Monthly Archives: October 2014

Bumpy Moments Reflection for 3rd day of Practicum (Oct/16/2014)

During Practicum

For this reflection, I have chosen to offer my thoughts on a combination of two quotes from the “Bumpy moments” article. First is the quote explaining, “For every problematic situation presented in teaching, there are several ways it may be handled depending on the teacher, the facts, and complexity of the situation.” The second quote says, “Teachers face a continual stream of questions that need immediate responses, decisions that affect the well-being of their students, value judgments that may conflict with others’ points of view and complex problems that need elegant solutions.” As I observed in my class this past Thursday, there were a few incidents that related to these quotes.

Being a very curious group of students, my class asks Ms. Toews a lot of questions throughout the day. So it was no surprise when a bunch of hands shot up when the topic of an earthquake drill came up (there was going to be an earthquake drill that day). The students asked questions related to earthquakes and the conduct around earthquake drills. One question really stood out to me, a student asked “is it possible that while we are protecting ourselves under the desk, the floor may spilt and then what would we do?” I thought to myself, how would you answer such a question and I thought Ms. Toews was thinking the same as me. However, she answered the student extremely quickly, she explained how she could not answer that question right away and that we should instead pay attention to what was going on at that moment. So I could see here how an immediate response – as outlined in the quote – can be needed to bring the class back into focus. I also thought this is probably a strategy Ms. Toews and other teachers develop “over an extended time” – like the article says – after many circumstances of student questions that are impossible to answer right away. This was also interesting to see because it showed that teachers do not necessarily have to have all the answers at all times and students at this age level seem to understand that.

In terms of decision-making, there was one decision Ms. Toews made that caught my attention. The students are required to participate in daily physical activity and Ms. Toews had explained to me early in the day that they would be doing yoga that day. However, when it came to the time for daily physical activity (DPA), the students actually ended up learning a dance routine, led by one of the students. They are practicing this for a flash mob dance they will all perform at an upcoming assembly. Ms. Toews later explained to me why she changed the plan. She said the student approached her and asked if they could work on their dance routine during DPA instead of the yoga. And Ms. Toews said I made the decision to let them because any time I can allow them to take positive initiative, I do. To me, this was a decision I thought affects the students – it shows them that the teacher views them as leaders who can be trusted to lead their own activities. As a result, this one decision serves to build the students’ confidence, while allowing them time to work on skills like cooperation, responsibility and teamwork, as they had to work as a group to perfect a dance routine.

In terms of problematic situations, I observed Ms. Toews handle two conflicts that arose outside of the classroom. First, there was a physical issue on the playground and then one involving the boys scaring the girls during their run outside, around the school. Ms. Toews listened to the problem when it was presented and then waited for a good time to speak to the students individually. The article says a problematic situation like this can be handled differently depending on the teacher, the factors and situation complexity. Whereas Ms. Toews decided to handle the situation by speaking to those involved individually, another way it could have been handled was speaking to those involved in a group – taking turns speaking. Again, like the article says, maybe this would be more appropriate under different situation factors and if the situation was more or less complex. So, this example demonstrates that even small conflicts between students can be handled in various manners. Therefore, I can understand how other more complex issues would definitely have various ways of being dealt with.

Observing and reflecting on these situations in the classroom and speaking to Ms. Toews about them made me realize that teacher responses to problematic or decision-making situations can be so complex. I learned it takes time to develop a pattern of responses that you are comfortable with and work for you and I am excited to explore what works for me!

Entrance Slip – October 14, 2014 – Week 7

At UBC

As soon as I began reading Ken Osborne’s chapter on education and schooling, the third paragraph caught my attention. He asks, “to what extent, if at all, does our schooling contribute to our education?” because he is saying that education is pushed aside to make room for other “mandates” (p. 21). And I thought of an example for this right away because in our EDST 401 class we just read an article this past week about policy making for schools. I believe policies is one of those “mandates” that pushes aside education because policies are most often developed by individuals distant from education. Because of this distance, these individuals do not necessarily always prioritize education in policy making which means the contribution schooling makes to our education can be cutback.

