The first artifact that I chose is a picture of my Human Kinetics degree that I received in May 2010 from UBC. I chose this artifact because it shows the reward of hard work and determination. To me, its not just a very expensive piece of paper with writing on it but its also a reminder of the education I received through the years I went through which will allow me to retrieve when I need it as well as a constant reminder of my passion for Physical Education, sports, and active living. I use the education I received from my undergrad every time I’m coaching because of the many strategies I’ve learned from teaching specific skills to behaviour management techniques. A question that I would like to pursue in my career as an educator is how to combine physical education and other subjects in the classroom. I want to combine my love for physical activity and use that to teach kids other subjects like math and social studies.
The second artifact for this standard is a picture of one of my lesson plans from my poetry unit I did during my practicum. In school, I never liked poetry and English class because I never had an interest in it. I found it extremely boring to read a book and analyze it and find out what it meant. I just never had an interest in it. When it came to the poetry unit, I found it a lot easier to endure because poetry is short and so I wouldn’t have to read pages and pages of work. Just before my practicum I started listening to spoken word poetry and got really interested in it so when my school advisor gave me the choice of either doing a novel study or a poetry unit, I instantly chose poetry because of this sudden interest. I decided to focus on spoken word poetry and music because musical lyrics that we hear on the radio is a form of poetry that everyone listens to. I took more of a free form instead of the typical haikus and sonnets because I wanted my students to focus of writing words and thoughts down on paper instead of focusing on the form of the poem. I chose this artifact as an example of a new interest I learned to love and wanting to share with my students so they can enjoy it as well. One thing that I will want to change from this lesson is to get more student input on the unit especially when it comes to the music portion.