Concluding Remarks

As this course is coming to an end, I took time to reflect on this course and what it has taught me.  There are many new concepts that I have learned throughout the course of this semester that I believe will make me a better teacher.  Interdisciplinary learning, the KBD umbrella, integrated thinking are all aspects of the course that were very important to learn and I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn through EDUC 4P19.  Also the discussion between the class that was created through the course in terms of blogs and curriculum groups was a great aspect to the course.  It allowed us to hear other peers ideas and opinions about education and the education system as a whole.  It opened my eyes to a wide variety of ideas that I have never though of before.  The group work in this course was very appropriate and beneficial.

Last week the class participated in Genius Hour before this class this concept was new to me.  I think it is a great idea, it allows students to share what they are passionate about.  Not only does it help them as they learn researching skills, but an aspect that I didn't realize it benefited as well is their public speaking skills.  Public speaking is hard for anyone to do, let alone a student doing it in front of their peers.  What better way to make the students comfortable with public speaking then Genius Hour.  It allows them to present something they are interested in and most likely have background information on therefore will feel more comfortable presenting.  I am very glad we learned about this in class, it will definitely be something that I incorporate into my classroom one day! You can find all the information you need on Genius hour through this link: http://www.geniushour.com

My favourite outcome from this course is the curriculum aspect.  This has opened my eyes to a whole new world in teaching.   I have never even seen a curriculum document before let a lone had the opportunity to create my own.  Because of this class I now have a better understanding on why teachers do what they do in order to make the curriculum creative, and that is what I hope to do in the future.  It is important for students to be interested in what they are learning, and with the curriculum already being set in stone for the teacher it can sometimes be difficult to keep it creative in order to keep students interested.  During the time I spent with my group discussing curriculum, and thoroughly going over the geography aspect; I was already making mental notes on activities that I could do with the specific sections in order to engage the students and have them enjoy the topic.  This is done quite often in elementary school; an example I can think of from my personal experience is Grade 4 medieval times section.  It is important to keep units within a class fun, new and interesting.  And that is what I want to do as a high school teacher, keep the excitement in the units like elementary teachers are oh so well at.  This class has taught me more about teaching then I would have ever expected in a class and has inspired me to be the best teacher i can be.

Concurrent Education at Brock

This past week a friend of mine who is in Outdoor Rec at Brock University asked me for help with one of her assignments.  I thought that it was strange considering I have never taken a class in that department.  When we met up I found out that it was a lesson plan that she had to conduct, she asked me because I'm in the concurrent program.  This was a real eye opener for me, because I have personally never wrote one myself.  It was a real struggle trying to help her because I had no idea what I was doing.  Being a 4th year student in a education program, I should have lots of experience with planning lessons and the curriculum behind it all.  Truth is that prior to this course I have never even thought about creating my own lesson plan and where to even find the required information that needs to be covered. I feel as though this is why I am struggling so much on the current project we are working on in EDUC 4P19, because it is a totally new concept to me.

You'd think that creating curriculum and planning lessons would be something we were to be focusing on from the beginning, not starting in fourth year.  After making an attempt to help my friend and not being able to succeed, it got me thinking about the concurrent program here at Brock.  For the first two years we had to take classes in Child and Youth Studies, which I do believe is important.  However we learned overlapping material in many of the classes, and much of it is totally   unnecessary for an aspiring teacher wanting to teach at a high school level.  In many of the earlier year CHYS programs we learned about theorists such as Piaget and Kohlberg, which is something that we went over again this year in EDUC 8P19.  I understand that it is an important concept to know, however learning it once would have been sufficient, and I believe that we could have made better use of some of the times spent in CHYS classes with learning about curriculum or having another chance at a placement.  I'm not trying to rip apart the Concurrent program, I just feel as though there are ways that the program could be adjusted to better prepare students for a teaching setting.  

One thing that I believe would be beneficial would be more placement opportunities within our classes.  Over the four years I've only been placed in one classroom, which was Grade 4. I learned a lot and it was a great experience, however I am in intermediate- senior, therefore this placement was not really relevant to my previous life goals of becoming a high school teacher.  Also I believe that it would be very beneficial to incorporate a class or part of a class about curriculum and lesson plans.  I feel so lost when looking through curriculum documents, seeing as it was my first time doing so the other week.  I wish I had the chance to learn about it before this class so I would have a better understanding of what is going on during this class, and would have been able to help out my peer with developing her lesson plan.  Con-ed is a great program, and I really appreciate the opportunities that it has given me.  I just wish I felt more comfortable with knowledge around curriculum and had a chance to have a placement within a high school.

Essential Questions

Questions are a part of your everyday life, and have been since they day you were born.   How old are you? How was your first day of school? Where are you going to apply? What are you wearing tonight? Questions are important, but of even more importance in learning and education is essential questions.  What is an essential question? Big, powerful, driving and guiding questions. What is the difference between a question and an essential question?An essential question generates discussion, deeper thinking and wondering about the subject as a whole rather then just the specific question that is being asked.

Understanding and being able to ask essential questions is a life skill that is necessary for people of all ages.  Whether it is a child wondering about how the world works, or even a parent asking about how the child's day was, without essential questions it is very difficult for the person to learn and have an intelligent conversation.  For example, if a parent asks its child "How was school?' 9 times out of 10 you will get a single worded answer.  However if they were to ask a driving question such as "What was something interesting that you learned in Mrs. Smith's class today?"  By asking a 'rich complex question with no single answer' you will get into a discussion that will last more then a couple of minutes.

