Entry #6

I enjoyed reading both ‘It’s time for a test… but can’t we play instead’ and Pinsonneault’s & Malhi’s ‘How Can Teachers Support Gender Equity in Their Classrooms?’. The other required ‘reading’ was a YouTube video called ‘Teacher Inquiry Project: Digital Story’ which I didn’t really love. It was difficult for me to simply listen to her speak about math materials without being able to see them. I think if it had been presented with visual representations of the work she had done I would have found it easier to grasp.

In ‘It’s time for a test… but can’t we play instead’ the author talks about their experiences going to school in Hong Kong versus their experiences in Canada. The Canadian experience revolved around play, whereas the Hong Kong one was a more ‘traditional’ education experience. The value of play is described through this reading and I was particularly drawn to the section that outlined how summative assessment can include elements of play. There are so many ways to test students that don’t require just a pen and paper. Plays, dances, miniatures, scrapbooks, raps and letters could all evaluate a students knowledge in a more playful way. This is something I will definitely use in my classroom.

The second reading is a great example of teacher inquiry and its power in making teachers more aware and critical of their practice. Pinsonneault and Malhi intended to test the theory that examining bias and stereotypes in picture books for read alouds. Their findings had some suggestions that didn’t just revolve around reading books with different genders of main characters:

  • ‘Teachers should be aware of language, family background, and interests of their students because students make personal connections with what they read’
  • ‘We recommend that as teachers look for ways to bring social justice into their classrooms, they try to use literature that portrays people in a variety of roles who come from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds’

Some ideas I have thought about for my own inquiry project involve:

  • Multi-generation learning
  • How to make a classroom more welcoming for Autistic students 
  • Empowering students with anxiety
  • Having different teachers teach different days
  • The relationship between educational assistants and students