled morning classes. Luckly, I made it safely from the Hart to school in College Heights where I found my attendance averaged approximately 6 students per class (all day). Needless to say, there was no strong argument for going ahead with my original day plan when so many were absent. To fill the time in my science classes, I happened to have had a bunch of riddles, logic problems, and cool (well I think they’re cool) science/math videos on standby. We spent the class solving riddles, playing logic games for candy, and watching videos that led to interesting discussions. In my drama class, I really got to know the few students that were there on deeper level. We sat in a circle and had all sorts of discussions around life, drama/acting, and more—for the entire block.

At the other side of practicum, I am still a novice educator; however, I have a stronger footing that stabilizes me enough to feel confident to take on any challenge coming my way. I have learned that I have become an educator that thrives when a professional/educational relationship is formed between the students and myself—this is when I am most effective in my teaching and when students are most receptive to my teaching. I have also learned that I am most effective when I create my own lessons, resources, and activities, and that I enjoy doing it. Unfortunately, the time and energy requirement for inventing everything each day is far to large to be sustainable and it is therefore imperative that I develop efficiency in adapting tools and materials that are already made and work towards a modicum of work-life balance.

From here, I hope to be entering the teaching profession in SD57 or in a different district in Northern BC. I am interested in eventually developing place-based and project-based curricula for which core subjects like science and math can be applied to. In the meantime, I would like to sub (face it, it’s time to make some $$$) until I find a suitable contract to apply for, as having my own class would allow me to construct effective relationships with students to optimize my teaching practice. Having taught Science, Math, and Drama at this point, I am fairly confident that, of the three, I am best suited to be a science teacher; there is an authenticity that comes with teaching a subject that captures ones’ mind. I owe a debt of gratitude to my CT(s) from this past practicum for her support, mentorship, and trust—I wouldn’t have grown the amount I did without her. I am also grateful to the students that allowed me to be part of their lives for 10-weeks—it was a ride.

SD57 Indigenous Day of Learning

During the Indigenous Day of Learning, I was able to watch the opening remarks, the keynote speaker Ashley Callingbull, and elected to watch Keynote session A on living sustainably during a time of climate change with Nikki Sanchez. All speakers were excellent, but I will choose here to focus on Keynote speaker Ashley Callingbull. Ashley’s talk was about her story from being a young child to the present and the trials and obstacles she had to overcome in her life to not just succeed but survive. One of the First Peoples’ Principles of Learning (FPPLs) is that learning is embedded in memory, history, and story. I think that Ashley’s story was a strong representation of this FPPL because it provided a connection to her message on a far more personal level—one that appears to naturally induce an empathetic response to the listeners. Often, we as a society are told or shown facts, statistics, and provocative headlines in attempts to bring attention to a cause, but this often results in an ideological division amongst people because the context is unspecific, and we often have preconceived biases. Ashley’s story told a message that we the audience could connect to and therefore the impact was meaningful because it was relatable on a human, rather than an ideological, level. I think the more we treat and view one another as human beings who each have stories and experiences, rather than as ideas, the father we will move forward together.

One Word to describe a list of educational goals for the Final Practicum: Interconnected

I have completed a list of personal goals based on the nine BCTC education standards for the upcoming final practicum; however, it wasn’t until I reread my list of goals that I recognized how not a single one was discrete—they are interconnected. Reading my goals clarified an idea that educational systems function in an organismic fashion. Currently, I am considered a student teacher (or teacher candidate) and as such, there is an implication that I am there to both learn and demonstrate competence under professional guidance and assessment. But there’s more—the students I am to teach are not “practice students,” they are really people who deserve a real education, and thus, my actions exceed myself. And how about what I know, what I understand, and what I can do? My experiences, personality and knowledge are somewhat unique by the path through life I have taken up to this point. So, I also bring something new—and hopefully valuable—to ALL who I interact with, regardless of how big or small the impact. The interactions I experience lead must lead to some degree of influence and that influence may spread implicitly or explicating, transforming through communities as it goes with a memetic characteristic. What pressure! But also comfort because it is not about me, nor anyone else—it must be about us all: students, parents, family, teachers, school community staff, local community, land, country, world, people, and the past, present, and future.

Reflective Journal from the 490 Practicum – Who am I as a Teacher?

During my EDUC 490 teaching practicum, I was placed in a Grade 8 mathematics classroom and DP Todd Secondary School. The experiences I’ve had in the classroom over the past 4 weeks have expanded my conceptualization of changing, or adapting, pedagogy to fit different learners in different environments. Having taught grade 11’s in Chemistry for my previous practicum, it became quickly apparent that some of my pedagogical approaches would need modification to fit the needs of the Grade 8 students at DP Todd. In general, some of the primary factors that affected pedagogy included the mathematics curriculum, the age and maturity of students, classroom management, the school demographic, the distribution of diverse learners and abilities, the mathematics department, attendance, expectations, the block semester system, the time of year, Math 8 being a required course, the effectiveness of student-choice, and student-centric approaches. Exploring and adapting categories such as these helped to expose some of my strengths and stretches which I am refining and working on in my teaching practices.