It is not just in social form where essential questions are valuable, An essential question forces children to use higher order thinking while addressing the question.  Many times educators ask essential questions at the beginning of a unit, not only to find out what the students already know but also in order to get the students using higher level thinking, and associate what they already know with other topics within a subject.  Essential questions can be the beginning of and can provide inquiry based, problem based and project based curriculum.  Teachers will often post questions in prominent places within the classroom and refer to them throughout the unit.  Often educators will also involve students when developing the questions, so that the students understand what they will be learning about in the specific unit and have a higher sense of ownership towards the topic.

Essential questions are very crucial to our lives as university students.  Have you ever had that one professor who is very opinionated and is always right even though their views are different from yours and you do not see the world in the same way.  You have to learn to question authority figures; they are not always right.  There is not always a right or wrong answer.  Through learning, discovering and asking essential questions, it allows you to critically analyze the situation and develop your own opinion and answers to the questions that you might have had.


References:

Drake, S.M. & Reid, J.L. & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving curriculum and classroom assessment: Engaging the 21 Century Learner. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.

Susan Drake. (October 2, 2014) Personal Communications. Brock University.

Genius Hour-- Where Passion Comes Alive

Genius Hour-- Where Passion Comes Alive

The short video that we watched in lecture taught us that the Genius Hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom.  It is a movement ran by Google that provides children with a choice of learning whatever they would like to for an hour.  The video showed this technique in schools of the younger grades, such as a primary school.  I think this is a great idea to incorporate into the curriculum but at first I was unsure why and how this would be beneficial for the older grades in intermediate- senior.  Since the video only had examples of younger children, it didn't express the advantages that Genius Hour could provide to older students.  High school is a time in your life when you have to make a lot of difficult decisions, and often after the four years still don't know which path you should take for post secondary.  I believe that with incorporating Genius Hour to the high school curriculum it will allow students to explore what they're interested in without having to directly choose a path, this could potentially help them figure out what they want to do post secondary.  High school schedules are much more difficult to find the time to do activities such as these considering the 4 different classes that take place in a day.  However I believe that during the mandatory grade 10 class; civics and careers, would be an excellent time to incorporate the Genius Hour seeing as it fits into the curriculum and is not taking time away from other subjects.

Looking back at my high school career I believe that I never fully got the chance to explore other careers and interests that were not laid out in front of me.  I knew the basic careers such as teacher, lawyer, doctor, etc.  I decided on teaching because I knew that it was a good career, I love working with people and I am in a family full of teachers which definitely had a influence on me. To this day I feel comfortable with teaching as a career however I do not know if it is for me.  I have never had the 'ah ha' moment of where you know what you are meant to do until recently, and the career has nothing to do with teaching.  Although I know that Concurrent Education is an excellent program and extra education never hurts, it still took me 4 years in a program that is not right for me to realize this.  Looking back I wish that during the grade 10 careers class we were given an opportunity to research other careers and take time to really and truly understand where your interest lies.  The Genius Hour would provide students with an excellent opportunity to explore their interests and careers that are connected with those specific interests.

Blog 1: Old Story vs. New Story

All students makes sense of the world through story, what they are told and their past experiences. This is one things that all humans have in common, that they learn in similar ways.  Therefore it is totally understandable that there has been many different methods of teaching styles throughout history.  It has recently been categorized into what is called the old story and the new story.  The old story consists of the typical ideas of teaching, that the teacher is the expert, the student is the passive learner, there is one right and answer and the classroom consists of students in rows, and the teacher dead centre at the front.  In some cases not much has changed from classrooms today.  An example that I can think of off the top of my head is BIOL 1F90.  It was three one hour lectures a week which consisted of writing what the professor said and sitting in D. Howes, a lecture theatre set up in rows.  Before I can begin criticizing this type of teaching, I realized that this was the only way this professor could get the information across that he needed to, to 300+ students in a crowded room.
There are still old story values that take place in the new story teaching methods of the 21st century which are, tradition, accountability,standardized tests and teacher based tests. However the new story values consist of an open, dynamic and collaborative classroom.  It was John Dewey who incorporated the new story ideas to the old story method of education.(Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014)  He understood the need for a democratic classroom, that consisted of problem solving and student growth because it helped the students with moral and personal development through communication.  Students make meaning of what they are being taught through interaction with others.  Teachers interactions with students is very important, the more comfortable the student feels in a learning environment, the more they will learn and participate in what they are being taught.  This is the number one flaw of the old teaching methods, the lack of personal interaction between student and teacher.
I recently just returned from a semester abroad in Australia at Curtin University, although I had the best experience I could ever ask for, I found their teaching styles in university quite different from what I am used to back here in Canada.  All of the classes were online, this includes the lectures in written format but also a video of my professor giving the lecture, as well as all the course materials and chat rooms that would help you if you didn't understand something.  The option was there to go to the classes, however no one ever went so if you did it would be yourself with maybe a couple other people. For the most part I loved this idea because it left a lot of time for so many other activities because you could get a weeks worth of school work packed into one day on your own time.  However there was one class that I was particularly interested in, Geographies and Food Security.  This topic is very interesting to me however I feel as though the learning experience wasn't as enhanced as it could be because there was no interaction to go along with the learning.  The textbook for this class has information in the first chapter about personalization, and this is exactly what this course was lacking.  "Passion takes them on different paths, even though they share the common, big picture learning goals of the curriculum."(Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014) I am very passionate about this topic however I did not get to express it because I wasn't given the chance to engage in conversations about it, seeing as most of the course was online.  Therefore after that experience I understand how important the new methods of teaching are when they incorporate interaction and discussion into the classroom.

Drake, S.M. & Reid, J.L. & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving curriculum and classroom assessment: Engaging the 21 Century Learner. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.