University of Northern British Columbia, Celebration of Learning 2023
On December 4, I attended the celebration of learning for the cohort that I entered this program with. It was so nice be able to see everyone and to celebrate their successes.
During the event everyone shared a story from their practicum. These were heartening to hear and made me reminisce my practicum experience. I was at Springwood Elementary and had such a kind coaching teacher, Nicole Harris. The experience taught me so much and the students were a joy to teach. I loved helping students that were struggling. Seeing them succeed feel accomplished was so rewarding. That practicum was only 3 weeks, if I was able to learn that much in that amount of time I’m excited to see what I will take away from the the longer practicum.
For my practicum I was in a grade 1/2 classroom at Springwood Elementary.
I decided to do a math lesson for one of my formals, this lesson focused on 2D shapes. I wanted to use art in this lesson so I decided to make shape monsters with the students, where the students would cut up shapes and make a monster out of it. This lesson had a written component where the students were able to write about their monster; what its name was, what shapes/colours they used, and what it liked to do in it’s free time. At the end, we had a sharing circle and all the students were able to share their work.
Making the monsters was hectic. I compiled a bunch of different shapes for each table to ensure students weren’t clustering in one spot. But this didn’t subside from the chaos that developed. Two students struggled at the beginning of this lesson so I chatted with them a bit and then gave them space to process. After a little bit of time they came back to their work and were able to create something that they were proud of. When it came time to share together these two students lit up when telling the story of their shape monsters. although the written component wasn’t very successful, I believe that the lesson itself was extremely successful, and offered a very high ceiling for the more creative students while keeping a low floor for the students who were struggling with this project.
Leading up to this lesson, I ran a couple lessons to prepare their minds to think creatively about shapes and monsters. The first was a short lesson where they learned a little bit about me and went through the different shape names. The other lessons were centred around two books, one on shapes, and one on monsters.
I had so much fun in this practicum and enjoyed meeting some amazing students. This age group is definitely the age group I enjoy the most at this point but I’m looking forwards to working with other age groups and getting more comfortable teaching intermediate students.
This saying takes the phrase “anything worth doing is worth doing well” and strips it of its perfectionist undertones. Realistically, it is not possible to do everything perfectly. Holding ourselves to this standard will only lead to disappointment, burnout, and negative self talk. For many people the original phrase offers a sense of motivation to always try your best but I strongly believe that everyone is always doing their best with what they have available at that moment. Our best might look different from day to day and the reframing of this outdated phrase has given me more motivation than the original ever could. Now I enter a task knowing that I might not do it perfectly but at least I’m doing it.
A perfectionist mindset can prohibit learning in the classroom; when we’re afraid of making mistakes we are reluctant to try new things.
When i make a mistake in the classroom I will often draw attention to it in a positive way to model how mistakes can be a good thing. I also find this opens dialogue for the students to feel comfortable talking with me about their failures. For me, showing my human side is an integral part of teaching.
Throughout my years of teaching music I have struggled to enforce classroom management. I have found that while teaching students one-on-one In prefer to listen build off of the student’s thoughts, following their natural thought process instead of trying to force them to match my thought process. This is something that can be done when teaching a few students but can easily cause chaos when you increase the number of students.
Last term’s observations showed me a lot of different classroom management styles but I struggled with one’s that were too restrictive, it seemed to take creativity and independence away from the students. Sometimes the best learning happens when students have the flexibility to build on their own ideas, but if a room is too hectic it can overwhelm students and loss their engagement. While teaching a creative subject like music I have witnessed how vital engagement, creativity, and independence is for the learner to reach their full potential.
Engagement opens students’ minds to the lesson, they are far less likely to learn if they are not engaged. It helps the student focus on intent and purpose, which is part of the communicating core competency. The ability to engage in and follow conversations are skills we use everyday.
Creativity allows unique thought processes and gives space for new ideas, for all of us to learn from each other. Creative thought is one of our curriculum’s core competencies, I want to ensure there is aways room for this in my classroom.
Independence helps students develop self regulation, personal identity, and is essential in developing the core competency of personal awareness and responsibility. If a student can develop personal awareness, they can advocate for what they need in their learning.
As I approach my scan, I wonder about management. Can a teacher maintain a respectful atmosphere that will foster learning without being controlling and inhibiting potential?
How can a teacher best maintain classroom management to be engaging for students while allowing for independence and creative thinking?
Today we had the lovely Kelsey MacDonald speak to our class. Kelsey is the Indigenous Lead Resource & Land Based Teacher K-12 in the SD57 Indigenous Education Department. In this position she helps other teachers incorporate Indigenous and land-based learning in their classroom.
In her presentation she taught us a bit about herself, her job, what resources are available, and we sang the river song together. Hearing her speak about her experiences and the path that has led her here was inspiring, she is genuinely passionate about bringing more learning outdoors and embracing Indigenous cultures. I have heard from many people that Kelsey is so helpful and vital to know, she helps whenever she can or points you in the next direction. building community inside the classroom is really important but I think it’s easy to forget how important the community outside the classroom is and the wonderful resources that can be found in our district.
When I was in grade school there wasn’t much talk about digital footprint because the internet and social media was still so new. We were told to be careful what we put on the internet because future employers could see it. These days there is a lot more emphasis around online safety, it’s important to be conscious of your digital footprint, what information you put on the internet, and how it might be used.
On average, parents will post more than 1,000 images of their children onlinebefore they’re old enough to have their own social media accounts, according to a new report on the digital lives of kids. And by 18, those kids will have created upward of 70,000 posts themselves.
A lot of kids will have a digital footprint before they even get to kindergarten; being on the internet before they even know what the internet is. Since this is different to previous generations there is little known on how this will effect children and society long term. That is why it’s important to children about their digital footprint at a young age.
