Monthly Archives: January 2016

01/29/16

Practicum Reflection: It’s All About Connections!

Throughout my Wise Wednesdays posts, I have been discussing about the importance of building connections with students through various ways. Time and time again, it has been emphasized that building connections with our students is so imperative in creating a positive and rich learning environment. Undoubtedly, this point has been emphasized for good reason. My experience in my practicum school has really hit home this point for me. Over the past few months, I have built a strong connection with many of the students in the class. Even though I am only at the school once a week, I still see snippets of their progress and little improvements, which I absolutely love to see. Some of the students are coming a long way with their reading and writing!

I will be the first to admit that there are a couple students in the class who I am still trying to build a connection with. I realize that not every student is always willing to come to me to share a story or two and that’s okay. Each week, I make an effort to talk to and have a conversation with a student that I have not yet established a strong connection with. For example, today I casually had some conversations with a couple students during snack time about how they were doing, what they were planning to do over the weekend, etc. It was a great time to connect, to learn more about their interests and hobbies, and to just learn more about their personality. It is with my hope that before I begin my 10-week practicum that I have made a strong connection to all of the students in the class.

01/28/16

Wise Wednesdays: Teaching Grit to Our Students

Another week has gone by, which means that I am here for another instalment of Wise Wednesdays! This week, I explore another strategy that teachers can employ to help particularly frustrated students and that is the role of grit. When I think of grit, I think of perseverance, meaning that when I come to a difficult task, I buckle down and I try my hardest to accomplish the difficult task. Moreover, it is about overcoming obstacles in order to succeed short-term and long-term goals. Now, I realize that having grit is not always easy, especially if a student is hard on themselves and may not believe in their abilities to succeed. This is where the teacher comes in! Teaching grit to our students is possible.

How you ask? Teachers can help build resilience by promoting positive emotions within the classroom. This can be done by encouraging students to share positive stories so that when they are in a difficult situation, they can recall a positive event and the emotions that were attached to it. For example, if a student who struggles in writing, recalls a time when they succeeded in writing a beautifully crafted sentence, they will feel better about their writing abilities. Another strategy that teachers can use to teach grit is to help students to work with their difficult emotions. This is particularly helpful for students who get anxious or depressed or come from a traumatic home environment. When students face a difficult obstacle, feelings of fear or anger can arise quickly in these situations. Teachers can teach their students to recognize and label emotional responses, so that the student knows when their emotions are spinning out of control. After this, teachers can teach the student methods of how to calm down when they are feeling particularly angry or fearful, such as deep breathing.

A Grade 5 teacher in New Hampshire created an entire curriculum on grit. The video is a great demonstration of how teaching grit to students has long-term benefits.

References:

[Edutopia]. (April 29, 2014). Teaching Grit Cultivates Resilience and Perseverance. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0qrtsYg6kI.

Zarkzewski, V. (2014). Teaching grit: How to help students overcome inner obstacles. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/grit-help-students-overcome-inner-obstacles-vicki-zakrzewski

01/22/16

Practicum Reflection: Be Flexible!

As a teacher candidate, I have learned immensely from both learning about theories and practices at UBC to applying that newfound knowledge in my practicum school. If there is one thing that I am quickly learning, it is that time is rarely on your side as a teacher. Today was one of those days. I planned to give my class some motivation to help them gain some self-confidence before they started on their Journals. When I had arrived to the school in the morning, I was energized and excited to give the class a motivational speech. However, as I was carrying out my lesson, I noticed that the students were getting restless after sitting for over twenty five minutes, as my read-aloud went longer than anticipated. There were some things that I had not initially planned, which put me behind schedule in my lesson. I knew that I wanted to give the students enough time to finish their journal writing and practice their spelling words on the iPads, thus I came to the quick decision that the motivational speech had to wait for another day. I was disappointed that I could not get to the motivational speech, but I realized that I had to be flexible and that there were other things that needed to get done. This event made me understand that as a teacher, you could have planned the best lesson ever, but if something pops up or if something unexpected happens during the lesson, chances are, you are going to have to adjust your “perfect” lesson plan. It has been emphasized within my classes at UBC that being flexible is key to being an effective teacher. Now that I have experienced what it feels like to be tight on time and to have unexpected things happen, I finally understand that point now.

Even though I did not have the chance to give motivation to the entire class, I did spend some time to motivate individual students who were struggling with their writing. I motivated and tried to improve their self-confidence by saying that I believed in them or that I wanted to see them give their best effort in spelling a word. As part of my inquiry question, one of my goals is to improve the self-confidence of my students so that they do not feel defeated when approached with a difficult task. As a class, we are still making some slow progress in that aspect. Over the coming months, and definitely into my long practicum, I want to do various activities with the students in order to help increase their self-confidence in their skills and abilities. In the future, I will create a chart with the class that promotes positive messages. For example, instead of saying, “I can’t”, they can say, “I will keep trying!” I hope that I can then display this chart at the front of the class, which the students can refer to when they feeling frustrated with their work.