As a new teacher in training, I found myself entering classrooms with initial expectations based more in theory than practice, which of course is an inevitable consequence of academia. The teaching process then becomes one of inquiry—what actually works in practice? how does theory transform into practice? what factors of teaching will have the largest impact on student learning? how does a classroom change day-to-day? how long will something really take? Although my educational expertise is at an early point on a continuous growth curve, I would classify one of my growing strengths as the ability to recognize the power of relationship building in classrooms and how to apply it towards student growth and development. The first week of practicum was by far the most difficult. Because of the block semester system in place this year, the students had been learning around one another for at least 6 hours per day since September, making my position as an outsider exploitable for the initial days. To me, it was fascinating to experience how strongly getting to know the students, and having them get to know me, changed our practice over the four weeks. Something as simple as knowing students by name became immensely influential over classroom management practices, for example. Rather than simply calling students out by name for ‘misbehaviour,’ names were a powerful tool for personalizing the learning, individually focusing/redirecting attention, and integrating distracted students into the lessons. Furthermore, getting to know students allowed me to diversify the lessons. As mentioned, the distribution of learners in a grade 8 math class is larger than might be found in an elective academic course (say, Physics 12); as such, getting to know the students provided me with informational tools to tailor lessons to fit diverse needs. Throughout my practicum, I used a lot of exit slips that asked students to report feedback on their learnings and interests. Through these, I was able to quickly identify the students who were in debilitating fear of being singled out to answer problems in class, those who needed more challenging problems to stay engaged, those who really benefited from hands-on activities, those who took art seriously, those who “hated math,” and more. In the Pythagoras unit, I demonstrated some of the art that can be done with fractal trees using the Pythagorean theorem to help engage the artistically driven students. I created sets of extension problems for most lessons that were both relevant to the learning goals of the unit and also incorporated learning that was done in other units previously covered. One of the ways I knew these extension questions were effective was that, on several occasions, I had students stay in at lunch to work through them or take them home to complete (I did not assign any homework during my practicum).

As a new teacher, I am becoming better at my classroom awareness; however, it is something that has been a stretch in my practice so far, and a focus for improvement. The importance of multitasking, planning, and broad awareness are some of the characteristics of teaching that I am becoming more familiar with. My multitasking skills have never been something to brag about; in fact, I sometimes pride myself on my ability to ignore others to keep a singular focal point. In the classroom, however, I need to know what I am teaching, how it is being received, how I am positioned in the classroom, who is paying attention, who is responding to open questions, who is in the classroom, who is doing nothing because they forgot a pencil, what time it is, and so on—not only for the sake of learning, but for safety.

During practicum, one of the stretches I’ve been concentrating on is positioning myself in the classroom so that my classroom awareness increases. During lessons, I would often be standing at the chalk board writing out problems or examples while speaking. I might do something like write three problems on the chalkboard in increasing difficulty with the intention that everyone could get through the first, most could get through the first two, and few could get through all three. The distribution in difficulty gave me the time to move around the classroom to check student whiteboards (where they were working through the problems) and sit with students who needed guidance without a bunch of students finishing immediately and becoming bored (this was also an ongoing stretch to execute effectively). When sitting with students, I found it far too easy to forget the rest of the class and singularly focus on the student(s) getting my help. Having a concentrated focus was effective for a specific task, but it meant that I didn’t always notice what the rest of the class was doing during these times. One of the ways I have been working on my classroom awareness is how I go about positioning myself at students’ desks. For example, if a student sits near the front of the classroom, I worked at sitting across from them so that I faced the either the majority of the students or a portion of the room that required more attention. This required me to practice writing and drawing upside down quite a lot. Another issue was the chalkboard where I often led lessons from. The units we covered required me to make a lot of 3-dimenstional drawings, create problems in real-time, and perform all the mathematical calculations in front of an audience. Because of the focus required to smoothly execute my explanations or thought processes in writing, I found myself, on numerous occasions, face-to-face with the chalkboard, talking away to it as the classroom full of students watched the back of my head (or ignored the back of my head, I wouldn’t know).  I have since been working on position myself such that my body and vision is in an intermediate state of facing the classroom and the chalkboard simultaneously so that my awareness is maximized—something that is getting better with practice but is still far from consistent.  

One of my favourite lessons during practicum was when students designed and built staircases out of popsicle sticks and hot glue, using the Pythagorean theorem as a design element as part of the Pythagoras unit. This was the first group project that I had given to students, apart from partnered labs in Grade 11 chemistry, and I found the experience valuable. The planning of the project took a lot of preparation to set up. The materials required were not fully available at the school, so I ended up purchasing most of them myself; furthermore, creating expectations, criteria, and an assessment rubric that both ensured students met the learning intentions while giving them a strong element of choice and freedom in their designs took careful consideration. Once set up however, the lesson planning was complete for roughly three days of teaching and the quality of learning was consistent. The reason this was my favourite lesson was that it was also the first time I had assigned a task and had every single student engaged and working on what they were supposed to without needing redirection. It allowed me the opportunity to comfortably circulate the room and inquire into the different ideas and processes of each group. It was interesting how great it felt to teach students who were doing something that engaged their interests because behavioural management became a trivial task and conversations about learning (projects) were far more accessible across all students.

