Category: EdTech

Retrieved from https://www.inquiringteacher.com/10-characteristics-of-the-inquiry-classroom/

In class, we were lucky to have Trevor Mackenzie talk to us about the importance of inquiry in the classroom. We were shown this graphic and asked to consider what we feel we are already incorporating in our teaching practices as well as what we feel we need to work on in order to foster an inquiry classroom.

Though I have not had much classroom experience, I do work in afterschool care and I feel like many of these characteristics apply to my job there.

Here are the characteristics that I feel I am already incorporating:

1. Nurture student passions and talents

I feel that I do this whenever I am talking with the kids at my work and they tell me about their interests. I love to ask kids questions about things that they are passionate about because it shows that I care about them and their interests, and I also get to learn about the things that they like.

2. Empower student voice and honour student choice

At work, I don’t like forcing my kids to do things that they don’t want to do. There are of course some exceptions to that depending on the activity and the situation. But, for example, if I say to my kids that today we will be playing Mario Kart on the Wii, but they all agree that they would much rather play Just Dance, then I have no problem changing to Just Dance. The same goes for if the kids have thought of a modification for a game we are playing in the gym. As long as the modification is fair, and all of the kids agree to make that change, then I see no problem with this.

I do not believe that the teacher/adult should be the all-powerful dictator of what the kids must do. In the case of school, as long as the kids are learning and we end up covering what is stated needs to be covered in the BC curriculum, I see no problem with making changes that are suggested by the kids.

I especially do not believe in forcing students to do things that they are not comfortable with such as a dissection or a debate on a topic that is too personal for the student.

I have some experience with using audio for learning however, I would like to learn more and hopefully use it with my future classes.

For an assignment last semester in EPHE 310, we needed to explain our lesson plans that we had created while also showing the lesson plan on screen. In order to do this, I began a zoom with just myself in it, shared my screen with the lesson plan on it, and then recorded the zoom call. After this, I put the recording into a video editing software called Filmora9 in order to touch up the sound. I bought a subscription to this software in April 2020 because I found that I had needed to edit some videos that year for various projects. I also had an idea for a compilation video that featured videos of my friend group from UVic and I needed to buy a subscription to the software in order to get rid of the watermark. I figured that I’ll probably use it in the future so I bought a lifetime subscription and gladly, I have used it since buying it so I do not regret my decision.

After transitioning to online learning for the end of the second semester last year, I remember that my math professor had decided that she would rather finish off the year with asynchronous meetings as opposed to our usual 8:30 am synchronous meetings. Because she was now posting videos for us to watch at any time, she now also had to do a similar thing that I did in my EPHE 310 lesson plan and post a video of the notes, along with a recording of her explaining them to accompany the video. I really liked this way of teaching us because I was able to pause the video or rewind in case I didn’t understand something, or in case she was going too fast. Then, if I needed extra clarification, her office hours were still open for questions.

Googling myself is actually something that I remember trying when I was a lot younger. I think it was the summer and my brother and I were on the family computer and we were bored. I believe the only things that came up for me at that point in time were my Facebook page and a photo of my dance studio that had been in the newspaper.

Now that I am googling myself at the age of 19, I have found that I have a much larger online footprint.

When googling my name, my Facebook and my Linkedin pages show up in the first four hits. I then ventured to the second page of results and found my YouTube account as well as this blog on our class list of learner blogs!

Then, once I clicked on images, four images of me appeared on the first page alone.

Retrieved from https://www.delta-optimist.com/local-arts/sleeping-beauties-3023651

Retrieved from https://www.delta-optimist.com/local-arts/magic-carpet-ride-2990830

Retrieved from https://www.delta-optimist.com/living/deltas-new-theatre-company-3079663

Retrieved from https://www.devilsadvocatenews.com/at-the-moment/winter-formal1

All but the last photo were from various theatre productions I have been a part of and were featured in the local newspaper as well as their website. The last photo is from when I was in grade 8 and I performed in our school talent show that the school humbly titled “Extravaganza”. My high school has a blog that is run by students, so that year, there was an article about Extravaganza featured in the blog.

