CITIZENSHIP

My primary focus as an educator is on citizenship. I think that that ideas and concepts that I am most passionate about, and hope to bring into the classroom, can be encompassed within this broad category.

I think that students can learn about how to be productive, thoughtful citizens in a variety of capacities; to this extent, when I am planning goals for lessons/units/the year, I try to take into account two important pedagogical schools of thought. These would be social emotional learning and critical thinking skills. (examples or clarifications)

Furthermore, I think there are a variety of arenas in which students may develop their citizenship; the classroom, the school, locally, nationally, or internationally, and/or digitally. I believe it is my role as a teacher to point out the variety of communities that students are already part of, or able to become a part of, and  explore what their role – expectations, responsibilities, privileges – within that community is or could be.

INQUIRY

A big focus this year in the BEd program was the concept of inquiry-based learning. Many of our UBC classes were framed around this teaching philosophy, and I was fortunate enough to have a practicum placement in a district that had really bought into this school of thought (SD 43 – Port Coquitlam).

My understanding of this teaching philosophy stems from how it is outlined in the book  Spirals of Inquiry: for Equity and Quality by Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser (click on the book title to be taken to a preview of the book, posted by UBC TEO’s Wendy Carr).

Inquiry-based learning isn’t a novel or new approach; however, I think the skills that it focuses on (some important examples being problem solving strategies, critical thinking, and student-driven curriculum) will be vitally important given the rapid changes expected in society, technology, and education, in our future.