This project was selected primarily because it was accessible to the diverse range of learners. Every student demonstrated investment in their designs and the complexities and intricacies they chose to include (or not include) were limitless. This student-agency led to creativity and a self-driven propensity to go beyond the minimum requirements of criteria; something nearly every student did. Students were asked to create a blueprint that demonstrated their use of Pythagoras as a design element; this required them to show how right angles can be determined using Pythagorean relationships and display all appropriate calculations. They needed to include sketches and calculations demonstrating right angled triangles in their design, create a physical model with popsicle sticks and glue, and finally a reflection which compared the theoretical model (blueprint) with the physical model (actual staircase). Overall, the reactions and feedback from this project were positive and the work developed demonstrated student creativity and individuality. It was also a valuable learning experience for me as a teacher because it illuminated a lot of problems that I did not account for prior to the experience. Although my planning was thorough and complete, the project required students to attend class and actually work on their projects in the allotted time. There were students who decided to miss days during our projects, another who started with a partner on the first day and was then gone for a week and a half, and finally a group of students who began their project together before deciding on the last day that they absolutely refused to work with each other for another moment and required alternative options. I facilitated the needs of all through adjusting groups, allowing students to borrow and take materials home to finish, extending due dates, and, in one case, providing a written unit test on Pythagoras that acted as an equally weight substitution to the project (the project took the place of a unit test for the rest of the class). Below, I have included the document provided to the students as the project guidelines in addition to some images of student projects.

Summative Blog Reflection of Block 2 in the B.Ed. Program

Moving forward in my trajectory towards becoming a professional educator, I have chosen to explore the Dive into Inquiry approach to educational inquiry created by BC educator, Treavor Mackenzie. This approach facilitates a broad range of conditions that could be used by myself or students. Furthermore, I am expecting practicum placements within science and mathematics departments and the Dive into Inquiry approach aligns cleaning with the scientific method through process. I believe this inquiry approach empowers and nurtures student voices, strengths, curiosities, and interests, and therefore compliments holistic assessments that account for social-emotional, physical, and cognitive developments. The Dive into Inquiry approach has different types of inquiry—including free inquiry, guided inquiry, controlled inquiry, and structured inquiry—that can be used to scaffold student inquiry while taking into consideration the intent/focus of the inquiry, the age and skill set of the students, the maturity level of the class, and what resources are available. Personally, this approach to learning and teaching makes the most sense to me and will allow me to engage with my own passions, ideas, and curiosities when creating lessons and materials.

Figure 1. A sketchnote of the Inquiry process of Trevor Mackenzie’s Dive into Inquiry model. This image was created by Treavor Mackenzie and was taken directly from Free Sketchnote section of his website.

In block 1 of the B.Ed. program at UNBC, I proposed a guiding inquiry question that stated, “[l]ike all BC educators, we are responsible to the curriculum; but, within this curricular space, there is opportunity for innovation, ingenuity, and change. How will bringing new ideas to an old system affect educators and learners and how does one know when something works?” This guiding question accounts for any number of “new ideas;” however, it was written with intention around applying new models of holistic assessment, translation efficacy between proficiency scales and letter/percentage-based grading systems and reporting, cross-curricular instruction embedded in project-based learning within academic departments, co-creation of learning goals (like student labs), and technological integration. Throughout block 2, I gained insight and experience on some of my inquiries and have learned that the work required to effectively introduce new ideas to an old system must be carefully considered because, while there is not necessarily push back from staff and administration, there is not a great deal of support. For example, when the new BC curriculum became implemented at College Heights Secondary School, I learned that six teachers developed a proficiency rubric of assessment over three days on a grant, and that was the entirety of professional development resources allocated for its implementation. Although the teachers who developed the rubrics worked efficiently and created an effective product, the majority of the teaching staff at CHSS did not integrate or consider it in their practices. This indicates to me that new curricular change is not being effectively initiated at a systemic and administrative level, and teachers who are restructuring their methods are conducting change primarily on their own accord. As a teacher candidate entering the profession, I have an opportunity to pioneer change from the start; however, considerations of time management and burn out must be carefully factored against the weighted process of trying new ideas.

During my 391 practicum, I created and adapted a student lab on surface tension that aligned with the Dive into Inquiry process. This lab was conducted the Friday before the students’ summative unit test and was initially going to be a day of review, but I wanted them to do something hands-on and I had already planned to do a lab on surface tension at some point. The experiment was simple: the effective of surface tension for different liquids could be quantified relatively by counting how many drops of the substance could fit onto the surface of a penny without spilling over. I then inquired how I could take this simple experiment and make it into a robust review lesson based on the material covered. I started by doing the experiment myself, trying different liquids, droppers, pennies, etc., and from this process, I formulated my essential question: can we predict which chemical would produce more surface tension based on the polarity of the molecules in the substances?  The students had already learned the relevant content to perform these predictions—like performing electronegativity calculations and determining bond types—and therefore making such predictions would require students to review and apply the vast majority of concepts they would have been reviewing anyway.

Figure 2. An image demonstrating the effect of dropping water onto the surface of a penny. The water does not flow off the sides of the penny because of the surface tension water exhibits, despite the water line being significantly higher than the penny’s rim.

I then proposed a plan by creating the lab activity that focused on the Questioning and Predicting curricular competency. This plan included assessment rubrics and criteria in addition to procedural instructions, data tables, and locations for making predictions and writing conclusions. This lab could have focused on any number of competencies (I.e., I originally wanted to co-create this lab with students—it then would have focused on the Planning and Conducting curricular competency). I then explored this plan through having students conduct the experiment from which I obtained many exemplars. These exemplars were then used in EDUC 372 to display to the instructor and my teacher candidate colleagues, the process and success of this “review” lab from inquiry.