While I read on in the article, a thought kept popping up in my head: “life-long learner.” For example, the article says, “almost anything we experience in life can be educational … serious misfortune or undiluted triumph,” (p. 22) to me this means anything we go through in life can become a part of our education. That said, I believe our education does not just result from our schooling and like Osborne explains, personal experiences mean much more to us than school experiences. Therefore I think these experiences outside of school can be much more powerful for our education. In my opinion, this could be really advantageous for some people, especially those who do not enjoy schooling or do not do very well in school. In other words, these individuals, in a sense, still have hope to gain what they did not in school from other arenas in life.

I think what really struck me was the reason why children were initially sent to school: “public schooling was designed more as a tool of social policy than as an instrument of universal education” (p. 27). Being a teacher candidate, this actually really troubles me, as what motivates me to become a teacher is the goal of instilling the value of education in my students. As I have mentioned in other reflections, I was inspired to become a teacher because of my own teacher’s drive to instill the value of education in her students. Although the article says we have moved forward in the twentieth century, I feel there is a long way to still go in terms of the “educational potential of schooling in the twentieth century” (p. 31). I believe a lot of this depends on individual teachers and how they instruct their students. In other words, like the article explains, we need to value what knowledge students bring into the classroom and then expand it, more student reflection, content that students can connect to, and so on. This is definitely not something easy; however, I truly believe with the education future teachers (like us) are receiving, it is not an impossible feat. For example, assignments like our social studies project plan allow us to actively involve students and build on their interests. It is such projects that get us closer to actually contributing to a student’s ‘education.’

Entrance Slip – October 7, 2014 – Week 6

At UBC

In Molly Romano’s “Teacher reflections on ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching: a self- study,” I really enjoyed the rawness of the teacher’s story from her second year of teaching. It felt so real in that it offered such a realistic take on what new teachers experience. I specifically noted how many different aspects are involved when you do become a new teacher. As we are going through this program, I know I at least and some of my fellow cohort members feel like we are engaging in such a variety of tasks, work, and assignments. But, really that variety is just going to keep increasing. As a new teacher, the number of people you have to interact with, the different relationships you have to build will keep increasing, and you will be continuously changing up your teaching to fit new situations like this teacher had to. What I really appreciated was the teacher’s ability to ponder so much so quickly when a “bumpy moment” came up.

I found it really interesting to read that she chose her first activity in the new classroom to be an oral story. I have always loved this activity as a child and even now – whether that be sharing oral stories with my family or reading out loud. I think already in these five weeks we have gained a sufficient understanding of the value of oral stories and the underlying messages that children’s stories often have to offer. For example, in our Aboriginal Education class, oral stories come up in the Aboriginal People’s traditions time and time again, almost in every class discussion. So really when we incorporate oral stories into classrooms we are offering the students a story, usually some form of a message while incorporating Aboriginal pedagogy.

When I was reading the analysis of the “bumpy moments,” I was really surprised at how the teacher compared herself to a manager, I had never considered or heard of that comparison before. As I read on in this section, she explains the importance of management control for successful instruction. Honestly, this sort of scared me and it is something I hope we work more and more on as we progress through this year.

As an end thought, while I was reading, a somewhat random thought hit me: we are so fortunate to have access to articles like this one that offer so much detail into teaching practices that we will actually be making use of.

