Teaching Candidate Mini-Conference

Posted on December 5, 2017 | 1 comment

Today was just like any other normal day, except there were so many mini-conferences to check out over the span of 3 time slots, with the day opened by the conference keynote speaker, Jan Unwin (8:45 a.m. – 9:50 a.m.)

I attended the following sessions:

Session 1 (10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.): Everything Google: Gsuite and more
Session 2 (11:10 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.): MediaSmarts Digital Literacy Training for Canadian Educators: implementing digital literacy into your teaching practice
Plenary Meeting with Dr. John Yamamoto and 3 guest speakers (1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.)
Session 3 (2:10 p.m.-3:30 p.m.): Get outdoors! Exploring strategies for teaching and learning in the outdoor classroom

A big round of applause for all these invited speakers who did what normally would take them to do over the course of a few classes and pack all the information into just an hour’s time!

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Posted in EDUC 315A

Issues on Feminism in Canada Presentation

Posted on December 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

A couple months ago, on a sunny Thursday afternoon, Chelsea Forster, Kaj Morawski, and I brought together and shared ideas in our presentation on a delicate, yet difficult subject matter. Our group talked about issues surrounding the article, “A Nice Little Wife to Make Things Pleasant:” Portrayals of women in social studies textbooks from the McGill Journal of Education (published in 2005) by Dr. Penney Clark, a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy and director of The History Education Network/Histoire et education en reseau (THEN/HiER) here at the University of British Columbia. As we handed the class a short quiz with ten questions asking the students to connect famous women in Canadian history to their “claim to fame” or success(es) to see if they were recognizable or not, the quizzes came back with disappointing results revealing we currently do not have this knowledge. This activity segued into a viewing of three videos on the interactive whiteboard highlighted numerous viewpoints of feminism in Canada (and the United States of America) and its history in general. The presentation was capped off by having our fellow teaching candidates form small and large groups where there were plenty of interesting and engaging discussions which brought about lots of inquiry-based questions; very delightful yet, challenging. For my first presentation in this inquiry seminar class, I felt the experience to be quite beneficial as we were able to hear everyone’s analyses from many sides of the issues discussed at hand.

“A Nice Little Wife to Make Things Pleasant” Presentation

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Posted in EDUC 450

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Short Practicum (Nov. 14-24, 2017) & Artifact

Posted on November 25, 2017 | Leave a comment

First and foremost, let me just say how lucky I am to have been placed at/selected by Lord Byng Secondary School, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to work alongside and learn from my school advisor, Ms. Odette Kurth, with her multi-award-winning string ensembles and symphony orchestras. I recall a brief time back in grade 11, late in the year when I decided to make a push to transfer over to their highly-renowned Byng Arts mini school program and to join the ranks of the best of the best of bright, young minds in the arts. Unfortunately, I decided it was best for me to stay at my high school to finish off my time their for we were very well-known for our fine arts program in the Metro Vancouver area as well. I had the pleasure those couple of weeks to make my way around the school and observe not only Ms. Kurth, the strings teacher, but also Mr. Scott MacLennan and Ms. Lisa Lan-Ledingham, the band and choir teachers, respectively, all who exemplify very well what Byng Arts is all about – simply fine music-making as one large, happy family, and this is where I will be completing my extended practicum. I’ve already had a taste of what it’s like to work with such young, talented musicians of the string orchestras, and I can’t wait for the new year to come!

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Posted in EDUC 450

What It’s Like to be an Elementary Music Student

Posted on November 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

Earlier this fall, the music cohort had the wonderful opportunity to spend an afternoon in Mrs. Haylett’s elementary music classroom when she paid a visit to the university. It sure was quite the change of atmosphere! Please follow the links to the videos of her class in session.


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Posted in EDUC 450

Sister Letti Presentation

Posted on November 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

As part of our Advanced Curriculum and Pedagogy class with Dr. Peter Gouzouasis, our music cohort had the opportunity to turn a nursery rhyme into a learning activity by incorporating various body movements, body percussion, and musical instruments to aide our performance. Our group, Featuring Kaj Morawski, Andrew Wong, Chelsea Forster, Tim Tweedale, and I, chose and arranged Sister Letti.

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Posted in EDCP 311

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Roller Coaster Ridin’

Posted on October 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Roller Coaster Ridin’

As music teachers, truly, the world is a stage, and much is Scarfe Room 1317.

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Posted in EDUC 450

Topics on Race and Ethnicity Presentation

Posted on October 18, 2017 | Leave a comment

Race and Ethnicity, pt. 1
Race and Ethnicity, pt. 2

With this being a sensitive issue in this corner of the globe, our group of Jun, Gurinder, and Billy thought it would be nice to shed some light on modern issues.

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Posted in EPSE 308

Rehearsing the West Vancouver Youth Band Strings Ensemble

Posted on October 14, 2017 | Leave a comment

Rehearsing the West Vancouver Youth Band Strings Ensemble

After an afternoon of working as a clinician for the younger division of the WVYB Strings Ensemble, I had the opportunity to rehearse the entire group in a couple of pieces.

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Posted in Reflections

Brahms in Sunny Portugal

Posted on May 29, 2016 | Leave a comment

I attended the 2nd Atlantic Coast Orchestra conducting masterclass out in Esposende, in northeast Portugal, led by an old friend colleague of mine (we were both conducting students at PRISMA out in Powell River, located on the Sunshine Coast, back in the summer of 2014) named Luis Clemente and the venerable conducting pedagogue, Colin Metters, where he served more than 3 decades as a highly respected professor at the Royal Academy Music of London, U.K. (he also was the mentor of my friend and fellow conductor, Michael Hall, music director of the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, where I play as principal violist). What you see me wearing is as “professional” as my attire got during that trip, for I had to pack light (I actually had to “donate” my dress shoes and quite a number of other personal belongings at the time) as a highly-anticipated pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago, by bicycle. This trip I did in between said masterclass and another one out in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. More on that later. Anyways, here’s a bit of me feeling the heat in small-town Portugal.

https://youtu.be/IV20dZcLyIw

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Posted in Reflections