Figure 3. The first page of the surface tension lab that became a student exemplar. This exemplar acts as a public display of understanding and can be used to demonstrate success from the process of inquiry.

As I transition into Block 3 of the program, I have developed three inquiry-based goals.  First is to inquire into furthering technological integration in the classroom. Although all students in this district are given Microsoft email accounts that provides access to related educational software, very few classes which I have observed or taught in have effectively applied these tools. I value the efficiency and possibilities that are made feasible by integrating programs like Microsoft OneNote and Teams and will use this inquiry approach to implement them. I will further use this inquiry approach to explore my goals to use starter or warm-up activities at the beginning of each class in practicum, and to apply forms of holistic assessment where students are continuously informed during the learning process.

Reflecting on Experiential Practicum 391

My EDUC 391 practicum experience at College Heights Secondary School was both a positive and robust learning experience. I had the pleasure of teaching two units of the Chemistry 11 curriculum to a fantastic group of young individuals. Throughout the three weeks, 391 teacher candidates (TCs) were obligated to meet in groups of three to discuss and compare the progressions of our practicum experiences; these groups are called “Triads” and the three members are fixed. During my Triad’s weekly meetings, I learned about noteworthy characteristics like successes and issues that my peers faced in an English 11/12 and K/1 class. Although anticipated, it was fascinating to hear about the main areas of focus required for different age groups and subjects. For example, students in the K/1 class were highly diversified in terms of learning abilities, maturity, and socialization. Several students had Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and required specific supports to facilitate their learning. Consequently, there was an emphasis of focus towards ongoing classroom management. In the English 11/12 class, I learned of a student who was taking this class for their third and final time. This particular student read and wrote at problematically low grade level but had been actively turning their academic focus around in the recent year(s) and took agency over their learning with the goal of successfully graduating from high school. According to the teacher candidate (TC), this particular student supported themselves with a decent paying job that they enjoyed and hoped to continue with after high school; however, their continued employment was probationary on the student’s attainment of a high school diploma and this English course was a strict requirement. Because senior English is a requisite for graduation, the diversity of academic abilities across students is large and therefore required the TC to put high emphasis on differentiated learning in their teaching. The demographic in my Chemistry 11 class was certainly not homogenous; however, because Chemistry 11 and 12 and elected courses and require higher academic competence, the student diversity in both academic abilities and IEPs was lesser than my peer TCs. As such, I put high emphasis on personally knowing and understanding the concepts being taught so they could be presented to the students in dynamic and multifaceted formats to satisfy the diversity of learners in the classroom.

The students I worked with in my Chemistry 11 classroom ranged greatly in their individual strengths and focus; therefore, it was especially important for me to provide multifaceted formats for learning and to be able to confidently handle all types of questions and confusions associated with the chemistry concepts. What went well during my practicum was my ability to quickly create connections with students as individuals, obtain feedback on their learning, and then use this feedback to adapt lessons going forward. It quickly became clear to me that building relationships and trust with students was going to be a tool that could increase learning efficiency. Through simply knowing students’ names, classroom management became easier. For example, when certain students became talkative during lessons, I could use their name in examples or analogies to gain their attention without directly telling them to “stop talking.” Because the students already had familiarity with each other and my CT, I used something called “Name Tents” to expedite the processes of making individual connections. The Name Tents serve two functions: they act as an identifier and as a communication tool. Name Tents are folded pieces of paper (in a standing tent-shape) where students write and decorate their names, and then display them at their spaces. On the inside of the “tent” is a location for student comments and teacher responses. Near the end of each class, I provided students with a prompt to comment on in their Name Tents (I.E. What is one thing you would like me to know about you? If you could have a conversation with anyone—dead, alive, or fictional—who would it be? What from today’s lesson worked well for your learning? Etc.) which I would respond to and return to them the following day. After a single use of the Name Tents, I went from teaching in a classroom of strangers to having students stay after class and engage me in excited conversation over like-interests (music, cars, “The Peaky Blinders”). An advantage of this activity, in addition to building relationships through individual communication, was that the focus of the prompts could be shifted away from personal inquiry to educational inquiry and a tool for students to report feedback.

Template of the communication section of the Name Tents. Students write their “comment” to the day’s prompt. Below is where the teacher responds to the students comment. Often these back-and-forth’s would continue longer than a day around a single comment.

To help exemplify how I obtained and used formative assessment and feedback to enhance learning during my practicum, I will describe some of the tools I used during the bonding unit. The delivery of content for this unit was done through note packages that I created using information from multiple textbooks and additional resources. As far as note packages go, I created them to be as dynamic as possible. They included fill-in-the-blank sections, images, drawing sections, diagrams, analogies, textbook-definitions, student definitions, predictions, pattern recognition, practice problems (with extending questions) and more. Within these notes, I wrote prompts that would have students get into assigned, numbered groups of three and go to a corresponding numbered whiteboard in the room and work through problems. The use of whiteboards was based on the Vertical Non-Permanent Surfaces (VNPS) methodology in Thinking Classrooms proposed by SFU professor of education, Peter Liljedahl. His methodologies also include a “visibly random groups” component that was not utilized because of the current COVID-grouping restrictions in classrooms. The nine circumferentially located whiteboards provided me with an efficient route to circulate and acquire feedback on student understanding and provide differentiated learning assistance. It also allowed me the opportunity to use groups of students who were successfully completing problems as peer-learning resources for groups who were having difficulty and waiting for assistance. During the lesson on polar covalent bonds and molecular polarity, the student work displayed on the whiteboards revealed that I had underestimated the time it would take to cover this concept. In addition to using feedback from whiteboards, students were asked to complete a “Muddiest Point Card” (below) as an exit slip at the end of class.

