Monthly Archives: February 2016

This week I had an interesting experience involving student plagiarism. A group of eight students whom I all know to be friends worked together on a lab report that was only supposed to be done in pairs. It was essentially identical between all four groups with the odd exception of word order or formatting. I contemplated what to do, asked my school associates for their opinions, and after a day or so of thinking about it, I came up with a solution that I think is appropriate. I pulled the groups aside and had a private discussion with each of them, explaining the situation that they had put themselves into. Though they had each submitted a high-quality report, I could not accept it as representative of their individual abilities because they had all worked on it or copied it from each other. Instead of giving a zero or omitting the assignment, I decided to get each group to send me an email to which I would reply with a new set of lab discussion questions. They should then reply to my email with thoughtful answers to each of the questions in order to receive their original marks on the report. Should the same thing occur again, they will have to redo the entire report, not just the discussion section of it.

This relates to my UBC courses because my instructors talked to me about the importance of student accountability and teaching life skills in addition to academic ones. My solution requires thought and action on the part of the students and also has clear escalating consequences in the case of a repeat offence, while at the same time acknowledging that students make mistakes and that they should be given a second chance to demonstrate their knowledge rather than solely punished. I was also glad that I got to put to use my knowledge of the Repair Kit for Grading chapter that I read during the short practicum! I think I can improve on my handing of the situation in the future, however. I think that I should be more precisely clear on what is expected of students and lab groups, and I should explicitly state my policy on coping and plagiarizing fellow students’ work before the situation arises in the first place. I am finding that being excessively clear up front is the best way to avoid confusion and vague expectations with my students. I struggle with that and I need to continue to improve on it in the future.

This week I attended by first real Pro D experience. I say “real” because I went to a Pro D session during Term 1, but I couldn’t appreciate it in the context of actually teaching. This Pro D session had me go to Cambie Secondary in Richmond for something called Ed Camp. There were three sessions throughout the day: the first was a district-wide Science department meeting, then the second two I was free to choose from quite a large list. I went to one session on inquiry based learning and the second I spent with the other McNair science teachers working on the new curriculum. There were no facilitators at any of the sessions. The teachers were supposed to work with each other to discuss and enhance their understanding of the topic at hand. I wasn’t so sure of the format to start with, but in the end it worked out!

It was an interesting experience because I found it to be very similar to my UBC course work in that it is only as useful as I make it to be. It’s very easy to coast through the sessions as a passive listener and not really get anything out of it. It takes a lot more effort, but being an active participant and contributing to the discussion by asking questions and offering experience is much more fulfilling. I went through the first science session without saying much of anything, but by the time I went to the afternoon sessions I felt more comfortable and was able to participate more. I remember a lot more from those sessions and I took away some really great ideas for how to teach science using inquiry. Overall, the day was a great learning experience both about how Pro D days run and how to be an effective teacher!

Week 2 was an interesting experience for me. I think that overall I improved as a teacher (slightly!) and did better in the front of the class. I was less nervous, more confident, knew all the students names, and really was able to lead the class. However, I feel a little less good about Week 2 than Week 1. I think this is because the relief that I felt during the first week that everything was going to be okay has worn off. I am starting to see the areas where I need to improve and I am going to have to work hard on improving those areas. I knew that classroom management was going to be my biggest area of weakness going into the practicum, so it’s no surprise that I am struggling a little bit with it. The Grade 10s are a fantastic, good group of students but they have a lot of energy. I need to develop techniques to channel that energy into Chemistry!

This relates to my UBC courses because even though we went over many techniques for classroom management, one thing that my instructors emphasized quite heavily is that there is no “magic bullet” for classroom management. I am going to have to try a bunch of techniques and see what works. I feel that I have a good relationship with the students and I don’t want to give that up by being a total police officer in the class, but I am going to have to try some things that might not be the most popular moves. In the near future I want to set a new seating plan to split up the most talkative groups of students and get those who really need to concentrate close to the front of the room. We’ll see how it all goes in Week 3!