Next, I looked through the videos section of Google and was actually shocked to discover no videos of me or that had any relation to me at all! I thought that, because my theatre photos had shown up, there would definitely be a video of a performance somewhere on Google; but there were none to be found after looking through the first three pages of results.

Next, I tried adding my hometown to my name in the Google search. Similar results came up on the “all” page, so I clicked on images. Any guesses as to what came up in images? Yep, more theatre photos!

The entire first row of photos all have me in them, plus the first two in the second row!

Because I knew that photos from the shows I was in were being put in the newspaper and therefore also on the newspaper’s website, I was not very surprised at the photos that I was able to find when googling myself. However, since I hadn’t googled myself in a little while, I was slightly taken aback by the number of photos that were put in the newspaper that I had been in.

Above is the trailer for the film Most Likely to Succeed. I found this film very interesting as it features an independent school called High Tech High that follows a different model than the “traditional” ways of learning seen in most public schools in North America. Ever since completing a project last semester in EDCI 303 where we were tasked with design our own school system, I have found myself questioning the setup and methods of teaching used at current North American public schools. I chose to design my school system around Friedrich Froebel and Maria Montessori’s ideas because I found Froebel’s thoughts on play and Montessori’s thoughts on teaching independence and practical life skills to be very intriguing. Both of their ideas for how children should be educated featured some aspect of independence for the students and I believe this to be very important. Many students get labelled as “reluctant learners” because they are not interested in every single thing that is being taught in the curriculum however, I believe that if we gave students the choice of what they would like to focus on, those “reluctant learners” would change their thoughts towards school and become a lot more engaged in learning and therefore learn a lot more than if they are being forced to sit through lessons they have no interest in.

Here is a video that features Jeff Hopkins explaining a bit about the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII). Hopkins is the founder and principal of PSII which is located in Victoria, B.C. and has been running since 2013. Hopkins was a guest speaker in EDCI 336 and i found that I was very engaged in his presentation because (as I previously mentioned) I have found myself to be increasingly interested in non-traditional ways of teaching, especially ones that involve giving the students plenty of freedom. One of the points that Hopkins made in his presentation was that subjects should not be seperated. Student will learn so much more and make so many more connections when cross-curricular lessons are presented. I agree with this statement and, when I am teaching, I hope to use as many cross-curricular lessons as possible.

I love Hamilton, and I also find the new Bernie Sanders meme really funny. While trying to think of somewhere I could edit Bernie into, I realized that in Hamilton, there is a song called “Burn.” What’s the first syllable of Bernie Sanders’ name? Bern. And thus, Bern from Sanders: An American Musical was born.

In class, Michael demonstrated to us how easy it can be to find and share class resources. Thinking about going into my practicums, without having EVER taught an elementary class before frightened me a bit; not because I didn’t think I can manage classroom behaviour, or teach the material to the students well enough. It’s the thought of having to come up with 6 weeks worth of original lessons and activities that are both entertaining and educational. After being shown how easy it is to find resources (which can be found by a simple google search of the course subject and grade level!) those worries faded a bit. I’m excited to begin curating resources as well as making my own to create the most effective lesson plans I can.

By no means would I consider myself a “techy person.” I have never run a blog like this before with my own website however, I do have some experience with running blogs on Instagram and maintaining a profile on Wattpad. On Instagram, I have a few active pages, a photography page, a baking page, a personal page, as well as a page where I update daily with a photo from that day of something that made me happy. I’ve been using Instagram since I was 12 so I have quite a lot of experience with the app however, anything beyond that usually confuses me if I attempt to navigate it with no tutorial. I’m excited to learn of applications/programs that will be helpful for myself as an educator as well as for my students’ learning. I don’t recall using much technology until after grade 4. While in the primary grades, I remember that we had a separate teacher to teach us how to use Microsoft Word and how to search for things on Google. After grade 4, I moved to a new school that didn’t have a computer lab or a separate teacher for technology. I feel as though if I had had that at my new school, I may have developed more of an interest in technology and computers.