This past week, my main focus has been to put on interactive science demos in the “space” during non-instructional hours (i.e. lunch and from 3-4pm). The demos were supposed to encourage students to unplug from their electronic devices and engage with their peers in scientific thinking. This was a difficult task – for some students, these two hours are their only breaks during the day and I can appreciate that they need their down time. Even though many were uninterested, I always managed to draw a small crowd of students that were engaged and interested, if only for a few minutes.

Monday was some simple fire fun – mimicking hybrid rocket fuel engines and extinguishing flames with carbon dioxide. The students thought they were cool, and had lots to speculate about when the rock fuel wouldn’t work! Tuesday was more exciting as I set up a whoosh bottle. I drew larger crowds to the darker parkade where students were amazed by the flame and sounds. They had lots of questions and wanted to see it happen over and over again. Thursday I had fun with densities and led students through in inquiry based “undemo”. Below is an image of what I had on the counter – a cylinder with a rainbow and four coloured liquids. I challenged students to make the rainbow and warned them that is isn’t as easy as it looks! I also asked students to speculate what was different about the liquids as I told them they were all water (the difference was the amount of sugar dissolved in each!). I had a few students sit with me for an hour trying to make the rainbow and figure out how to make it and loved the challenge. Friday was less exciting as there were fewer students at the center and many wanted to have a lazier day (which I totally understood). One student though decided they wanted to do their own experiment which involved inflating a balloon with water vapour. It ended up making a huge mess and involved a lot of clean up, but I encouraged the independent thinking and curiousity. We had a lot of fun and that’s all I was going for! This was a fun break from the lesson planning, activities, quizzes and tests. It also inspired me to incorporate more of these into my classes!

At my CFE, the education center offers a variety of nontraditional courses, focused on developing skills and knowledge outside the BC Curriculum. I had the privilege of observing a few of these classes this week and am now bursting with ideas on how to incorporate what I participated in into large mainstream classes. I will focus on three courses I observed: Life Labs, Build It Engineering, and Dungeons & Dragons.

Life Labs could be described as an extension of Planning 10 or Graduation Transitions. The class explores topics such as drugs and sexuality, but with a societal views/social justice lens. The area is a safe and confidential space where students can talk about their opinions and experiences with the topics. The class that I observed was an introduction to prostitution – societal views, reasons for entering and whether or not it should be legalized. Students who attend the center tend to be in social groups that are more aware of these topics. I was inspired by the open-mindedness of the students and their willingness to share their experiences. They were able to articulate their thoughts and opinions very well, and were able to have meaningful discussions on such controversial topics. I could only imagine having a conversation about the societal views of prostitution in my practicum classes – it would have been an eerie silence with few being comfortable to share their views. This is not because I didn’t create an open atmosphere, but because it is far outside of their comfort zone for “classroom talk”. I do hope that I would love to be able to discuss some of these topics in my classes while relating them to scientific content in the curriculum. I think that it is important to discuss the impacts of drugs and alcohol, as well as the social stigmas that are associated with them, in all subject areas.

Build It Engineering is a spin on a traditional science class, in which students learn chemistry and physics as it relates to engineering. The classes that I observed were about the properties of materials. After a short lecture, students were engaged in taking apart an old printer and identifying the different materials and their properties. Students LOVED taking apart the printer – it was a challenge to take things apart while keeping all parts in tact, question the purpose of each part, and and identify why that material was used or how the part was made. Many of the students are on the spectrum or have ADD/ADHD so the tactile aspect allowed them to be fully immersed and always busy. If what they were working on no longer engaged them, they could take apart a different part. If they were really fascinated by a particular aspect, they were encouraged to make it their “project” and focus on it and teach others about it. It was great to see students working with their hands and with tools, and these are skills that many students are  not able to learn in a traditional academic based school. What amazed me most was how the students were thinking like engineers. They were using scientific principles and math in a space where it engaged them and was applicable. I hope to be able to incorporate aspects of this class into my future classrooms, as interdisciplinary learning is extremely important and valuable.

The most valuable of the classes that I observed was one
of the Dungeons and Dragons classes that are run. The two hour class runs weekly as an ongoing campaign in which students work together through challenges. The Dungeon Master is a teacher, who creates the campaigns and leads the game. Yes, there are wizards and spells, dragons and knights, goblins, polar bears, magic swords and potions. Yes, there is swearing, imaginary drinking and absurd amounts of bloodshed and violence. From an outside perspective, one would question where is the learning? what is the point?” I believe that those students learn more about life, society and themselves in those two hours than they do in any other class. 

