Ed in ETEC

Reactions on Chickering and Gamson 7 Principles

After completing this week’s reading, I can say I can see myself agreeing with many aspects of the 7 Principles, as well as Bates and Poole’s Sections framework. Having said that, since I have written in another course about the Sections Framework, I want to reflect on the 7 Principles instead.

As a new counsellor and a former classroom teacher, I feel that the 7 Principles have taken a different interpretation. As a front-line teacher, my focus would probably falls for the second and the third principle. As a counsellor, however, principles 1 and 7 would take a much more prominent role.

#2 Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students – as many public school educators would attest, our typical classroom is filled with students of diverse talents. A cliché often used in sports suggests that a team is only as good as its weakest player, and I feel the same can be said about a class – a student who is lagging behind the entire class can become disruptive, and the amount of time and energy needed by an educator to provide remedial support can be extremely draining. A more proactive approach would be to help this student remain “on pace.” This is not to suggest that this student is inferior, but that he/she requires support that the most traditional method of knowledge transmission cannot do. Cooperative learning, multiple intelligence, etc., are all ways to help the students foster a sense of success, and allows student groups to utilize individual strengths to create a more positive learning environment.

#3 Active learning techniques – As mentioned, the traditional method of knowledge transmission only works for some students. As a former science teacher, I can attest to the joy I see when students, through hands-on activities, discover the otherwise irrelevant scientific principles they see in a textbook. Tapping into multiple intelligence, students can use other creative means (e.g. drama, film, art, etc.) to present their learning as well. This would also foster that sense of success, not to mention that it creates a sense of ownership to the knowledge that students are a part of in its creation.

#1 Contacts between students and faculty – as a school counsellor now, this is a task that I often have to do. Some teachers, unfortunately, are very entrenched in curriculum delivery, that they forget their “clients” are but very young students. Sometimes, when these students are faced with personal and family adversities, school is really not relevant to them, or at least is not one of great priority. My role as a counsellor is to bridge the two sides, to plead with teachers to be flexible and understanding, to individual students’ needs. As Chickering and Gamson suggest, “faculty concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working.” By showing concerns to the students’ needs, and communicating that need to the teachers, students have a better chance to succeed.

#7 Respect diverse talents and ways of learning – as a counsellor, I have to work extensively with students with special needs, including learning disability. A common misconception from some teachers is that students with special needs are lazy and/or intellectually inferior. Almost always, that misconception is not true at all. Content delivery and assessment often need to be adapted/modified to accurately measure how much these students know. As a counsellor, it is my job to support both the students and the teachers do so in a harmonious learning environment.

As an educator for 11 years (10 years as a science/biology teacher, and 1 year as a secondary counsellor) working in an inner-city school in Vancouver, I have seen the challenges faced by underprivileged students and students with special needs. While I do not believe education is a political arena where students’ welfare should be used as a bargaining chip, I do feel strongly that our public school system is in need of less bureaucracy and more direct funding that would benefit the students. This is especially true when it comes to the area of technology.

Whenever I have a chance to speak to others about the technology needs, I would not hesitate to tell people that, for a school that has a population of over 1000, it is inconceivable to keep up with the ever-increasing technology needs if the school is only given $5000 from the school board for technology. Feeling pessimistic of the long-term resources individual schools can receive, my colleagues and I have subsequently turned to private sectors for assistance. While deep down, this seems to be a violation of the spirit of public education, I strongly believe that this is the lesser of the two evil – students need technology, and corporations can provide technology with something as little as us recognizing their contributions. I have worked in teams to secure these grants in the past; what I look forward to be able to do is to best utilize the very limited resources we can receive to provide the technology needs for our students.

When I took ETEC 510 last term, I’ve learned some ideas of the design of implementing technology in a classroom. Together with my fellow students, we have designed a mobile computer lab that would utilize wireless internet-ready laptop computers to be moved from room to room to provide the technology needs for our students. We also did some research to identify free/inexpensive resources that can be used by educators to supplement such a lab. From freewares such as Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) that can be used as a basic sound mixer, to a free forum hosting site such as MakephBB (http://www.makephpbb.com/) that can be used as a forum for students to post discussion questions and answers, there are resources available for educators to use that would enhance the technology experience of our learners without putting any strains on the ever-tightening budget.