Muddiest Point Card used for feedback on lessons during 391. These cards prompt students to explain the least clear components of the lesson–the parts of the lesson that were “clear as mud.”

Over that weekend, I used the Muddiest Point cards to create a focused assignment that had students progressively work towards conceptualizing polarity. The assignment had students clearly demonstrate an understanding of symmetry and used familiar concepts like directional force to conceptualize how electronegative atoms pull electron density. It also had students use molecular modelling kits to build the molecules they were describing geometrically. The assignment was marked formatively and returned to students with no grade but a great deal of feedback. Students were subsequently provided an “Understanding Check-In” which was a formative quiz based on the material from the whiteboards and assignment. Students were asked to treat this like a quiz when writing but understood explicitly that they would be marking it and that it would not affect their grade—rather it would be used to help focus the upcoming review for the summative unit test. I created the quiz such that each question addressed a specific component of their learning (symmetry, Lewis structures, bonding based on electronegativity, partial charges, etc.); it was then easy to tally up each section and weight the review appropriately. Review materials included conceptual checklists of everything we had gone over, practice problems, Phet simulations, educational videos, molecular modeling kits, Plickers multiple choice questions, and a lab that I co-created with my CT to have students apply the theory learned, but summatively assessed them on two curricular competencies. The Plickers application was a particularly valuable formative tool because it provided and saved immediate graphical class data of student answers and survey questions which was easily used to adjust weighted focus of learning.

Throughout practicum, phrases like “it’s not what you say, it’s what they do,” and “pre-assessments, formative assessments, and feedback are only valuable if they are applied to the learning” continuously occupied my mind. Tools like the Name Tents, exit slips, Plickers and others mentioned above allowed me to robustly adapt my teaching to fit the needs of the class and individuals. Although I am only just beginning the practice of extracting and using classroom data to facilitate education, I believe that I effectively implemented ongoing, bidirectional learning and that it had a positive result for the students, and myself as a developing educator.

During practicum, I spent a lot of time working towards refining my pacing. Even prior to starting practicum, I predicted that the pacing would be a component of teaching that would need to be worked out through experience. Although I am very capable of estimating the time it would take me to lecture a presentation to a group of people, teaching includes more unknowns than I was able to predict prior to starting. I also began my first day of teaching without having any clarity as to what these Chemistry 11 students did know, should know, and could know. For example, I anticipated teaching the concept of polarity would take no more than 30 minutes for the majority of the class to understand; in reality, it took several days with a great deal of different learning tools.

During the first week, it quickly became clear that a great deal of classroom efficiency was lost when transitions within lessons were sloppy and that the energy and mental state of the class greatly influenced learning efficiency. On my second day of practicum, my CT offered me some suggestions for material to get through and I created a lesson plan containing 8 or 9 components to fit into 1.3 hours in hopes of satisfying her recommendation. Not only did I not reach my pacing goal, but the learning also felt rushed, superficial, and ineffective—it felt terrible. Afterwards, I refused to attempt to cram lessons like I did that Tuesday, for the sake of the students and my own sanity. During student labs, I realized how the way in which the classroom was arranged influenced temporal efficiency. For example, by effectively spacing laboratory components, like materials, equipment, and waste containers, in the classroom, I could reduce the bottlenecking effect where students would waste time waiting. During each subsequent lab, I worked on refining the classroom layout and on techniques to keep students engaged and on track.

As I continue my development as a professional educator, I will increasingly become better at pacing. The use of timers, increasing familiarity around teaching certain concepts, viewing pacing through a holistic lens, and the physical set-up of classrooms are all items I am working towards refining in terms of increasing my ability to precisely plan lesson pacing.

As this semester concludes and the next begins, I approach the 490 practicum. During 391, I produced multiple assessment rubrics and had the opportunity to play around with several different assessment approaches; however, assessment was not the focus of the 391 practicum, and I was therefore not responsible of the overall assessment and reporting. Furthermore, there was a somewhat explosive situation that arose in response to students receiving their interim reports during my practicum. It demonstrated a strong disconnect between the function of holistic assessments based on proficiency scales and the percentage and grade-based reporting system on interims. As this experience appears in other writings, it will not be detailed here. The takeaway, however, is that I was able to observe how the practice and development of certain assessment styles could robustly represent learning, but without explicit understanding among the students, parents, and teachers, assessment can halt learning in its tracks and provoke anxiety, anger, and ego. I am curious as to how assessment strategies that are unfamiliar to students are best approached from the start and how evidence of learning is best documented by teachers for parents, students, and admin.   

