I have outlined four main areas that I believe are integral to teaching in my philosophy and how building strong relationships helps in each. Here I will outline more specific strategies that I plan to use in my teaching.

Creating a positive classroom environment:

This was the focus of my Inquiry II paper and is something that I am excited to look at in the future as well. I found many strategies to help create a positive classroom environment in my research and on my practicum.

Getting off on the right foot – This involves learning students’ names fairly quickly and setting up a classroom policy that is explicit and collaborative. The students should have some say in the way the classroom is set up if there is going to be trust between the teacher and students. There needs to be give and take between the teacher and the students. I found on my practicum that something as simple as allowing food goes a long way to creating a positive classroom environment. One student asked if I would allow food in class and then we had a discussion about how to allow food without it becoming a nuisance. The class was set up in pods and so each pod was responsible for cleaning up their pod before leaving the class or they would lose food privileges for a class. As the class went on the students got more into making food for their pods and it made for a fun and collaborative environment.

Checking in- It is not enough to set up a classroom environment at the start of the year and hope that it stays that way. There are many ways to keep up with how the class is doing. Obviously the best way is to be attentive to what is going, but there are also more formal check ins. Options like a KWL chart can keep track of student learning. Set up a class constitution that involves a weekly or monthly check in on the rules. This allows the students an ongoing say in the way that the class is set up. Checking in needs to be done regularly in order to be effective because otherwise the students will feel that they are not being heard when the teacher does not meet the standards that are set.

Getting involved outside the classroom – I believe that a great way to build a positive classroom environment is to be a contributing member of the school community outside of the classroom. Coaching, leading clubs, chaperoning trips, etc. are great ways to build strong relationships with students that allow the teacher to integrate their class into the students’ lives. It helps to do away with the notion that students sometimes have that their classes have nothing to do with each other and with their lives. Becoming a strong part of the school community can help students to see the connections in their lives and adding in cross-curricular activities helps to make the classroom a better place.

Planning and implementing engaging lessons:

Great lessons do not happen by accident very often. I am sure that some master teachers have gone off track and ‘winged’ an amazing lesson because of their experience. I am not a master teacher and have a long way to go to get there; therefore, careful planning is integral to engaging lessons. This means incorporating resources beyond the textbook, creating links to students’ lives, using student-centered learning techniques and multi-modal teaching. It also means learning when to stray from the plan. I am not sure where I heard it during this year but someone told me to ‘Plan strictly and implement loosely’ which gave me the idea for a motto of ‘Over plan and choose the delivery’ meaning that if I have a plan and a few backups, I can choose how to proceed through the class based on the needs of the students and still have material planned for different situations.

Unfortunately, Social Studies is consistently viewed as one of the least engaging subjects by students and so I think that it is important to engage in cross-curricular lessons. I believe that Social Studies should take place in the outdoors as much as possible to garner more interest in the subject matter. Geography is often looked at as just maps but it can be taught outdoors to look at the five themes of Geography and my instructor Andrew Young gave me a lot of ideas to implement outdoor activities. Also, an overnight trip is something that could be done in Social Studies 11 or Geography 12 to show the applicability of Social Studies. I also believe that linking the curriculum to current events is a good way to make the curriculum more interesting.

Varied assessment strategies:

This is one area where I need to focus on my professional development and in my planning. I found that on my practicum I had great ideas (or what I thought at the time were great ideas) about how to assess students and how to keep track of their learning; however, I got bogged down and a lot of what I wanted to do had to be adjusted. Reflecting on this, I realize that this was a combination of many factors: my own inexperience, some poor planning, unrealistic goals, and the stresses of practicum all contributed to me not necessarily achieving what I had hoped to  on practicum in terms of assessment. I think this is an area that I will grow in with a lot more practice in the years to come.

Here are a few ideas that I came across and would like to try implementing as summative assessment strategies:

• Creating a game or simulation – In Social Studies we deal with a lot of events or concepts that are complex and multi-faceted. One way to show an understanding of the different aspects of an event is to create a game with the rules that demonstrate the students’ learning on the topic.
• Making a picture book – Telling a story of an event without words is an interesting way to demonstrate understanding
• Debates – Allow students to take a side and defend it
• Comparisons to current events – Students demonstrate their learning with a comparison to a modern event

Lifelong learning:

This is integral to good teaching practice. Please refer to my inquiry section for more information on how I plan to be a lifelong learner in my teaching career.