This was a short but eventful week for me. I picked up two blocks of grade 9 foods, planned a lesson for a teacher on-call, attended a teacher candidate seminar, and experienced my first ever Professional Development day with the Burnaby School District. This meant I was only teaching three days this week, but still had the chance to experience the environments of the new classes.
Picking up new classes, what differences have you noticed with your students? Do you find that you are planning your classes differently for these students, or has your planning stayed the same? Is there anything else different that you are doing with these students?
There is definitely a big difference between the grade eight and nine foods classes, and I also experienced that the new classes were very unlike my expectations going into them. First of all, the number of students who needed more prompting to be engaged with classroom activities was generally higher in the older group of students. However, I feel it’s still early to judge, because it may be that my teaching or activities are not what the students find exciting. I foresee having to change up activities and instructions in my future lessons so as to increase student engagement.
Secondly, because the grade nine classes are all in the afternoon, I found that the energy levels differed from students in morning classes. Especially with the grade nines at the last block of the day, students seemed more tired and eager to get out of class. Of course, every class is different, but the general energy level, compared to my grade eight class in second block, is not quite as energetic. I think for this class, introducing a new element such as brain breaks or kinesthetic activities would be beneficial.
Planning labs and lessons for my new classes, I walked in with a lot of assumptions about their knowledge level and abilities (which in retrospect was not the best thing to do). From now on when I plan my lessons, I will always remember to review basics of cooking, from safety to reading the recipe. And this can be a great way for those students who have not previously taken a foods class to be reminded of how to cook and clean in a home economics kitchen.
Burnaby had a Professional Development day on Friday, February 19. What were three things you learned at Pro-D?
For the Burnaby Pro-D day workshops, I unfortunately could not attend the keynote speaker due to workshop scheduling. I did attend an all-day workshop by Dr. Peter Liljedahl, an Associated Professor at Simon Fraser University focusing on mathematics education. The topic was on ‘Building Thinking Classrooms’ (slides can be found at http://www.peterliljedahl.com/presentations). Although his background is not in home economics, I learned a lot from what he had to share with a group of home economics teachers. One thing I learned that I would like to implement in my lessons in the near future is the use of vertical non-permanent surfaces. Basically, it is the use of dry-erase or chalk boards around the classroom where students can write, erase, and brainstorm freely, therefore allowing for more thinking and comfort in risk-taking.
Another idea that I want to implement is one of the visible random groups. The classes that I am teaching, or will teach, has had minimal seating plan changes since the beginning of the school year. By having students move around working with different students every lab, it may not be a popular opinion at first, but students will benefit in ways such as being able to work with different types of people, and getting to know their classmates. Overall, I believe this would lead to a more connected classroom community.
The last key idea that I take away from this workshop that I am planning to start with my grade ten class is the idea of creating a rubric as a class. I will do this on the first day, creating a checklist rubric of what a good or bad lab looks like. The hope is that this will hold students more accountable and have them be engaged more in labs.
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