Coding with Scratch – Workshop Reflection

I was first introduced to the Scratch platform through my reading of Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play by Mitchel Resnick (2017), Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab. In his book, Resnick exemplifies the function and potential of Scratch using techniques like presenting transcribed interviews with Scratch community users and learners who have benefited and grown using the platform. During my readings, I obtained a sense of the learning potential that the Scratch platform offers. It seemed to be an explorative space for people to discover or develop their passions as projects through play and tinkering in a collaborative community of peers with like- or complimentary intentions. A clear benefit of Scratch is that it acts as a powerful introductory tool for those unfamiliar or inexperienced with logical thinking and programming languages and allows them to create algorithmically without first obtaining a prerequisite competence in programming.

Resnick modeled an ADST educational pedagogy of cultivating creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers and Play, where free inquiry was imperative to learning development; however, I could not help but notice some looming constraints with his model when mentally applying it to the school district I live in. First, to effectively use Scratch, there needs to be the technological resources available for students. It astounds me that there aren’t sets of laptops or computers available for all classrooms in 2021—stepping back into the classroom for practicum has been a wake-up call to the disconnection between the emphasis on 21st century learning in the B.Ed program and the restrictive prehistoric state of resources that actually exist in classrooms (sorry, the leap from overhead projectors to document cameras don’t satisfy the needs for modern learning). Second, I find free or guided inquiry based learning theoretically more difficult to implement in senior science classes. My upcoming experiential practicum (EDUC 391) placement is in a technologically dated Chemistry 11 classroom and is somewhat pedagogically constrained by the pace and quantity of content required for students to understand in order to participate in Chemistry 12. Although I can see clear potential benefits of using platforms like Scratch in a Chemistry 11 classroom, I am constantly weighing the time required for students to develop competence in computational thinking through play with respect to the actual chemistry they will get to explore, and what quality of curricular relevance will be achieved during that time. The implementation of Scratch in a cross-curricular or project-based setting is largely feasible. Moreover, the introduction to computational thinking needs to start in primary grades, not begin in senior classes.

Yesterday, I participated in a workshop titled “Coding with Scratch.” It was a great introduction to block-based coding with Scratch, which is a programming language that allows users to develop algorithmic coding designs using block-instructional code. The advantage of block-based coding is that it allows beginners to programming a way of exploring computational thinking through play and design without memorizing a text-based language or being constantly frustrated with syntax errors. One cool and important characteristic of computers is that they always do exactly what you tell them to do, and if it does not work, then the error is in your algorithm and is always exposed.
The pace of the workshop seemed moderate and inclusive for the diversity of attendees. The instructions were guided, but the time allotted to develop the block algorithms were open enough for me to explore the program from several angles. I could perform the same task using multiple methods or alter the task to become more personalized and exploratory. This seems to be at the heart of Scratch—through simple instructions and the opportunity to play, engaged exploration became inevitable and the learning expanded beyond the instructions in a very natural manner. Furthermore, I found the process to be as difficult as it was easy. For example, following the instructions to get the cat and ball to do what was intended was simple; however, having the cat run after the ball and catch it was difficult enough to be engaging. Programming has no limit on complexity or difficulty, thus, it is an incredible learning space for students to stay engaged–with Scratch, even the most inexperienced beginners have the opportunity to design without the steep initial learning curve, while those who are experienced or expert programmers can simply put their skill set towards solving more complex problems.

Personally, I could see myself animating organic chemical reaction mechanisms for demonstrating the geometries and pathways of chemical reactions. To be successful in organic chemistry, students really need to refine their skills on rotating 3-dimensional objects in their heads—animating reaction mechanisms in Scratch may help to facilitate students to visualize and conceptualize such abstractions. Therefore, the next logical step in my professional and personal utilization of Scratch is to try the process out for myself. I will need to pay attention to how much time I spend on designing my ideas, how effective they are with respect to my intentions, what aspects of learning was emergent, and be mindful of what is accessible for technological resources in the average SD57 classroom.

 

References:

Resnick, M. (2017). Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play (Illustrated). The MIT Press.

Digital Footprint

When I consider the word footprint, I think of a trail of data which is inductive to some past event. Footprints may be intentional or unintentionally and can be covered up or fabricated. The data extracted from a footprint may be robust enough to provide clarity to an assumption or be partial and context-less leading to broad or false assumptions. Theoretically, I could look at a footprint in the snow and inductively reason information around their formations—potentially, the size and brand of boot, tread pattern, tread wear, if that person were turned-out or pigeon-toed, if they walked on their toes or heals, their estimated weight, how long ago they were formed, their location, direction, and speed, and so on. Footprints are a type of map of the past, and the data gathered is simply data; however, the way it is used can have far reaching implications in both the positive and negative.

Today, we live the age of technology and the landscapes we leave footprints across expand beyond physical space and into the realm of the digital. So, what does this mean? What are digital footprints? Who makes them? Who can see them? Who can use them? What are the risks and benefits?

Digital footprints have been defined as “
a trail of data you create while using the Internet. It includes the websites you visit, emails you send, and information you submit to online services” (Christensson, 2014). Furthermore, digital footprints can be categorized as active and passive. An active digital footprint refers to a data trail that is intentionally and knowingly submitted by the user online—this could be posting in social media, sending an email, uploading files, pressing accept on a websites request for collecting cookies, and so on—where a passive digital footprint is a data trail left unintentionally—this could be websites that collect and track IP addresses, access location or proximity data, collect metadata, and more (Christensson, 2014).

