Author Archives: pearlynn

Welcome

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“Teaching is about caring and inspiring students”

Hi, my name is Pearl Leong. Welcome to my E-portfolio!

Children are the future of our world, and I love working with children, particularly pre-teens and adolescents. I specialize in Middle Years Science and I have a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia, and a Science degree (major in Chemistry and minor in Geography) from Simon Fraser University, BC Canada.

I enjoy engaging and opening up the minds of students to new possibilities of viewing different things and in various light. I love seeing their eyes light up when they discover something new. I believe this is where my creativity comes in.

I also believe that children are our future leaders of our future. My goal is to encourage values in children, so that they can carry the torch to be responsible and resourceful gatekeepers of our society.

I love travelling, road-trips, camping, hiking and kayaking. I also enjoy photography where I am able to tap into the creative and artistic side of me. I also enjoy reading non-fiction.

I hope you join me in educating and bringing out the best in these future leaders of our world.

Pearl Leong

How to Have an Excellent Day

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At the beginning of a school year, I found having an open discussion with the class to be very useful in classroom management and setting the tone for basic classroom expectations.

At my practicum school, my students and I discussed what it meant to have an excellent day in school. We came up with a list that included having a positive attitude, behaving responsibly, being organized, completing homework on time, staying on task and helping others. At the same time, we also discussed about consequences; what would be fair consequences if rules were broken.

Getting students’ input on how we would like to run our class together, students felt involved and were more willing to participate in making up the classroom community. As a result, my class was a peaceful environment where students enjoyed working and helping each other learn.

I loved this exercise and would highly recommend any new teacher to use this strategy to start-up his/her classroom.

Stand for Something

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The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘ethics’ as “moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity”.

As an educator, I feel it is very important to use teachable moments to teach students the importance of having a set of morals and principles.

I remembered it was our Science class and we were learning about density. I had brought a pail of water and 2 cans of soda – a regular coke and a diet coke. We were learning how to make hypotheses on the outcomes.

I wanted each student to come up with their own hypothesis; one that reflected their own beliefs and was not influenced by their peers’. I asked students to guess what would happen to the two soda cans if I placed them in water.

I assured students there were no right or wrong answers, just “Take a Stand” on what they think would happen. I went around class and gathered students’ hypothesis. When it was the students’ turn, I got each student to stand up, and say what they thought their guesses were.

At the end of our exercise, I asked the class if they knew what I meant by “Taking a Stand”. One student replied, “Taking a stand” meant, “having a belief and sticking to it”.

I seized the opportunity to turn it into a teachable moment. I told the class, taking a stand is especially important when they are growing up. There will be many influences around them. Some will be positive and some will not be as positive. If students have a set of personal beliefs, they will be less likely to fall gullible to anything that comes their way, and it can definitely guide students to make sound decisions in the future.

It is up to them, and not their peers, to decide for themselves, and what they should believe in.

“Stand up for something, if not you will fall for anything”.

Imagination

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Children often learn about the world through their senses. Whenever possible, I engage students’ learning by appealing to their senses.

Boyle’s Law is one of the most challenging concepts to teach to a Grade 6/7s class. It involved understanding how an invisible medium such as gas would react in the presence of changing conditions like pressure, temperature, volume, etc. Where and how do you even begin to describe something as invisible as a gas?

Since students at this age are fairly imaginative, I engaged students by appealing to their imagination. We explored the effects of gas molecules under certain conditions.

To illustrate Boyle’s law, I asked students to imagine what it felt like to have a warm, glowing fire in the middle of the class. I then got the class to imagine what it was like as the fire grew “hotter” (students got out of their seats and started moving around). Next, I got students to imagine what it was like when the room got really hot. Some students attempted to open the door of the classroom, etc.

Conversely, I asked students to imagine how they would react if the room got colder. Students stood closer to each other. Next I got the class to imagine what it was like if the room felt very cold, like minus 40 degrees Celsius.  Students came huddling together as a class. I told the class that is exactly what gas molecules would react when they feel very hot or cold.

Next, I handed out a worksheet and asked students to apply and illustrate what they have learned about “Boyle’s Law”. Many students described Boyle’s law successfully by drawing pictures to illustrate their understanding. I was quite impressed with the results and I was quite sure the class really enjoyed getting out of their seats and participating in the experience.

Alex’s Note Home

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During my practicum, I have discovered that involving parents can significantly improve a child’s learning and reduce behaviour problems.

Alex had been tardy and displayed disengaged behaviour. He arrived late to class and often forgot his writing supplies. Many times, he had to be excused from class to get writing supplies from his locker. It was quite disruptive.

A note was sent home to Alex’s parents, but the note was never signed or brought back.

Next day, I followed up with a phone call home to Alex’s parents. His mother was a busy working mom with two other children under her care. His father, the one usually responsible for their children’s homework, had been working late. His mother noted that she would see that the note get signed.

A few days later, Alex arrived with a big smile on his face and a signed note by his father. Alex and his father had been working on a few assignments. Over time, I noticed that Alex was bringing his supplies more promptly and participated more in class.

I felt the time Alex had spent with his father was very helpful to Alex’s development. In the best interest of students, it is necessary as educators to inform parents of a student’s progress, so students can benefit most from at home and from school support.