Entrance Slip – September 30, 2014 – Week 5

At UBC

I know in one of my previous entry slips I said the Hymel, Schonert-Reichl and Miller reading was my favorite, but as soon as I began reading the chapter on teacher inquiry by Anthony Clarke and Gallen Erickson, this chapter became number one for me. Their talk about the controversy around teaching being professional practice is something I can connect with. In these past couple years, and more recently, these last months during job action, so many people I know have questioned teaching. Many have doubted teachers’ abilities and I feel teachers are not given the respect and acknowledgement they truly deserve. As I read the common elements of various definitions of professional practice I kept thinking, “yeah, teachers have this, yes teachers do this, yes this is characteristic of teachers.” For example, one such element is intensive preparation. In my opinion, teachers definitely fulfill this aspect of professional practice as we are in a one-year program right now in which we learn an amount of concepts, methods and ways of operating as a teacher in just one day that I never would have imagined. What really resonated with me was the importance of teacher inquiry in acknowledging teaching as professional practice; as the authors explain, “when a teacher ceases to be inquisitive about his or her practice … then his or her practice ceases to be professional” (p.5). I definitely agree with the authors on this because I feel like this sort of counters the image others have of teachers as inactive and/or static. I think teacher inquiry is evidence that teachers are indeed evolving, lifelong learners who are constantly trying to essentially enhance their methods of teaching along with how students learn – even if little step by little step. Towards the end of the article, the authors say, “Inquiry is embedded in professional practice,” (p.4) again highlighting how important inquiry is for the professional aspect of our teaching career. And this actually excites me now for carrying out our own inquiries in this program!

Entrance Slip – September 23, 2014 – Week 4

At UBC

The Hymel, Schonert-Reichl and Miller reading for this week has to be my favorite reading in the course so far. This is because it reinforces our cohorts’ beliefs in that it gives such an importance to social and emotional learning. Through the five main reasons as to why social and emotional learning should be prioritized in schools, I believe the authors give such comprehensive information that there is at least one point, idea, or statistic that any reader can relate with. In my opinion, the statistics really helped my understanding of the article because they sort of add an element of reality to the topic. For example, they write that 14% of 4-17 year olds “experience some type of mental health disorder” (p.152) and then they give an actual number count – 800,000 plus children. This really stood out to me because usually we think of mental health disorders as predominantly occurring in the older population – but, as the authors explain, this is definitely not true. My favorite part of the article was reason 3: “The ultimate goal of education is to create good citizens, not just good learners” (p.158). If it were up to me, this would be plastered all over schools. I think in the midst of trying to teach our children academic content – times tables, ancient civilizations, cursive writing and so on – we sometimes forget the importance of the citizenship skills outlined in this article. For me, this side of education has always held great value because I believe schools and more importantly educators can and should help to build a strong and positive foundation to good citizenship skills. While reading this I thought how will I be able to do this as an educator and I hope I am able to answer this question at the end of our program.

Entrance Slip – September 16, 2014 – Week 3

At UBC

The Henderson chapter on deliberative inquiry starts off with an example of a teacher, Sarah, facing a tough teaching situation. I really enjoyed reading her dilemma because I could totally see myself experiencing the same anxiety Sarah faced. What really made me stop was how she thought of including so many different people in her solution; this just goes to show how much support teachers can call on when in need. In a sense, that made me feel relieved because as teacher candidates and new teachers, we will probably face similar dilemmas in which we too have lots of support. This just reminded of how in the beginning weeks of this program we have been told countless times of the help and support we can get at any point from the TEO office, our instructors and our fellow teacher candidates. I also thought the concept of group deliberative inquiry fits so well with our social and emotional learning cohort as its core ideas are empathy, caring and embracing multiple perspectives. Through working together as a group, educators, students and their parents are – as the author said – building trust with each other. I thought in a sense, this is already fostering an environment where social and emotional learning can take place. Towards the end of the article, there is a section called “Examining and Describing the Problem,” this section really caught my attention as I never realized the importance of defining the actual problem for inquiry. I now think that this first step requires a lot of detail as the author describes a handful of questions we must ask to clearly state the problem. Without a well-defined problem, I can already predict it will be hard to reach a decent solution.