This image was taken from directly from http://cognitio.ng/blog/digital-footprint-marvel-or-menace/ and is under a creative commons license.

As of 2019 in the US, 90% of adults were determined to use the internet on average, with an average of 100% of young adults (aged 18-29) using the internet (Pew Research Center, 2019). In American adolescents (aged 13 to 17), screen media use averages 6.5 hours per day, and in tweens (12 years of age), 4.5 hours per day (Joshi et al., 2019). To help with conceptualization, if there are 24 hours in a day and the average teen is asleep for 8 hours, goes to school for 6 hours, and spends 6.5 hours on screens, that leaves 3.5 hours remaining in the day for everything else, including eating, bathing, and chores. It is a safe assumption to say that, during the 6.5 hours of screen media use, teens are actively leaving behind digital footprints, but I would argue that both passive and active digital footprints are being formed for a far higher percentage of the day.

During my Observational Practicum in the first block of the B.Ed program at UNBC, I observed a constant flow of information and communication between students during class time in high schools. My snoopy eyes fell upon one teen’s smartphone screen that was displaying the popular Snapchat app (is it still popular? I don’t know
) and I observed more unopened messages that I personally receive in a month. The student would then quickly scroll through the snaps and quickly snap an image of something or someone in the class back to the sender, or senders. My observation revealed to me that students were communicating with rapid image exchanges during class and that many of the images being exchanged were of other students who did not know they were being observed. This exemplifies a level of caution and consideration that needs to be understood by citizens and students when simply existing in today’s world, regardless of one’s personal use and intentions with technology—simply by being around devices connected to the internet, digital footprints can be created and stored in many different formats (audio, video, text, location, heart rate, etc.).

This image was taken from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cambridge_Analytica_and_Facebook.jpg under a creative commons license.

Digital footprints both potentiate benefit and risk to users and bystanders. Social media platforms are generally used as active digital footprint creators where users intentionally upload and observe information related to their interests and intentions. These digital footprints can catalog memorable life events, share information like opinions, news, or media, and record exchanges between people. Media platform giants, like Facebook, also may collect user metadata as passive digital foot printing and use it to help personalize ads and recommended media; the flip side is that they can also use it to influence elections and economic growth or decay.

The largest caution to take to heart when conducting one’s self in public and online is that what one says and does may become a digital footprint, and that the digital footprint may be—and likely will be—immortal. This means that digital citizens must not only consider the immediate implications of their words and actions, but what that could mean to their potential futures (Buchanan et al., 2017). Teens love to provoke and test boundaries, and for the most part, we forgive them—that’s why students are suspended from school for fighting rather than being charged with criminal assault, for example. But with a fight, a lesson is hopefully learned, and life moves on, and the past stays in the past; with digital footprints however, that fight may be recorded on video and that video may come up in a future job interview, a med school application, or become I viral phenomenon that labels you for the rest of your life. Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is awfully familiar with digital foot printing after images of him in brownface from an “Arabian Nights” costume party, decades previous, resurfaced as a weapon against his political campaign in Canada’s previous federal election. I am quite sure that when he dressed up, Trudeau had no intention of offending anyone, nor anticipation that the immortalized images would come back to bite him, but the contexts of the past are different than the contexts of today, and the internet neither knows nor cares for timelines—it cares for sensationalism (warranted or not). I use the Trudeau example because it tells us something important—that no persons, even world leaders, are immune from the past once the data is in circulation, regardless of context or time.

This picture is a silly, but accurate representation of my time during acting school in Vancouver and will outlive me and my good friend Scott. It is part of my (and his) digital footprint. It is forever. So be it!

As a future educator, I take digital footprints seriously. Facebook was the first social media platform I began posting my thoughts, exchanges, and images to, back in 2007 near the end of high school. I have since gone through all of my social media platforms with a torch and incinerated as much damning evidence as I could. But what of the images of others I appeared in? What of the writings about me that I cannot delete? It is not that there was anything was seriously troubling, however, much of the language and images posted back then was that of a teenage boy making jokes, and not something I care to have stapled to my professional forehead. Currently, I consider my digital footprint to be something I expect others to access if they really try, and as such, I conduct myself as if anything could resurface one day. I no longer post personal information about myself or what I am doing in my personal life because I refuse help my future enemies out by providing any additional weapons. I am not paranoid; I just do not care for the risks of posting personal information anymore. I post to Twitter when I am asked to by the B.Ed. program instructors but otherwise stick to “liking” or “retweeting.” Apart from that, my digital footprint is something that helps me every day. My Netflix algorithms predict a fantastic set of films to watch constantly, I am always shown videos of amazing musicians work online, Amazon gives me pretty decent deal notifications relative to my interests, and my authorship on a scientific research paper will be permanently archived into the history of human knowledge and discovery. As an educator, I will communicate information on a broader scale and organize lessons with more efficiency and, because of the digital footprint it will leave, I will reflect with ease.

 

References

Buchanan, R., Southgate, E., Smith, S. P., Murray, T., & Noble, B. (2017). Post no photos, leave no trace: Children’s digital footprint management strategies. E-Learning and Digital Media, 14(5), 275–290.

Christensson, P. (2014). Digital Footprint Definition. TechTerms. https://techterms.com/definition/digital_footprint

Joshi, S. V., Stubbe, D., Li, S. T. T., & Hilty, D. M. (2019). The Use of Technology by Youth: Implications for Psychiatric Educators. Academic Psychiatry, 43(1), 101–109.

