My Path to Inspiration and Inquiry

 

The best teacher is…

“the person who can help learners see relationships between their own and other cultures, can help them acquire interest in and curiosity about ‘otherness’, and an awareness of themselves and their own cultures seen from other people’s perspectives” (Byram, Gribkova, Starkey, 1997, p.10)

 

Citation:

Rivers, Wilga M. & Johns Hopkins Univ., Washington, DC. National Foreign Language Center.  (1989).  Ten Principles of Interactive Language Learning and Teaching. NFLC Occasional Papers.  [Washington, D.C.] :  Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse

 

How do we frame our lessons so it is student centered? We need to realize that our students do not come in as blank slate and that they are full of knowledge and unique experience. We have to keep in mind of the following learning intentions when designing our lessons.  The 10 principles of learning can be applied across the curriculum.  I have summed up the 10 principles to give a succinct overview.

 

The student is the learner.

• self-assessment, autonomy of the learner, prior experiences and understandings

Learning and teaching are shaped by student needs and goals.

• developing classroom community, language-rich classrooms, routines

Learning  and teaching are based on communication.

• communicative-interactive teaching
• importance of oral language development

Development of learning  is nurtured by interactive, participatory activities using every possible medium and modality to aid learning.

• learning strategies: songs, gesture, drama, movement,
• facilitating student-student interaction; cooperative strategies

Learning involves activating literacy strategies.

• making connections to literacy learning
• listening, viewing and reading [texts] for understanding

Development of learning  is nurtured by integrating across domains within and beyond the classroom.

• Integrated curriculum
• utilizing authentic documents and experiences
• intercultural understandings

Planning for and assessing for learning shape language learning.

• planning for teaching a lesson, a sequence of lessons
• assessment for, of and as learning

Learning is a lifelong endeavour.

• extending and documenting one’s learning journey
• connecting and learning with other educators

 

 

 

My goal as an educator is to aspire to engage students in rich and meaningful learning that will provide them with the tools they need to be successful in the classroom and beyond.  I also want to help my students develop their passions , sustain their curiosity and help them reach their fullest potential.

I want my students to walk into their classroom feeling comfortable and confident to safely express their feelings, thoughts and needs with each other as well as to their teachers.

I want to ensure my students are all given an opportunity to be positively heard. I am extremely conscious with the power and impact of speech and body language it can have on another’s social emotional development. I want my students to feel safe in my classroom.

I will strive to listen attentively and maintain a positive and trusting relationship to allow open communication between children and families. In order to build good-rapport in a group setting, I will encourage positive behaviour support language while maintaining an inclusive framework that adapts to meet each child’s needs.

I want to guide my students to reach and explore their learning potential. I acknowledge, celebrate, and respect each child as unique individuals rather than just focusing on their behaviours. My goals as an educator would be to ensure that I meet each child’s needs to reach their learning potential, and the challenge of becoming one is acquiring knowledge and accessing resources to aid their exploration.

After taking a First Nations foundation course, I was shocked to know how lacking of Indigenous people’s involvement with history of Canada I had from my elementary and high school curriculum. I want to provide opportunities for my students to respectfully recognize knowledge of Indigenous peoples and an accurate account of decolonized history of Canada at an adequate age developmental level.

It was a great experience getting to chat with colleagues from other cohorts (PL-Tech and Middle Years). It was interesting with the 2 sessions outline. I had one session with my research topic: the inquiry based learning and the other an interest of my choice: differentiated learning. The first session was with people with similar research topic, and the second was people who have a keen interest and perhaps have not done explicit research. I really enjoyed the differentiated learning session, even though none of us in the group have done research on it, everyone contributed and made connections to their practicum class. I was even able to bring experiences from our Cougar Canyon social studies class to the discussion. Our discussion revolved around what might differentiated classroom might look like: standing tables? desks? how do we meet all students learning needs?

 

I wished we had a bit more time to rotate through different topics too! It would have been nice if we had a bigger room to facilitate a big group sharing such as this.

http://www.teachhub.com/11-ways-make-inquiry-based-classroom

If we are able to take the following 11 points into consideration prior, during, and after lessons, we are able to show our students:

• a sense of pride in themselves
• a statement of respect (value of questions)
• it’s an inviting learning space

1. Listen when students speak
2. Encourage questions
3. Don’t answer student questions–show them how to do it themselves.
4. Spend time on projects, not lecturing
5. Lessons are fluid
6. Publish and share
7. Reflection is included in every lesson plan
8. You are a fellow learner 
9. Flip the classroom
10. Questions don’t have yes-no answers
11. Summative assessments are less paper-and-pencil and more hands-on, creative, and student-centered

 I attended a UBC Orchard Garden Workshop on January 16, 2016 (10am-2pm) ran by Susan Gerofsky, who is a co-founder of UBC ‘s Orchard Garden Program.  Susan is a passionate math professor who advocates for environmental issues. She said we should try to teach all our lessons outdoor, and to get to know our community as we plan our lessons.

 

The workshop focused on”Teaching curriculum in the school garden”. Two graduate student teachers from Education presented their topic or research. Both of them have emphasized that by including outdoor learning in our lesson, it fosters a sense of stewardship and raises social emotional awareness in students as they engage with the natural environment around them.

• Toni Lazarova introduced a hands-on session on her new resource book on Teaching Home Ec in the School Garden, developed as part of her MEd project.

• John Ames led a participatory “Draw Me A Garden” workshop on integrating social art (co-designed drawing and storytelling) in garden-based learning for elementary learners, a project he has developed for his PhD research.

• teaching integrated curriculum by using the outdoor natural setting
• provide student hands on opportunities to enhance their learning experience
• how art can open up learning concepts and allow everyone to participate at a level of their comfort

E.g. We had a task to draw either a garden or recipe of the soup we were tasting that day.

Everyone engaged with the task with their own interpretation! Some drew the plants, some drew a garden, some represented the sequence of the steps in the recipe visually.

I wonder how I can teach my themes with this type of open-flexible style and set up of the environment in the long practicum.

 

The Question Formulation Technique is based on a book “Make Just Once Change” by Dan Rothestein and Luz Santana. The QFT can be used as a technique to model and provide students with an inquiry learning opportunity in classroom. How do you introduce the model thinking through questions with your students…

Approach questions with the following:

1. Produce your own questions
2. Improve Your Questions
3. Prioritize Your questions.

Produce your own questions

• Ask as many questions you can do
• change statements into a question

Improve your own questions

• close-ended vs open-ended questions
• Change questions from one type to another
• Discuss the value of both type of question

Prioritize your Questions

• Choose the 3 most important questions you created
• Why did you choose these there as the most important?
• How are you going to use your questions?