As younger generations continue to experience the trials and errors of life both publicly and permanently, how we assess digital footprint must evolve
For me as a teacher it’s important that I help my students understand and protect their digital footprint. For this reason teachers have to be careful when posting students’ work online because, while it may be helpful for another educator to see, if you’re not careful it can cause a safety and privacy issue. Some things to considering before posting a student’s work online are:
Copyright & Ownership: the student owns their work.
Identifiability, content and risks: ensure work contains no identifiable information (ex. metadata, file name, location)
Storage Location & Risks: consider risk of any online posting (ex. wider sharing, non-canadian housed servers, US patriot act implications, etc)
Explicit informed consent & risks: legal & ethical responsibility to get informed consent (consider that word – informed… do parents/guardians understand the risks?)
Safety and protection plan: is there a plan to respond to an e-safety incident?
Media waiver (likely) non-coverage: consult with school Principal
Digital footprints aren’t all bad, this blog is part of mine and with it I can interact with the teaching community, learn more, and strengthen connections. Digital presence can be powerful, it’s just a matter of making educated decisions about what is in your footprint.
Newly elected school trustee, Erica McLean, came to talk to us today about her point of view on Indigenous learners, systemic racism, trauma, and poverty in the Prince George area.
Image credit: Prince George Citizen
Erica grew up on the Gitxsan reserve, worked in over 30 schools and is now a school trustee for SD57. In her presentation she discussed SD57 special advisors report from 2021 that addressed racism in the school district. The report states that “there is a clear and palpable lack of trust and hard feelings between many of the Indigenous stakeholders in Prince George, the First Nations and the District.” Erica had an issue with this report and said “I don’t think we have a systemic racism problem. I think we have a trauma and poverty problem.”
Erica implies that the generational trauma from residential school, racism and inflicted poverty is more to blame than systemic racism. I think it’s important to note that she never said systemic racism wasn’t bad or present in our city, just that it’s not the problem.
Even if the district does belive that systemic racism is the biggest problem, we should be getting to the cause of the issue and address it. I think this is the point Erica is trying to make and I agree with it.
As future educators our view on this problem is vital. Trying to tackle systemic racism will take decades and can seem daunting. However, fixing poverty and addressing trauma is something we can do today and will have lasting effects into the future.
Today we watch “The Scattering of Man”, a film by the Tsay Keh Dene Nation. The film told the story of the flooding of the Tsay Keh Dene Nation, which was caused by the development of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in B.C. in the 1960s. Since the development was ahead of schedule and the Nation wasn’t warned about these changes, their land was flooded and they had to evacuate. This resulted in deaths, destruction of property, and left the community in shambles. A synopsis can be found here.
This was my first time hearing about this tragedy so I found the film to be a shock. I was appalled that this happened and greatly concerned that the community is still dealing with the ramifications of it 60 years later. it is very telling of the amount of racism that still exists today.
The filmmaker, Luke Gleeson, did an interview with CTV news about the documentary, we were lucky to have a Q&A after the screening. He doesn’t think of this as his film, but rather the Tsay Keh Dene Nation’s film because it is their story and it really does take a community to create something like this. Hearing his passion on this issue was very heartwarming.
Today our class had a guest presenter from science world on math and computational thinking. We talked about how math use to be more about performing rather than learning. We want to shift this thinking to reach more minds and allow for critical thinking. This can be done through presenting questions that have multiple right answers instead of just one. I resonate with this pedagogy and think it better prepares children for further education and the world.
With the influx of technology, being able to think outside of the box becomes so important in the work force. The K-12 curriculum has been changing to reflect this. One example of this is the addition of coding in the BC curriculum. Since my age range didn’t learn much about coding, it has been very helpful learning about it through the Ozo Bots with the UNBC education cohort.
The Ministry of Education and Child Care defines digital literacy as “the interest, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital technology and communication tools to access, manage, integrate, analyze and evaluate information, construct new knowledge, create and communicate with others”.
When it comes to technology I have a novice grasp and am gaining more knowledge on it as i go. In the past year I’ve designed my business’ website which was a huge hurtle and took a lot of hours to get comfortable with it. I found that this helped me a lot when we started working with WordPress.
It refers to the knowledge, skills and attitudes that allow children to be both safe and empowered in an increasingly digital world.
Digital safety is important to teach students, along with the knowledge that what we do to stay safe online will adapt as the digital world changes.
Digital literacy has become indispensable for every global citizen, whether to communicate, find employment, receive comprehensive education, or socialize. Acquiring the right set of digital skills is not only important for learning and workforce readiness but also vital to foster more open, inclusive, and secure.
For Truth and Reconciliation Day we held a fire circle with the education faculty and the UHNBC Drummers. We started a fire and formed a circle around it. The fire circle consisted of singing, drumming and talking. We sang songs for healing, honouring men, and honouring women. There were multiple hand drums that rotated around the group so everyone who wanted to try drumming could.
Image credit: @educationunbc
Image credit: @educationunbc
Making music as a group can be so impactful because everyone is able to be at the same place physically and spiritually to create a performative work of art. The songs performed had basic rhythm structures and a few repeating lyrical lines in a multitude of indigenous dialects. The simple rhythm structure and repetitive lines made it easy for someone with minimal musical knowledge to jump in and join. I found this to be a very inclusive way to celebrate, grow community, and connect.
Going forward I want to implement fire circles and music circles into my practices. This experience made me realized the value in performing and practicing music in a circle. It gives way for visual communication between musicians, makes it easier to appreciate solos, and provides better acoustics for the musicians to hear their fellow performers.