Pew Research Center. (2019). Demographics of Internet and Home Broadband Usage in the United States. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/

BALANCE #OneWord2021

My one word for 2021 is BALANCE. As the new year sets up, I find myself swimming a sea of new challenges, obstacles, hopes, ambitions, cautions and ideas. As the pandemic persists, I have noticed that the general fatigue of coping does also. We, as a global society, have been dealing with COVID-19 for more than a year now, and although cases and deaths continue to rise around the globe and in my community, people continue to regress to complacency with their safety and the safety of others. I see and hear the unethical words of institutions, educators, public figures, and common folk pushing their ideals and policies as truths in areas of health and science while lacking in expertise or informed knowledge (or choosing to ignore it). Firsthand, I have witnessed forms of mass hysteria arise in parents of students in public schools from rumor and withheld information around positive cases—it truly ruined a large chunk of my Christmas break. But I do not despair, even if my feelings are occasionally dismal. 2021 is just beginning and I do hold hope, ambition, and excitement for the growth to come; but, in order to make this year the best yet, we all need to recognize that balance is central to our own well being, and therefore, the wellbeing of those we interact with and influence.

During my first year of college, I entertained an unbalanced practice of study. Intentionally, I would push myself to study and work on my schooling until all hours of the night and morning—several times I would find myself awake for 40+ hours at a time. I had idols in the realms of scientific and human exploration and wished to mimic my perception of their tireless work ethics with my own studious practices (method actor at heart). My thought process was that, if I continuously worked, my knowledge would linearly rise over time and so would my competence and status. What I found, however, was that learning is not linear at all, and that by working on something for too long, the rate of my ability to learn, retain, and understand would pass some threshold and begin to decline (like an inverted parabola if you think graphically). Since, I have adopted a balanced practice of learning. For instance, I shut down my work at least an hour before I go to bed (at a reasonable hour) to allow a wind down period; I eat more than once a day; when I feel the onset of mental fatigue, I change my activity completely by going for a walk outside, nourishing myself, visiting with a friend, playing or writing music, or anything else that is completely independent from study before returning to it; if I am tasked with monotonous memorization, I will employ the Pomodoro Technique; if my partner (who is an elementary school teacher) and I have been working all day, I will insist dinner conversation is void of any work-talk; and the list goes on. The result of employing balance in my life and studies was very considerable—the time I spent working decreased while the quality and quantity of learning went up! Sometimes we cannot help but ruminate and obsess over aspects of life that press into our souls and shadow our judgement and sight—at times it feels wrong to do anything but ruminate or obsess. But the reality of it—as I have experienced—is that these balancing variables, that often feel as though they take time and energy from the objective at hand, actually provide the strength, roundedness and refreshed tools and perspectives to tackle the problem effectively and healthily.

This image is free for commercial use under the Public Domain license and was taken directly from https://pixy.org/5785282/ 

Going into this semester, I am excited to finally teach a class. I am motivated to explore my own understanding of balance in a classroom and apply some of my ideas and frameworks to the most unregulated age (“the hormone years” as they say). I am looking forward to exploring assessment as a continuum and experiencing the gaps in my understanding when theory is applied to practice. I hope to learn from the experience of the practicum teacher while making my own successes and mistakes in a scaffolded format. I wonder how closely my practicum teacher will follow the new BC curriculum opposed to being comfortable with the ways of old, and how that will align with my duty as a student in the B.Ed. program. For now, I am tired of writing and need a walk and you have likely been on your computer too long—so go smell a flower, or make a meal, or sing and dance to some groovy tunes.

FINAL PROJECT for Education 394 – Theory in Context

Behold, the Final IGNITE presentation showing a reflexive summary of Block 1 in the B.Ed program. It’s not really an IGNITE because I bent some rules, but then again, rules are made for bending and I think I covered the criteria. Click below and download because I don’t know how to embed the video onto this page. Merry Christmas!

EDUC 394_Final IGNITE Presentation_HarrisS_UNBC

 

To more easily access image sources and references, see below:

Slide 3: https://www.helpsystems.com/resources/guides/automated-operations-5-benefits-your-organization

Slide 4: https://medium.com/wayfair-design/is-product-design-an-art-or-a-science-d62f103d18a5

Slide 5: https://theforgecommunications.com/1253/the-interconnected-world-and-how-we-can-make-it-work-for-us

Slide 7: http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/student-silhouette-clipart-1-58460510

Slide 9: https://www.inaturalist.org/

https://icon-library.com/icon/365-icon-19.html

Slide 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=TED

Slide 11: https://srhsprincipalsblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/moving-away-from-timed-tests.html

Slide 13: https://japaneseclass.jp/trends/about/Philosophy

Slide 14: http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PUB-LFP-POSTER-Principles-of-Learning-First-Peoples-poster-11×17.pdf

Slide 16:

VFS Logo: https://twitter.com/vfs

UNBC Logo: https://co-op.bc.ca/unbc-logo/

Leaning Tower of Pisa: https://www.viator.com/tours/Pisa/Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa-Tickets/d520-2428LEANINGTOWER

Slide 17: https://www.agriinvestor.com/ag-starting-see-real-convergence/

Slide 19: https://parablevisions.com/the-neverending-dreamer/

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