01/20/16

Wise Wednesdays: Every Child Deserves a Champion

Welcome back to our second week of Wise Wednesdays. In my last post I discussed the importance of having your students understand what their strengths are, in order to help them feel confident in accomplishing difficult tasks. However, in order for students to feel comfortable in motivating themselves to push further, there needs to be a positive classroom environment. Creating this positive environment is essential in helping students to feel comfortable in taking on challenges and risks. Who is in charge of initially creating this positive environment, you ask? Well, it starts with us, the teachers. As an educator, it is so imperative that we build that foundation for trust and support that goes into creating that positive classroom environment for our students. This is something that I strive to do everyday in my own classroom at my practicum school. Improving the self-confidence of my students is one of my major goals for my practicum. Is it an easy task? No, but nobody ever said that being a teacher was easy.

Rita Pierson emphasizes the importance of establishing a connection with each student in the classroom in her Ted Talk. Her Ted Talk is powerful and speaks volumes about believing in every single student in your class, even if they don’t initially believe in themselves. A relatable comment that Pierson made, was when she asked herself how she was going to take her “low” class from where they are now to where they need to be within nine months. Instead of making the students feel bad about themselves for being a challenging class, Pierson told her class that they were the best students and that they were somebody. The students began to believe in themselves and in their own abilities over time, as their self-confidence improved. As Pierson says, “every child deserves a champion, an adult who understands the power of connection and insists that they can be the best that they can be.” I encourage you to watch the video below:

Reference:

Pierson, Rita. (2013, May). Every kid needs a champion. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion#t-196559.

01/16/16

Mini-Inquiry into Assessment

Our inquiry class will be analyzing “Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity?” by Ronald A. Beghetto.

Prior to reading

My first reaction to this question is yes, assessment does kill student creativity, but only to a certain extent. I believe that the type of assessment will have an impact on how students will approach the activity. For example, if the assessment is summative and has strict criteria that is written only by the teacher, then students will feel bounded by the set criteria and will be less inclined to use their creativity. If the assessment is being done in a low-risk environment and/or criteria is set collaboratively between the teacher or student, or even fully by the students, then creativity can thrive.

During the reading

Beghetto’s discussion on classroom goal structures and how it discourages student creativity is a valued point that most likely many people, including myself, have experienced throughout elementary. He argues that performance goal-related structures are examples of when the teacher only shows to the class examples of the best work or uses comparisons among students. In these environments, students not only feel less inclined to use creativity, but they also experience high levels of anxiety, exert less effort, and engage in self-sabotaging behaviours, such as cheating.

In contrast to this is the mastery goal structure, which emphasizes on concepts such as self-improvement, skill development, creativity, and understanding. Students are more likely to adopt healthy motivational beliefs and mastery-oriented achievement behaviours. In turn, students develop more positive attitudes towards learning with more risk taking, which overall foster creativity.

In order to promote creativity within students, Beghetto suggests various things that teachers can do. Much to my agreement, he argues that assessments do not necessarily diminish student creativity, but rather it is how students perceive the goal messages sent by the teacher that matters. Teachers should not compare student-to-student work but instead, give students information on how they are doing compared to their own past performances. Overall, teachers should create a safe and encouraging environment where students feel confident in taking risks in order to help drive their creativity.

After reading

This reading provides for an interesting yet informative viewpoint on assessment. I have been in classrooms where teachers only show one or two examples of the “best” work. When teachers have done this, I have found that most of the time, every student will copy the same student, out of fear of doing something different and getting a bad mark. Beghetto offers a view that creativity within students can be fostered and that assessment does not need to undermine it. As he says, teachers can make a purposeful effort to ensure that assessment does not have to kill creativity, as long as they are aware of how they use assessment in the classroom.

Reference:

Beghetto, R.A., (2005). Does assessment kill student creativity? The Educational Forum, (69) 2 p254-263

01/14/16

Wise Wednesdays: Build Social and Emotional Skills in Students Through Passions and Strengths

Hello and welcome to the first instalment of Wise Wednesdays where I share some wise words from professionals within the field of Education! Every Wednesday I will discuss an informative resource that addresses some part of my inquiry question. My inquiry question is: how can teachers build self-confidence within children who easily get frustrated?

This week’s article comes from Edutopia, which I have found to be a fantastic resource for practical information. The article, titled, Building Social and Emotional Skills in Elementary Students: Passions and Strengths discusses how teachers can help students become engaged in their learning and manage their emotions better. The writer, Randy Taran, says that it is important for students to be aware of and develop their unique strengths. When students are aware of their strengths, they are able to build on them more easily, which in turn makes them feel better about themselves and increases their self-confidence. One important point that Taran addresses in the article is instilling passion and engagement within students.

I believe that it is part of our jobs as teachers that we know each and every one of our students and what they enjoy doing, what their strengths are, and where they may be having some difficulties. The important aspect is to focus on the positives and use a student’s strengths (with teacher scaffolding) to help combat their areas of difficulties. If students understand what their strengths are, then they can use their strengths in order to help combat difficult situations.

An idea that the article provides is to ask each of your students to think of two strengths that they naturally have. Then, ask your students to think of one thing that they have practiced so much that they are getting better at every time, such as reading or writing. Afterwards, have the students walk around the classroom and ask different people what strengths they see in them. By the end, each student will have a list of strengths that their classmates see in them. Just imagine the confidence boost that each student will have after this activity!

Reference:

Taran, R. (December 7, 2012). Building social and emotional skills in elementary students: Passion and strength. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/elementary-social-emotional-curriculum-3-passion-randy-taran