Entrance Slip – September 9, 2014 – Week 2

At UBC

The first paragraph in Henderson’s chapter one really hit home for me. The idea of a teacher who teaches a way of living, someone who you will not forget, instead you will try to get in touch with them as an adult, to thank them is an idea I can vouch for. I consider myself fortunate to have had such a teacher in elementary school and like Henderson says in the chapter, she did help me “discover purpose and meaning in [my] life” (p.3). To this day, I believe she is the reason I have wanted to become a teacher, as her way of teaching was truly inspirational for me. Mainly, it was the value she had for education and how she attempted to instill this value in her students – she was so motivated. In fact my application for the BEd program was based around this inspiration and at this point I sent her an email thanking her for teaching us the way she did. The rest of this chapter was actually very new to me and so it was a good learning experience for me. I honestly did not know much about the relevancy of democratic living to education. However, as I went along there were lots of little details that I definitely believed in previously but just did not know of the connection they had to democratic living. For example, I have always appreciated the concept of being a lifelong learner has been drilled into my system thanks to my parents and I now understand the relation it has to teaching for democratic living. The last paragraph also caught my eye: the idea that we should look at our “frustrations as hurdles rather than obstacles” (p.30). I thought this was a great perspective on dealing with any issues in a positive manner. I think it is key to learn how to use any frustrations to your advantage, to learn from them so that you can grow as an educator.

Communication Reflection for 2nd Day of Practicum

During Practicum

Being in Ms. Toew’s grade seven class for the entire day this past Thursday, I had the chance to closely observe how she communicates with her students. Firstly, I thought she was very direct with her students – she was usually very straightforward when trying to convey what she expected the students to be doing. For example, when she was teaching a lesson and a couple of students began to talk amongst themselves, she just clearly said, “pay attention,” and resumed her lesson. She did not question why they were talking or what they were talking about; she gave them a simple, clear instruction.

However, this does not mean she avoided asking questions altogether. Throughout her lesson she would check up and question students’ understandings as a way of assessing their comprehension of the material. And her responses to students’ answers were noteworthy as well. Rarely, maybe once, did she use the phrase “good job.” Instead, she had pretty consistent replies for each student who answered. For example: “oh yeah, okay,” “yes,” or “you guys found it.” Basically, she avoided praise-based replies like “good job,” which would create student dependency on the teacher. That is, a reply like “good job” has the risk of conveying to the student that the teacher always needs to tell them they are successful or that they are literally “doing a good job.” This then does not allow the students to be able to judge their own progress or work. Whereas when she uses replies like “oh yeah, okay,” she is conveying that she understands what the student is saying. And from here the students can understand even on their own that their answer was correct. In a sense, at times she even tried to become one of the students when they offered answers she had not thought of herself. In these situations she made sure the students knew, she would say, “I’m learning too, I didn’t even notice that.” I thought this was great because through these replies she was conveying to the students that sometimes she misses some points of information as well and that she too is learning with them.

I also noted how Ms. Toews would handle situations where students asked some pretty complex questions or when she sort of had to re-explain a concept. She called these “a teachable moment.” For example, one of these teachable moments was around the class science unit, biomes. To fully re-explain this concept she reworded a definition and provided an example. She also told the students where they could find the information about the topic and again was very straightforward and direct – specifically pointing out the page. This was really interesting for me to observe because it displayed how a teacher must be able to explain some tough concepts in a few different ways in case there were some confusions the first time. And I loved how Ms. Toews handled these moments so calmly and with such ease. This is something I hope to be able to learn from her over the next couple of months.

In terms of general classroom communication I thought Ms. Toews had developed a great balance with the students. She allowed them a good amount of freedom but then she had expectations that the students seemed to truly understand and respect. For example, if a student had to use the washroom during a lesson, Ms. Toews generally would let this slide. Or if the students were done their work, she allowed them to do an activity of their choice. However, when she needed something done from the students she would again directly convey this. For example, after lunch there was some work, which needed to be completed so she firmly asked for complete silence. From what I noticed the students seemed to really appreciate the way Ms. Toews communicated in the classroom. I was part of a conversation in which a group of students said to Ms. Toews how she was strict enough, but she could also be “chill.” For me this was really admirable and again it excites me to have her as my school advisor.

