One Month into the B.Ed. Program

I have always considered myself one who is open and adaptable to new ways of thinking, opportunity, and change; however, adaptability happens to be my biggest learning about teaching and learning so far. Now that the first month of the B.Ed. program has been completed, I reflect that my learning has developed both in categories of expectation–the topics and content we are required to be adequately familiarized with to receive a passing grade–and in unanticipated categories that are emergent as a consequence of this strange year of the pandemic. For example, apart from our observational practicum, all communication between peers, instructors, administrators, and content have been entirely virtual and the virtual platforms used are not universally familiar to all users. Immediately following orientation, the first-year cohort—of which I am a member—set ourselves up on media sharing platforms that allowed for cohort collaboration that is partitioned from the UNBC structure. The app “WhatsApp” was first employed for peer sharing and conversation at a rate of approximately 200 messages per day, which we scanned through for useful information. Needless to say, the time commitment of scanning put considerable constraints on my work-life balance and added unnecessary stress. Later, we transitioned to Stack where personal direct messages, group messages, and topic categorization was available and utilized to efficiently search and participate in peer-wide information sharing and collaboration. Furthermore, I am learning to familiarize myself with peers and professors who I have never met in person, build relationships through my perceptions of their online personas, and effectively collaborate with strangers while accepting their responsibility as professional students towards significant portions of my own academic success, which is predicated on the large emphasis of group work in this program. Interestingly, the unmistakable gain in efficiency of cohort collaboration, media sharing, digital literacy, and communication, that I’ve experienced as emergent obstacles since early September, is directly correlated to, what I would consider, valuable adaptive skills needed as a future educator and learner across the diversity of classrooms and students.

We have been learning of indigenous perspectives on learning and knowing and one aspect of First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) is revolved around the holistic nature of learning—how learning is not mutually exclusive from real life but is reflexive, reflective and relational. Well, I received a K-12 public education under the presuppositions of the old BC curriculum, I attended college and university under similar test-assessment based formatting, and now I am being trained as an educator under the new BC curriculum, of which I am new to (although I’ll admit much of the new curriculum formatting—such as place-based and differentiated learning—aligns with personal educational philosophy I’ve held for decades). Isn’t it an interesting coincidence that the adaptive skills required to align with the new BC curriculum, implemented in the B.Ed. Program, are similar types of adaptive skills that have emerged organically from obstacles related to technology and this online format of learning? Hmm, it is almost as if learning truly IS holistic, reflexive, reflective and relational after all…

This blog post is all about development and change over the course of the past month. Here is an array of maple leaves at different stages of change as we transition out of September and into October. I am changing with the leaves!

Over the course of the first month, we have been expected to engage with our learning and be reflexive, not necessarily display that we irrefutably are on board with everything nor understand concepts to their deepest precisions. We have been introduced to the fundamentals of the teaching profession, including its bureaucratic structure, the nine standards of education professionals are required to uphold, professional ethics, what it means to be FOIPPA (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) compliant and personal responsibility to the profession outside of the classroom (ie. our online presence and conduct). Perhaps one of the largest advantages to online collaborative tools is the ability to engage and learn from professionals who live and work all around the province or world. We have been privy to the aboriginal professional development day hosted by SD57, to teachers from northern and lower mainland school districts who have shared a wide range of experience and focus. We have been introduced to the online and physical resources available to us, both as teachers and student teachers, from organizations like the District Learning Center (DLC) or the First Nations Education Steering Committee website. Our expectations are to, over time, interact and reflect on these professional perspectives and resources and consider how they may apply to our own developing pedagogies, lesson designs, and frameworks as future teachers. Much of the course assignments and reflections are cross-curricular in nature and require us to use our learning as a whole and build upon past learning. As mentioned, we are being introduced to indigenous ways of learning and how they can be applied to the classroom to fulfill the newly added education standard 9. We are expected to consider the value of different approaches and perspectives and use our developing understanding to prospect towards an inclusive and robust educational future for learning that incorporates the foundations of education, diversity, history, differentiated learning styles, practical application and collaboration.

This blog post is all about development and change over the course of the past month. Here is ANOTHER array of maple leaves at different stages of change as we transition out of September and into October.

Anytime you stretch your learning into new factions of life and understanding, you learn something about yourself. For me, I have learned how different the university curriculums and focuses are between a Bachelor of Science and the Bachelor of Education program, which I would consider more based in the humanities and arts. For instance, throughout my previous degree, I got sufficient at structuring my scientific writing concisely and with precise intent within a rather rigid framework. The rigidity of structure struck me as slightly suppressive to creatively early on, however, later I started to learn that the rules of scientific writing are more like keys of piano where notes are constrained to a specific location as keys, defining the parameters of space in which a pianist may create within. In this degree, the writing assignments are often reflexive and reflective, and are used as tools of developing educational philosophies and pedagogies. I find this style of writing much faster, open, and a useful tool for exploring one’s thoughts. I’ve always liked free writing and I learned to quite enjoy rigid structure as well. So what I have learned about myself this past month is that I do not hold preference for one of the two writing styles, but find them cooperative and functional as a team inside my head.