Hi everyone! My name is Dave Dykstra. I am currently taking my 8th and 9th MET courses, so the end may soon be in sight. I have enjoyed this program, and my teaching has grown greatly through this program, as well as my comfort and confidence in working with tech in the classroom. I am a teacher at Guido de Bres Christian High in Hamilton, Ontario, where I have been teaching for the past 17 years. I have been blessed to work part-time for the last number of years which allows me some time for this program but also for my family who wouldn’t see me otherwise. I teach mainly Bio11 and 12 and grade 9 and 10 science.
Since I’ve started MET, I’ve been able to start a Robotics program at out school using the VEX robotics system. It continues to grow and move forward from 4 students in-house to more than 20 and a competition team last year. In my classes, I have also been incorporating much more student centered learning and technology. For my biology classes, we’ve been using digital fora as well as creating course wikis and digital artifacts, which for the most part have gone very well.
I am happily married for 15 years with 3 wonderful children (13,11,7) and a dog. We love to travel in the summer (Maritimes last year) and my interests include tennis, kayaking, and skiiing. I look forward to working with you all, and am happy to see a few familiar names to work with again!
Hi, Dave! Nice to meet you!
Our school also has VEX robotics and I’ve just started to dabble with them, as I’m a newbie to our robotics committee. I’m loving the process so far! We also have Dot and Dash for the little ones. Looking forward to learning from you and seeing what insights you have to add throughout the course!
-Jonathan-
(By the way, I think you may have forgotten to check the box for “Introduction” in the editor. You might want to do that to get your post moved from “Uncategorized” to the proper forum. 🙂 )
Except now I see that you have reposted it already. Ahead of the game! My bad!
Great to see you in another MET course, Dave! I’m always interested when teachers really make the effort to try and make learning student-centred. It seems like such a no-brainer to me to want to help students in this way, get I experience the push-back on a daily basis.
What kinds of stuff do you do in class with tech, aside from the Biology stuff?
(no need to actually answer, just curious – always trawling for ideas)