My teaching experience began in Grades 3 and 4 as a classroom based teacher, but after moving into Grades 5 and 6 about three years into my career, I felt as though I had found my calling as an educator. Technology integration has always been an area of interest for me, and I had the opportunity to take on a school based technology lead role for a few years, which allowed me to work with teachers and students across the grade groupings to support their learning and development. The Organizational Issues analysis of Bates’ SECTIONS framework (2014) struck a chord with me, and I strongly believe in the need for professional development opportunities and technical support and guidance amongst school staff. The Interaction analysis of the SECTIONS framework highlights areas that I would like to further explore, including new and varied methods of effectively communicating and responding to feedback that involves students, teachers, and parents.
Two years ago, I traded my classroom for a gym, and I’m currently a school based Physical Education specialist for grades 1-4. As a Phys Ed teacher, my teaching space is unique from all others in the building, and the organization and planning for my sessions takes on a different character from classroom based perspectives, but the pedagogy and the opportunities for integrating technology are relevant to the learning that takes place in both the classroom and the gym. In terms of physical literacy, student learning is embedded in activity, culture and context, and skills in communicating and collaborating become an essential component of Phys Ed. We incorporate digital tools in the gym to help students process information and reflect upon their skill and knowledge progression, and the goal of challenging students to progress beyond their current skill level becomes driven by both students and teachers. In terms of multimedia and areas that I would like to explore further, distributed cognition through augmented reality is an exciting area that can be integrated across subject areas, including Phys Ed, to impact student skill and knowledge through motivation and engagement in new ways. The first ISTE standard (2008), centered around facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity, is an aspect of my pedagogy that I aim to continue to build upon throughout the experiences of the MET program.
My experience with LMS at the elementary school level has been limited to D2L/Brightspace, which I’ve used to customize coursework and communicate/collaborate with students and parents. One of the aspects of ETEC 565A that I’m most looking forward to is the opportunity to learn and experiment with different LMS styles, including Moodle, and developing strategies to assess the strengths and suitability of LMS to support and enhance student learning and collaboration. According to the ISTE standards, educators should aim to create opportunities to “customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources” (p.1). As a former classroom teacher and current Physical Education specialist, I envision the potential for understandings in neuroscience to help empower teachers to better plan for diverse student learning needs and styles, despite the fact that current research in the field of neuroscience does not provide an adequate understanding of the efficient application of these theories to educational practice and pedagogy. Current understandings in neuroscience have only reached the early stages of the research and analysis process, and there exists a need for greater evidence-based knowledge of developmental cognitive neuroscience and the potential impact for designing and evaluating educational programs (Coch and Ansari 2009).
Task design and approaches to planning for individual student learning needs can be enhanced through the application of neural understandings when presented from a practical perspective. One important goal for my own professional development is to learn more about the potential outcomes of interactions between neuroscience and education, and the ways in which technology can be leveraged to best support student learning and engagement. Neurological research can also led to a greater understanding of how our students are able to effectively prepare themselves to learn in a variety of educational contexts. In my role as Physical Education specialist, I’ve had the opportunity to explore the impact of neurological research in the classroom as conducted by clinical professor Dr. John Ratey In his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (2008). Through regular exercise and physical activity, our students can promote the growth and development of new brain receptors, and this can lead to improved executive functioning and planning for individual learning.
On a personal and professional level, I’m interested in exploring ways that technology integration can be utilized to apply our neurological understanding by promoting physical activity and engagement as a means of helping students to support their ability to learn while managing concerns such as depression, anxiety and ADHD through exercise and healthy lifestyle choices. LMS and social media are two ways in which these ideas can be shared and discussed amongst teachers, students and parents, and there are a growing number of Physical Education specialists currently engaging in this work.
With the intention to return to the classroom at some point in the next few years, I’m aiming to apply my learning in the MET program to cross curricular teaching situations and contexts. Supporting students in actively engaging with technology, while helping them to develop skills in assessing the function and suitability of these tools, is an important aspect of digital citizenship that requires focus and attention in schools. There’s a great quote by Marc Prensky (2010) that I think speaks strongly to the work that we do, and he states that “to set the bar truly high and to seek and demand an exceptional level of creativity from students, partnering teachers have to find ways to set students free to do things ‘their (i.e. the students’) way’ much more than we have ever done in the past” (p.154). As my flight path has taken me from the classroom, to the gym, and potentially back again, I feel that Prensky’s idea holds true in situations and contexts throughout our schools and beyond.
References
Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a Digital Age. http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/(Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)
Coch, D. & Ansari, D. (2009). Thinking about mechanisms is crucial to connecting neuroscience and education. Cortex, 45(4), 546-7.
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers
Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching Digital Natives : Partnering for Real Learning. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Publishing.
Ratey, J. (2008) Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. New York: Little, Brown and Company.