Here are the links you can use to find an article to read for our third POT reading:
Your entrance slip for this reading should finish the sentence stem:
– LH
We had a full day ahead of us so we started with a bit of admin and headed right into the lesson presentations. Here’s how it went:
Administrivia
Learning Team
The SRL Learning Team hosted by SD43 has its first meeting on Tuesday, 15 November 2011 from 4:00 to 6:30 at a site TBA. The second session is on Tuesday, 10 January 2012 at the Four Seasons Vancouver. Oh, what’s that, Dave? That reservation fell through. OK, it looks as though the location of the January meeting is still TBA as well.
SA Timetables In To Your FA
Please submit a paper or electronic copy of your timetable to your FA. This will help us plan our observation schedules in January and on the long prac. Here’s what we’re looking for:
EDUC 315 Reflections
Please use the What? So What? Now What? template for your reflections. Avoid a “shotgun” approach and keep your writing focused on one key What? idea.
Here is the template – in .doc format this time (not .docx) – for your reference:
Microteaching Lessons
Thanks to all today’s presenters. Below you will find supporting PPTs/Prezis – if the group used one – for each lesson:
[Please note: I’m having a great deal of trouble uploading the slideshows to the blog. If and when I can rectify the problem, I’ll post the microteaching-related presentations. In lieu of the PPTs/Prezis, I’ve posted a video below of what appears to be quite a memorable lesson in a History class – LH]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR3CvcOzfnE[/youtube]
Dave’s Group:
Lawrence’s Group
See you on Monday, 31 October. Have a good week.
– Lawrence
In the spirit of Trooper, we were here for a good time AND a long time (3.5 hours!):
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idMqKNVxOyo&feature=related[/youtube]
Here’s how we spent our 210 minutes together:
Stop. Start Continue:
Dave and I asked for some formative assessment of our practice using a Stop. Start. Continue organizer. We appreciate your comments, and we will report out on our findings in a subsequent lesson. In doing this, we are both aiming to gather suggestions for refining our instruction and modeling the importance of seeking feedback from students.
Here’s a link to how a teacher in England uses S. S. C. with her students: Action Research – Stop, Start, Continue.
Beliefs Hierarchy Revisited & Active Listening
After a quick write on a triad of beliefs-related questions, Dave asked you to discuss your key beliefs with a partner. Prior to the discussion, he reviewed 4 methods of active response to use during a conversation. Those methods are:
These active listening techniques will prove particularly useful during discussions with your SA and the students you’ll teach. The more you practice them, the more comfortable you’ll be sliding them seamlessly into the conversation. Even if your aren’t the smoothest at first, you will certainly come across as more eloquent than ol’ Vicky Pollard:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mpMEnxcVkA[/youtube]
EDUC 315 Prep
We took a few questions and outlined what you can expect from your SA:
Next, we outlined the format for your weekly practicum reflections. You are to complete a reflection after each of your 6 in-school Tuesdays and email them to your FA. Each reflection is due on the Tuesday evening. Here’s the template for your reflection:
Conceptions of Teaching
Having already considered the Freire piece in your Entrance Slips, Dave and I thought it would make sense to look at some other conceptions of teaching. We chose to view / read the following with this question in mind:
Sir Ken Robinson –TED Talk (as interpreted by RSA Animate)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U[/youtube]
Adora Svitak – TED Talk
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-bjOJzB7LY&list=PL454495DD4F6692B4&index=1[/youtube]
William Ayers – 2-pages from To Teach: The journey of a teacher
Here’s a clip explaining how Ayers’ book was transformed into a graphic novel:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Uwcw2DzaY[/youtube]
Oh, and for good measure, here’s “an incredible conversation” with Paolo Freire:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFWjnkFypFA[/youtube]
After considering the key qualities of a teacher implied in each speaker’s / author’s vision, we asked you to “bring to life” each conception of teaching. These brief presentations were a lot of fun to watch and should provide food for thought as you begin to articulate your own philosophy of teaching.
Please remember to post your Freire piece Exit Slip on the Vista site by the end of the day. In your Slip please write 2 or 3 sentences on how your thinking has changed, how your outlook has been enlarged, or touch on any other reaction to Freire or the in-class work on conceptions of teaching.
Microteaching Preparation Time
To start, we outlined the Microteaching schedule and here it is:
Then we took some time to review the Microteaching Lesson Plan format and Dave and I conferenced with the groups. We look forward to seeing the presentations on Monday, 24 October. Please be sure to bring a hard copy of your lesson plan to class, to review the criteria for the task, and to bring all required materials / resources. Here’s the task handout for your reference:
’til Monday.
– Lawrence
If you have yet to choose the Pro D activity you will be attending on the 21st of October, please take a look at this PDF, as it contains details relating to many of the conferences on offer. Please note that TCs get a discounted rate at most of these events:
– Lawrence
Dave and I spoke quickly so we could wedge all this goodness into today’s class. Here’s the recap:
Administrivia
Class Calendar: We’ve rolled Wednesday’s one hour of class time into Monday’s session on October 17th and 24th. That means you get Wednesday off (giddyup!) and that the schedule for those Mondays will be as follows:
Lesson Design Jigsaw & the Yeti of the Classroom
As per the images above, we played with Jigsaw as a means to process the important content around the Lesson Design. We moved from expert groups to base groups and, in the end, grew your knowledge about each of the seven components of LD. We wrapped by revisiting the Anticipation Guide I presented as an intro to the topic.