The challenge for educators is that these resources are not widely known by teachers, and teachers who may want to utilize them may also feel threatened to learn them. As someone who has supported my colleagues in various technology-based softwares, I want to use my MET experience to become more familiar with the implementation, the delivery, and the assessment of classes that are enhanced technologically. As I do not consider myself as a technology wizard, I feel that I can convey to my fellow staff member that you do not need to be a “techie” to deliver education that is technology-based.

This is not my first blog, but it’s the first using WordPress. I hear from others that WordPress is far superior to Blogger, so maybe down the road, WordPress will become my site-of-choice for deskstop publishing.

All right, back to ETEC course work I go!

Unit 1 Reflections

After reading NETS, it’s easy to see that B.C.’s public education system is not really on board for education technology, and a product of the system like myself inevitably faces a difficult up-hill battle to change things around. Specifically:

1)      Design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments

The learning experience of most public school students, unfortunately, is not strongly tied to technology. At least, this is the experience I see teaching at an inner-city school in East Vancouver. Unless a student is enrolled in a course that is technology-based (e.g. info tech, media arts), the only contact they would have with technology is the use of a computer as a word processor and a resource provider. During my days as a science teacher, I tried to incorporate technology into the classroom – I worked with department members and other teaching staff on projects on robotics; I use Google Docs to post my assignments and notes online; I captured You-tube videos to show students when it is not safe to perform a demonstration in the classroom… As much as I try, I know my students are lagging far behind their peers in, say, a private school.

2)      model digital-age work and learning

Similar to the last point, it is an uphill battle for a public school educator with very limited resources at hand. I have worked with the drama and film program to allow students to do their projects as videos. These students learn to edit their video clips, add sounds and other effects to the videos, and generally have a very enjoyable time while also learning science. However, for the most part, the only students who get such experience are students who are already involved with the media arts program and courses.

3)      promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility

As a counsellor now, this actually is a job that I am required to do on a very regular basis. Cyber-bullying has become a very common phenomenon in schools, and I regularly have to deal with students who are targets of this new form of bullying. To teach and to foster digital citizenship and responsibility is no different from teaching students not to physically or verbally abuse another student – the digital world is but a new venue to which educators need to be aware of. A similar but very different concern surrounds the notion of privacy. Students who are involved in personal friendship websites (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.) sometimes are not aware of who may be lurking around looking at their personal information. As educators who may not know as much as the students do about these channels of communication (I still do not have a Twitter account), it is a challenge to advise students of the dangers associated with these site.

4)      engage in professional growth and leadership

I actually have been quite heavily involved in my school’s technology development. For the last few years, when our school moves from one mark-entry program into another, I have been on the advisory and peer-helper team. These last two years, when our school becomes one of the first in Vancouver to enrol in the new student information system called BCeSIS, I serve as a scheduler as well as one of the hub leaders to teach our school’s staff on how to use this system. It is a challenge that is sometimes very frustrating, as some teachers are far less receptive to the use of technology than the students, but it is also rewarding to know that I am preparing my staff to face a new age of technology in education.

Step 2.

As a counsellor, I see a lot of students who struggle in our regular school system because of their learning disabilities. Technology has helped some students in the past (e.g. having a word processor greatly assists students who have difficulties in hand-written output), but there are still many students who are struggling. A great interest and passion of min is to help develop and/or implement technology-based curriculum/teaching environment that would assist students with special needs.

From the course syllabus, I see that Module 3 would particularly interests me in terms of the strategies that I look forward to gain in the delivery and the assessment methods using technology. Of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t be actively engaged and involved in the other parts of the course… but strictly from a professional prospective, Module 3 seems to intrigue me the most at this point.