Tester

ED 710 Blog 1 – Rock Star Theorists For me the “Rock Star Theorists” are Dewey and Bruner. Both of these guys would have elements of constructivism in their views and that applies to me too. Constructivism means that students are actively engaged in the synthesis of meaning and knowledge (Flinders and Thornton, 2013). One of my favorite quotes, which I have seen attributed to Oscar Wilde is “Education is a wonderful thing, but it is worth remembering from time to, time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught!” I think this fits in well with Bruner, who believed in learning through play, and in the teacher creating opportunities for the students to learn on their own. Students should also work to figure out a use for what the knowledge they have, or apply their knowledge to novel situations (Flinders and Thornton, 2013).   I also appreciate Bruner’s work in looking at cognitive development. It is all well and good knowing everything yourself but if you do not appreci...

I certainly have goals for my teaching moving forward. I came from a time when there was more chalk and talk and I am aware that my default teaching mode is similar to that. My main goal is to have more discovery based and project based learning in my class. This year I am trying to introduce more of this in the class. At the same time I am trying to release a bit more power to the class. This will be a fine balancing act. There are standards for the content kids should know, and thus giving too much power to the class may mean that we go off in tangents from the material unless I am careful, but I think encouraging curiosity has to be an important part of my work as a teacher. If they have no interest in learning they will not succeed going forward. I have seen some recent success with this. In some literacy exercises, when we close read articles, my worksheets have ended asking students what questions they now have, and for them to read an associated article of their choice and m...

I try not to let pride get in the way of me doing my job, and I always run emails in delicate situations by others just so I don’t cause waves or make my own someone else life more difficult. There are counsellors, my department chair and members of the administration who have read and ok’ed or altered emails in the past. But there was one incident last year when I did not fully objectify the situation before sending the email. I got a tepid “if that’s what you want to say…” response from one of my usual checkers and feeling like I got some things of my chest I sent the email. Now the student is a nice guy but his executive functioning is not what you would wish it to be and this leads to difficulties in keeping up, getting his work done and staying focused. Even staying awake. I was unusually sympathetic to this because I feel he was being pushed unreasonably hard at home. There was even whisperings of trying AP subjects in his Junior year. I feel these would have amounted to ...

I remember well my first days of teaching, and the trepidation about walking into a class of students and wondering how I was going to manage. One of the first places I taught was a rural school in Ireland and the kids there were a real challenge. There was no animosity or badness to them, but they just could not understand why they had to be in school when most of them just wanted to be working on the farm. They were charismatic and smart, but a real challenge due to their motivation being elsewhere. I suppose there are parallels to what I am seeing today too. I have just finished grading 68 freshman bio semester exams, and the polite way of putting it is they were excrement! I have spent time this year more than others on study skills and mindset. An early Sept exercise we did was for the kids to get into groups and speak about their hopes for the year and to discuss what would be a “win” for them. They also discussed how they would go about it! The sheets are still taped to t...

ED 640 Reflection Blog 4 This week I gave the students a homework where they chose an organelle and had to find 5 facts about it. I have to say that the standard of work was noticeably higher than usual! I also continued the exercise by having students take precut bits of paper and wander the room to look at other students creations and give feedback. They had three bits of paper and had to say something they liked, something they thought could be improved and ask a question on each sheet and leave it with the homework they were commenting on. The whole thing was great! They were positive and constructive in their feedback, we had a class discussion that continued in the same vein, with many students saying that the feedback was spot on, and even in transition to the next portion of the lesson there were students continuing conversations on the exercise. It bodes well for my intention to increase project work, and with it, the discussion within groups that are required for such w...

ED 640 Teaching Reflection – Liam Breathnach It is a strange year in terms of how much is going on with Grad School, little Tommy and keeping going teaching the students, but I am really reflecting on how I can change the normal set up of my teaching to put more onus on the students. I think if I can focus on the skills such as research and note taking then they will be more able to learn the content themselves. With time constraints I am not really implementing new ideas too much but I have a word document set up for recording any ideas for future plans or ideas. This week we had a half day PD day on Thursday and our classes were all shortened. I had not thought about that when planning, so I made a last minute decision to group the students and have them find websites to research organelle functions rather than going through the powerpoint. I was pleasantly surprised how it went! Students were in groups of three with 2 researchers and 1 note taker. I switched the note taking r...

ED 640 Mod 4 DB Liam Breathnach I have a student this year who is on the spectrum. While there are students in the school with more severe symptoms, he is the first student I have had in class who exhibited what I understand as autistic behavior. I have been trying to watch him during calls and see what he requires from the environment that others may not. I also have been trying to watch my own actions in dealing with him to try and see how I must appear to him and see which of my mannerisms and traits are helpful or understanding and supportive of whatever I felt was required. He was appreciative when I mentioned any concern I had was social, and that I had felt the need to try and alter his behavior with other students a couple of times.   Starting the student had a tendency to call out more than I find acceptable, and has had to work hard when in a group as he found the experience difficult, but maybe not as difficult as the other students! I have been trying harde...