The purpose of the class is to teach students about problem-solving, actions and consequences. The Dungeons Master is more than a creator of a fantasy world – they create challenges and consequences specific to each student, to help them work on aspects of their social emotional skills that they may face challenges with in the “real-world”. By working on them in a make believe space, the students face consequences that affect their character (often quite harshly) but do not harm their well-being. For example, one part of the game that I witness was the group had arrived at the edge of a volcano and were surround by a group of cats (yes, cats). Without hesitation or provocation, the students decided that they should attack the cats. None of the students questioned their actions initially. Yet as the battle continued and the Dungeon Master described the cats more, students began to ask questions about the cats. They were shown images of cats – very cute cats. The students initially realized what they had done and felt remorse, guilt and an overwhelming desire to pay for their actions. They decided that they were going to help free the cats who were being hunted by goblins that lived in the volcano. They also faced consequences for their actions – they lots possessions and health. They discussed the fact that no one thought of their actions prior to attacking and reflected on their actions in their daily lives. Sure they will not ever face a situation in which they may attack a group of cats, but they could face a situation in which they let their emotions overpower their judgments.

The Dungeon Master worked to incorporate aspects of their interests as well. Many students were science inclined, so she would have puzzles that would require scientific thinking or principles to understand. Others may be gifted with words and word puzzles, so others may have codes to crack or riddles to solve. The Dungeon Master provided opportunities for all students to work on their strengths, but also their weaknesses through consequences. For example, if a student frequently interrupts their peers, a consequence may be that they have a temporary spell placed on them that whenever they spoke, they would be interrupted at random and their turn would end. Another example could be that a student may lie frequently in real life, but not so during the game. They could have a spell placed on them that caused their peers to believe that they were always lying and could not be trusted, even if they were telling the truth. This allows students to work on aspects of themselves while in a safe space.

The education center has been doing this for nearly a decade. A quick google search shows how D&D is used in other schools and even by therapists. I want to learn how to play and with enough experience, become a Dungeon Master. I would love to be able to run extra curricular activities that are based off of the game to help students develop these critical skills. It would be difficult, but maybe I could incorporate this into a classroom, potentially to gamify learning. I’ve included a few links below that stood out as fun reads! I am so excited to learn more about this and hopefully be able to incorporate all of the wonderful things I have witnessed into my classrooms!

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/at-this-danish-school-larping-is-the-future-of-education-482

http://kotaku.com/therapists-are-using-dungeons-dragons-to-get-kids-to-1794806159

I was very fortunate to be able to do my Community Field Experience at an educational services center. The best way I can describe the center is as a private personalized alternative school. The teachers and tutors are focused on providing holistic learning that is personalized for each student either in tutoring sessions or in small classes. They take great pride in providing a personalized education for their students. This is something that I truly admire and was taken aback by this week.

One of my goals as a teacher is to be able to personalize the education I provide my students. I had done so in my classes by determining student learning styles, their strengths and weaknesses, and likes and dislikes. I took this knowledge and tailored my lessons to include all aspects of learning styles, provided students on their strengths and weaknesses and areas for development, and attempted to include topics of interest. Yet with 30 students in each class, it is hard to make the lesson really personalized and ensure that each students needs are fully met. What was amazing about my CFE was that they truly embraced the true meaning of personalized education. Every student was known by the majority (if not all) of the staff: their strengths, areas to improve on and how to support them in their education. Their personalized education was rooted in strong supportive relationships between staff and students.

This is something that I have been very reflective of the last week. I spent the vast majority of my time in my long practicum building and maintaining relationships with students. I thought that I had done well, but after seeing the relationships that are present here, I believe that my relationships were not as strong as I had believed. My students knew that I cared about their well-being, that I was available for support, and that I wanted to help them learn and succeed. Yet I didn’t get to know my students – where they came from, their stories, successes, failures and how I can really be there for them. I am aware that being able to get to know each of my students on this level would require more time than I have and is not really feasible. I was inspired by the strong relationships to incorporate this into my future practice. I thought of many ways I could get to know my students better: entrance interviews, journal entries, more “ice breakers”, passion projects, and interest polls to name a few. I am excited to try these out, not all at once but to build them into my practice over time to see what works best for me and large numbers of students. This is all fine and dandy of course, but even if I was able to know my students better, how could I possibly personalize their education while also personalizing the experiences of every other student? This leads me to ask the question how personalized can education be in the public system?

After a lot of thinking and a few searches online, I decided that the best way to provide personalization is through choice. Mike Nagler below explains this well in the short video below using a pizza analogy (and who doesn’t love a good pizza analogy!). Choice allows students to personalize their own education. I am no longer the one to personalize, but rather the facilitator of personalization. The students are in control of their experiences and success, while I am there to guide and support their actions, thinking and learning. My goal is to provide students with choice and support to ensure that students are learning and growing. This will require communication between myself and my students, their teachers and parents. The students at my CFE school were given choice in their learning, guidance, and support, resulting in success in whatever form that may be for each student.

I am eager to be able to support my students learning with the strategies that I have learned here, and look forward to what next week brings!