This past week has been a great one! I got engaged over the weekend and it was very exciting to share the news with my classes. I have always found it difficult to know how much of my personal life I should share with students, but I was too excited to not share this. My students were equally as excited, breaking into cheers and applause (I admit, they almost were more excited than I was!). It was so sweet to see how supportive of my happiness they were. On Friday, my fiancé was a guest speaker for our class, and the students were equally excited to meet him! It was an amazing feeling to feel so welcome and cared for by my students.

Highs:

•  The large activity of the week was a Jigsaw in which students learned and taught each other about non-Mendelian inheritance. The goal of the activity was to introduce these complicated topics to the students and allow them to take some responsibility over their learning. One of my classes took the activity really seriously, watched the videos multiple times and made sure that everyone in their groups was able to explain the content. When they separated into their sharing groups, some students went above and beyond in their teaching, using plates as mini white boards to show diagrams. A few students were even asking their peers probing questions! Even though at the end, the vast majority were still confused about sex-linked inheritance (the most complicated form), they had a firm understanding of incomplete- and co-dominance. They seemed very proud of themselves to have guided their own learning, and the learning of others.
• Prior to our practicum, we were encouraged to find a guest speaker. I am currently teaching the genetics unit, so I am extremely fortunate that my fiancé is a graduate student at the Genome Sciences Centre at the BC Cancer Research Agency! I arranged with administration to have him come in a do a presentation on cancer, genetic sequencing, and what his research is about. When I first told them we were going to have a guest speaker, I received many eye rolls and looks of disdain. Then I informed them that the guest was my fiancé and their expressions completely changed to excitement. It’s amazing how impressions change their attitudes! The presentation and activities went really well. My fiancé was extremely impressed by their understanding and the questions that they asked. I had students do a KWL for the presentation, and my fiancé went through and read all of the questions that they wrote down and even answered some that weren’t asked in class because he felt that they were extremely meaningful questions.
• My fiancé also spoke to the IB Chemistry students and IB Biology students about his research, research as a career, and UBC. At the beginning of his presentation to them he asked the students how many wanted to go to medical school. He wanted to show students about other careers that are possible, especially in the field of research and how it is so important to the medical field. These students were genuinely interested in what he had to say as they are thinking about their futures, university and careers. It was nice for them to have a primary source of information regarding university, medical school and graduate studies.

 

Lows:

• Even through all of the excitement of this week, I’m still incredibly sick. I can’t seem to kick this cold. I spent all week reminding students that if I have a voice, it is very easily lost. I told them that if I started to talk too loud to remind me (which they did!) but I’ve been finding it hard not to. When I’m excited, I naturally get louder. I’m finding that without the ability to get louder, I feel less excited. I’m also very tired which isn’t helping my excitement levels. I find that my students are more engaged when I’m seen as a form of entertainment, so their interest levels seemed lower this week.
• While the inheritance jigsaw saw great success in one class, it saw much less in the other. The students had less class time to work on understanding and explaining the material, and limited their knowledge to watching the video once or twice. They barely discussed the topics with each other an dI had to go from group to group to facilitate the discussions to probe for levels of understanding. They did not take notes on their topic like the other class, so when they had to break into their teaching groups, they were not able to explain their topics as well. They made huge assumptions that I was going to teach them the material and this was just a warm up (which I had not said). I told the students at the end of class that since they were now experts on the topics that we would be moving on tomorrow and if they still had questions, they should rewatch the videos later this evening as I had posted them all on the blog. The students seemed shocked but when I reminded them that they were being the teachers and were responsible for each other’s learning, I could see some internal reflection occurring. They were questioning their teaching ability as well as how seriously they had taken the activity. Of course the next day I had a handout that we went over on each of the types of inheritance, but I wanted the students to take accountability for their (lack of) understanding. It made me feel like the “bad guy” and I received many looks of “isn’t she the teacher, why isn’t she teaching us” but learning and being told are not the same things, even if they aren’t capable of seeing that yet.
• The guest speaker was a hit in one class, but not as much in the other. They were less engaged, and I spent my hour walking around waking students up. I felt bad for my fiancé as he was trying hard to keep them engaged, but a long presentation on topics that they were entirely uninterested in made it hard for them to stay awake.
• The students wrote a DNA quiz and did really well on the content, but I noticed that a large group of students did not understand the question and wrote down everything they knew about the topic. This technically included the right answers, but I did not give them full marks for the question as they did not answer the question. This resulted in many students complaining, but when I asked them “did you answer the question” their response was always a hesitant “no.” I reminded students how important it is to answer questions – if I ask them what kind of pizza they want, they can’t tell me how to make a pizza which includes the ingredients they want.

Lesson of the week:  I may be engaged (pun intended), but I can’t keep everyone else engaged. I can do my best with interactive lessons, a variety of activities and learning experiences, and even spice things up by not having me be the teacher, but it won’t always work. I know that this is a hard lesson for me to accept, but it is something that I will work on. I can only guide and offer opportunity for development, and must accept that not all students will be as invested in our learning journey as I am.