Did you see what I did there boys and girls? Closure. Honest to goodness. The only thing more rare is one of these:
You’ll get a chance to work with these components as you prepare and implement your Microteaching lesson in POT/COM class. Speaking of which…
Intro to Principles of Teaching (POT)
After spending half an hour or so watching Cheech and Chong clips on YouTube, we got down to the real business of POT at UBC. Here’s the course overview PPT that I presented in class:
Then, Dave showed the EDUC 310 Vista site and asked you to do the following:
1. Read the Paulo Freire piece in the EDUC 310 Reading Package – “Teachers as cultural workers: Letters to those who dare to teach”
2. Visit the EDUC 310 Vista site in the Entrance Slip: Conceptions of Teaching area in the Discussion tab. Here’s an image to help you find the proper place to post:
3. Respond to the piece in writing in any way that suits you. You may create an original piece of writing – the discussion questions drafted by the course overseer, Anne Phelan, and posted below might help – or you may choose to react to someone else’s response and post that reaction.
The due date for your Freire-themed piece is Friday, 14 October 2011.
Hierarchy of Beliefs
Seeing as we’re asking you to consider Freire’s conception of teaching, we thought we’d give you time to consider what you think is important in education. To that end, we asked you to complete a “hierarchy of beliefs”, a task that involved organizing a variety of teaching and learning-related statements. We ran out of time to process your efforts so we will revisit this task next class.
Sayonara,
– Lawrence
It was a fast and full lesson today. Here’s what went down:
EDUC 315 School Visit Debrief
We used a value lines strategy as a means to have you consider your experience in the field. To wrap up, I noted that we will all meet in the Hillcrest Middle School Library at 1:30 pm on Tuesday, 11 October. At that time, we’ll discuss the morning’s school visit and get some feedback from you on placement preferences.
Field Trip Fair Mind Map Assessment
For this part of the lesson, we asked you to connect with another TC that had chosen a similarly themed field trip to explore in their mind map. Then, a discussion ensued that focused on the degree to which the MM meet the criteria. The MM rubric is here:
Here are a couple sample MMs. T’he first is John’s and the second is Dave’s:
We wrapped by asking you to give a 20-30 second “elevator pitch” on your chosen field trip. Hopefully, by the end of today’s lesson you have a good sense of what sorts of outings you might want to pursue while on prac.
Microteaching Topics
Seeing as we have an extra long class on Monday, 24 October, Dave and I reckon we can get all the micro lessons delivered in one day. Here are the topics that will be presented in a series of 15-20 minute lessons:
After a few minutes to review your particular LD component in Expert Groups, Dave presented a mini-lesson on playing the ukulele. Jerin and Jess were his eager students. J and J were definitely quick studies but they still have a way to go to catch up to this ukulele virtuoso, Jake Shimabukoro (Whoa! This clip has over 8 million views!):
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSkP3uym5k&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
When the lesson was over, each of the 7 groups analyzed his lesson through the lens of their particular LD component. We wrapped by letting you know that we’ll Jigsaw all of the components in a future lesson.
Au revoir,
– Lawrence
Dave has synthesized your “What I Want To Learn” ideas gathered in a previous class into a mind map using the free iMindMap software available on Buzan’s website. The MM is posted below for your viewing pleasure (Note: To make the image larger, just click on it):
– Lawrence
Getting Ready for the Tuesdays Practicum
After touching on dressing for success for your first school visit, we outlined some protocols to follow during your initial day in the field:
Have fun tomorrow!
Voice
Today we played with credible and approachable voice. Maybe one day you’ll become as proficient at using voice as Ron Burgundy of Anchorman fame:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmDgl-Y-kiU[/youtube]
We used breakout groups to teach you one of the voices, you peer taught a classmate, and then we gave you a chance to practice a few line using both credible and approachable voices. To wrap, we asked you to introduce yourself – in an approachable voice – as if you were speaking to a middle school classroom and then to deliver a control statement – “Pencils down and eyes on me, please.” – in a credible voice. We also noted that the voices aren’t totally distinct from one another but, rather, are on opposite ends of a continuum.
Here’s are some of the resources we used to teach voice:
Credible Voice – The Paper Chase
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx22TyCge7w&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Approachable Voice (& Credible, too) – School of Rock
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZCuHXs3Qi8[/youtube]
One-Pager on Using Voice Pattern to Signal Our Intention In The Moment
A search of the interwebs will reveal a lot more information about the importance of choosing voice wisely.
Prepping for Microteaching
After taking time to brainstorm your areas of passion, expertise, and fun, we handed out the task sheet and read it over. Here it is for your reference along with the rubric and lesson planning model we’re suggesting you use:
For class on Wednesday, 5 October you should know your partner and your microteaching lesson topic. Please keep the topic as narrow as possible, as you only have 15-20 minutes to teach.
Lesson Design
In preparation for your microteaching task, we started to look at Lesson Design in the final minutes of today’s class. We started with a pre-reading strategy, an Anticipation Guide, that had you consider key aspects of the Lesson Design content I was about to present. Here’s the AG graphic organizer we worked with:
I plan to revisit the statements in the AG once we’ve finished looking at all the material on LD.
Lastly, we started a Jigsaw on the 7 components of effective Lesson Design. Each of you has a number between 1 and 7 and that corresponds to one of the LD components (1 = Mental Set, 2 = Sharing the Objective & Purpose and so on down the list). Your job is to read your assigned section and fill out the LD Jigsaw Graphic Organizer with the following information about the component:
Please have that one section of the LDJGO completed for class on Wednesday, 5 October.
Here is the LDJGO and the reading in case your hard copies go walkabout:
That’s all for today.
Toodles,
– Lawrence