Lastly, I noticed Ms. Toews makes use of a lot of positive communication. She has a system of points called “Sundae Points” in which the class earns a point for any form of positive behavior they display (answering questions, teamwork, behaving appropriately through a fire drill, etc.). She also rewards the children when they engage in any of the “Bothwell High Five” behaviors: “Responsibility, Cooperativeness, Empathy, Kindness, Safety and Courageousness, Respectfulness.” She fills out a slip each time she observed this behavior and the students would be entered into a draw. I could tell this communication system was indeed working because I saw her make use of these slips a couple of times just within the one day I was there.

In the end, I sincerely believe Ms. Toews has a strong sense of communication with her students and this can be seen in how smoothly her class runs. I am very excited and eager to work with her throughout practicum because I can already tell I will learn so much from her not only about communication but various other practices. I think it is also important to include here how welcoming and warm Ms. Toews was with me. She truly made me feel at home in her classroom and in this one day, she offered me so much helpful advice and various tips that will surely come in use.

Reflection on First Day of Practicum

During Practicum

If I had to pick one word to describe my first day at practicum this past Thursday, it would simply be “rewarding.” I had the chance to experience three quite different grade levels and get a sense of the curriculum, class structures, and methods of teaching involved in each. Being a small school, I was able to interact with almost all of the staff and even some parents. This really opened my eyes to the importance of “community” in this school. That is, all the adults, including parents show such a keen interest in developing the finest learning environment possible for the students. For example, even though the kindergarten parents had just received notification of the Terry Fox Run happening on Friday, they were prepared to volunteer and bring in snacks and drinks for the students – I loved that! In terms of classroom expectations and rules/routines, I thought all three classes I visited had some similarities; however, there were some differences so I will discuss each individually.

In the K/1 class, there were lots of verbal instructions. In fact, when the students were being introduced to a project, the teacher (Ms. Johnson) even said “there is some good news and bad news… the bad news is there is a lot of instruction.” However, she always followed this with reassurance such as pointing out the help students can offer each other or ask for from herself or one of the student teachers. There were many different posters on the wall detailing different kinds of classroom expectations and behaviors. What I noticed was these posters were in locations the smaller students could actually read; for example, by the doors. Democracy and choice was another feature this teacher incorporated into the class routine. For example, somehow she ended up making the statement “J is the best letter” and then she asked the class to vote if they liked the letter J. I thought this was neat because even though the vote was for a simple matter, it indicates to the students the teacher values their opinion. Within my time in the classroom, I observed two main expectations of the students: raising hands and asking for the teacher’s permission for anything outside of the work the students were supposed to be doing.

In the 4/5 class, verbal instruction was key again; however, Mr.Hodgson did this with a more strict and strong tone. Mainly he spoke out the instructions for each lesson and supplemented this with the smart board. For example, he offered samples of the work students were to do on the board and then turned on the board’s timer as a way of letting the students know how much time they had for each assignment. Classroom expectations/rules were also found on posters on the front walls of the classroom – again so that they were easily visible as most students’ desks were facing the front. The main expectations I observed were raising hands to speak and following task-specific instructions such as silently and individually working. Lastly, if students were not adhering to task-specific instructions, Mr.Hodgson made use of warnings; first the student would receive a verbal warning after which their name would go on the board. Apart from this, he allowed students to work freely until he noticed any disruptions or students going off task.

The grade seven class was quite different from the other two in that there was a lot of student self-direction involved. The clearest example I observed was during math: Ms. Toews instructed the students to take notes however she said it was up to the students how they wanted to do this. For example, they could write in their math book, on a loose-leaf paper, follow the method described in the textbook and so on. That said, there were a lot of classroom instructions posted throughout the classroom – there was one whole white board dedicated to posters of ideas like honesty, respect, etc. One that stood out to me was titled “Bothwell’s High 5” which were “Responsibility, Cooperativeness, Empathy, Kindness, Safety and Courageousness, Respectfulness.” Raising hands after the teacher spoke and being on-task were key behaviors Ms. Toews expected of her students. For example, at one point she was still in the middle of a question when students began raising hands, she stopped and asked them to wait for her to complete her question. In the end, I thought this class had a clear balance of restricting rules and student autonomy.