ZERO Tolerance

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During my practicum, there were several bullying incidents reported inside locker rooms of the gymnasium.

Teachers on our team investigated into the matter. We were each responsible for our class. We surveyed the class by asking students to answer the following questions: “What negative behaviours have you seen?”, “Who is responsible for the most of it?” and “What can you do to help the situation?”

Students wrote their names down on their surveys and their replies were kept confidential. That way, students can have a chance to let us know if they were bullied, or if had witnessed bullying incidents.

Students are sometimes afraid to speak up, and I thought this survey was a very useful tool to help students communicate with teachers. The team teachers and I discussed our findings and found the source of the bullying. We then chatted with a few identified students and the problem seemed to be resolved.

It is important to promptly address those reported bullying issues as that will affect students’ social and physical development. Students need to feel safe in their learning environment.

As teachers, we need to have ZERO tolerance for bullying. Any form of bullying should be addressed and dealt with as promptly as possible, so that students can have a safe environment to thrive emotionally, intellectually and socially.

“Ruth’s Assessment Song”

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“Ruth’s Assessment Song” (Sung to “You are My Sunshine”)
“First thing we need, dear, is clear intentions
So students know what they’re trying to learn
Share the criteria, provide great feedback
And success we all will learn.

Our classroom planning is aimed at learning
Not merely grinding through the course
We offer choices, and second chances
And do most respond, of course

We have techniques dear, to raise achievement
We ask great questions, and time for thought
Notice the learning, adjust the teaching
It makes us all feel much less fraught

What’s in it for me, I hear you asking
Why should I bother with all this stuff?
I’ll tell you why, dear, the kids learn faster
And behaviour’s not so rough

So there we have it, ten steps to heaven
We know it works, so why not try
Clear expectations, descriptive feedback
Our teaching works well, and students fly”
This poem was posted up in our lunch room, the day after we had a school wide Pro-D.

I loved this poem as it reminded me that effective teaching requires more than rigidly following a lesson plan.  Students all learn differently and as educators, we need to provide a variety of ways and many chances for students to learn.

Before I started my practicum, I was under the impression that I had to finish teaching all my units and lesson plans within a small window of time. Whether students thoroughly understood, seemed secondary to me.

During my practicum, I realized that teaching meant a lot more than following a prescribed unit/lesson plan. There were dynamic variables such as overall students’ learning abilities, class dynamics, school interruptions, etc., that I had to take into consideration, and to adjust my teaching accordingly.

More importantly, however, I realized that effective teaching also involved finding out how effective students are learning. This meant getting to know students, their learning background, giving lots of feedback to students (from my observations, exit slips, quizzes, etc), adapting and adjusting my lessons and unit plans accordingly, setting clear expectations by giving clear instructions and using the rubrics, asking thoughtful questions to further and challenge students’ understanding, and providing ample of opportunities for students to improve.

When I incorporated these strategies and adjusted my lessons in my practicum, I found my teaching style and my connections with students had improved dramatically.

As an educator, I look forward to developing and growing more in this area, for it is after all, all about helping students to learn better.

Olympic Zip Cord Project

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During the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010, many fun and unusual events were happening in downtown Vancouver.

One of them was the Zip-Cord, where people strapped themselves in their harness as they zipped across from one building to another, just like in a James-bond movie.

The Olympic spirit was still in the air. We were about to learn about the hypothenuse in Math 8. As many students were familiar with the Zip-cord, I created a scenario where I told students that they have been hired by the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) to be Zip-cord project managers. Students were very excited with the prospect.

Students then broke into groups to see if they could figure out how much cable they need to connect two buildings together. None of the students could figure it out. With this problem in mind, I proceeded to introduce the concept of the hypothenuse.

At the end of a series of lessons, I showed students the Zip-cord slide they saw initially. Students applied the concepts they have learned, and were able to calculate the length of the Zip-cord. They all felt successful being VANOC Zip-cord Project “Managers”.

It was a fun and rewarding activity. I am certain students will remember it for a long time.

Singapore Math

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In my UBC education program, I wrote a paper, “Introducing Singapore Math (the bar method) along with BC Math helps strengthen students’ mathematical understanding” for a research assignment in my math course.

The bar method introduced in my paper is highly versatile, robust and useful for teaching BC Math. It can scaffold mathematical concepts, like fractions, percentages, algebra, rates of change, etc. Students can also use this tool to sort out and rationalize their thinking process easily.

Since the bar method is highly visual, it can differentiate learning for many students. Even “students with weak reading and math skills” are able to benefit from the simplicity of Singapore Math (Hoven and Garelick 29). Additionally, students with learning disability, such as speech and hearing impairment individuals, as well as language-challenged such as English as Second Language (ESL) students, can also benefit using this method.

I have used this method to teach fractions in my Grade 6/7 class, and had found the results very promising among students. Students readily embraced this concept, found doing math fun and were motivated to take on more challenges.

Examples of this bar method and how to use it can also be found  in my paper Artifact 8 – Math Paper.

I highly recommend using this bar method. I am happy to share this method with my colleagues who are looking for new ways to teach and introduce math.