This week saw us getting deeper into what teacher/student inquiry is. Lots of insightful discussion and reflection. We got into formative assessment this week which has been extremely interesting to me. I wish a were an elementary student now! The idea of formative assessment being as much about the teacher as the student to me is critical, and I have been thinking of lots of ways that assessment might be implemented in the classroom. In other news, I have started my literacy project which will focus on LEGO literacy. It has given me a great excuse to dig out all of my LEGO and do some building!
My Third Week
Week three was a busy one! I had two Group Teach exercises which were a lot of fun. In Physical Education, we taught a badminton lesson. It went fairly well, there were a few bumps but we were able to make some modifications to make things safe and fun. In our Psychology class we gave a presentation about Neuroscience and Intelligence Testing, which included a mock intelligence test. It got the class thinking about how biases are a part of these tests and led to some interesting discussion. On to week four!
My Second Week
And now let’s get down to business! Week two is here and we are jumping into the deep end, pencils and textbooks in hand. We are preparing our first Group Teach assignments for next week and are tackling some interesting readings. We had some eye-opening discussion about Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development, and how his concepts are so embedded in education today. We had to think about questions of how we learn, how we measure learning, why we are grouped with students of the same age in schools, and the list goes on. Lots of introspection and reflection, broken up by the occasional flash mob.
My First Week
My first week in the UBC Teacher Education Program has been a fun-filled blur. All of the instructors are excellent and can support us through their varied backgrounds and expertise. Highlights of the week were some great games in our Physical Education course (we did a hilarious fitness bingo activity in our first class) and we had a beautiful afternoon full of ice-breaking at Wreck Beach. The weekend will serve to get up to date on readings and then back to school on Monday!