Experiential Learning

Holistic learning means recognizing the world at large, and life itself, as an experience, which is then included in the experience of individual learning.  In the formal classroom setting, I strive to bring materials and activities which support an experience of learner skill and content acquisition which may facilitate individuals making connects to their prior experiences and augmenting skills, abilities, and understandings.

Guided Practice

I have experienced success with Vygotskies’s “More Knowledgable Other”.  Experiential learning to me means that students can and should look for ways to challenge their current skill and content level by looking at modelling, examples and practice.  Modelling is an important aspect of education for me in giving students an idea of what skill and content we are hoping to cultivate.  Guided practice means that students should have the freedom to practice adapting skills and content in ways that benefit their own development. I believe Inquiry models in education are most successful when addressed in an environment of supportive guided practice. This also allows students to feel supported at any time, regardless of their initial skill level.

Critical Thinking

Participatory, democratic engagement is one of the core goals of social studies education.  As an educator I wish to encourage a pragmatic and critical view in engaging with the environments we find ourselves within and without.

Knowledge-Based approach

Content, cultural capital, and media literacy are keys to understanding the issues and views at hand.

Creative License

Students should take ownership and be empowered to interpret communicative assignments on their own terms so long as meaning and communication of knowledge and ideas is not compromised or substandard.

Teaching Metaphor

In Inquiry I at UBC, I was asked to think of a metaphor to use for my approach to teaching.  I found the efolio structure did not lend itself to conveying a metaphor, so I list it here instead.  As a cook I understand there is more involved in the practical applications of a recipe than merely executing a set of instructions and ingredients. Curing a cookbook is no easy task, either, and I have the highest regard for the work of Irma Rombauer in taking on the work of a cooking canon. Similarly, for me, I am looking for a canon of social studies lessons, ‘tried and true’ recipes, as well as mastering the execution of recipes for lesson plans which can ensure the successful learning of my students.  I recognize that that at the end of the day my recipe book, as my lessons and ideas, mirror the hodgepodge of recipe clippings, binder, books, and online links rather than resemble the Joy of Cooking. One day I hope to have acquired enough experience to feel I am close to carrying my own encyclopedia of resources – a work I hope others could learn from and use as well.

The selected works highlight some of the ‘recipes’ which I have made up myself in the course of my academic training, and highlight the art in discipline. Teaching too is an art, and as my professional development continues, I look forward to sharing more of my work and discoveries in education with the community.

Saving Grades

While I am more inclined to experiment with courses that do not subscribe to marks at all, I have in the meantime re-defined the traditional letter-grade system to reflect a view that failing is really another way to say “find another way” to learn, not that the subject is closed to the learning, as well as that an A is something out of the ordinary, to combat student expectations that everyone should earn an A after years of inflated grades. To this end, I have endeavoured to normalize and validate a C not as a shortcoming or average, but as an indication that work is “Complete”, much like stages in project management or video games. D and E, though even now obsolete, I have included for the definitions that I think they pedagogically indicate, which is that the learner needs to take this level as an indication of action which needs to be taken.

A – stounding

B -eyond Expectations

C-omplete

D-o Again

E-xtra Time Needed

F-ind Another Way