My inquiry question, in the beginning of the program, was how the home culture (ethnic culture, family composition, and home atmosphere) of a student impacts his/her motivation in class? However, this question has started to shift due to my practicum experience. My question is now moving in the direction of assessment. I would like to inquiry how to fairly assess students, both lower and higher, and use that to motivate their success in the class. Only trouble I am having is how is the home culture a factor of this question? How do I incorporate or separate the student from their home culture? How do I incorporate my teaching philosophy in my journey of inquiry.
Before starting this new quest of inquiry it was important for me to have a concise teaching philosophy. It took me a while, but, I was able to come with…
As an educator in the 21st century, it is vital to support student learning via developing social, self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills and social responsibility. These skills develop successfully in a classroom community that is safe, accepting, inclusive and supportive. As an educator it is essential to foster a student’s academic learning and social awareness by conducting engaging and collaborative activities. Taking on a social and emotional learning approach to learning allows a student to practice positive attitudes and behaviours towards inquiry based learning. It is important to help students tap into their prior knowledge and then ask good questions. Inquiry based learning allows a student actively engage in their learning. Allowing a student to embark on inquiry based learning fosters critically and innovative thinking.
Keeping my inquiry questions in mind and my teaching philosophy I know I have answered a lot of simple/small question but I have many more questions that are unanswered. I now know that in order to get a thorough understanding or answer to my question I need to analyze my approach to assessment. In order to support my students I need to think if am I being partial? Am I being fair? Hence my new question “how do I fairly assess students that are at different academic levels?”
In order to progress through my inquiry I came a across a document that was helpful. The link is: https://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/blogs/edutopia-finley-53ways-check-for-understanding.pdf. Looking at these different possibilities I now need to figure out how to work with it. I need to learn how to adapt these different assessment forms for the success of my students. I need learn how to adapt without being partial or “spoon feeding” my students. Assessment has been my weakness and looking at my inquiry question I need to be confident in assessment before tackling this question in depth.