Thursday, 27 November 2014
Course Reflection -- Changing the Education System
So here were are at the final blog of the EDUC 4P19 . Coming into this class I wasn't too sure what to expect. Up to this point in my University career each EDUC and CHYS class that I have taken have all had different expectations and objectives. Looking at the title of this class Foundations of Curriculum and Assessment I thought "this will be one of those boring required classes that I need to take to help get my degreee". I was prepared to be memorizing and remembering curriculum documents for 4 months straight and writing a long 5000-word essay on course themes. But this wasn't the case at all for this course. This course taught that education is more than memorizing facts and writing exams it is about truly learning and understanding the subject. Why can't education be fun? why does it have to be about essays, deadlines and tests? These were all questions that we expanded on in this course. One major theme that we learned was the transitioning of education from the old story to the new story. The old story is a traditional model in which a teacher stands at the front of the class while students mindlessly copy notes from the board. At the end of every month or so there would be a test or a quiz on memorized facts learned throughout that unit. Only a select few students who know how to beat the education system succeed with this environment while others lose interest and become discouraged and frustrated. While hearing about this, I thought about myself a once student in highschool who disliked going to school and quote on quote "learning" about subjects that I felt would have no relevance to my future or life. I still remember grade 10 English class in which I recieved a 55% in the course because my final essay didn't follow the "hamburger method". Since I've gotten to University I have not once heard of or discussed the "hamburger method" when it comes to writing essays because it is an outdated method. The new story is one that involves performace assessments not marks, group research projects, genius hour, technology use building upon 21st century skills it makes learning not something dreaded but something that is cherished because knowledge is a wonderful tool if it is used correctly. In this class we were exposed to a new story education style in which we made genius hour presentations, group RPATs and shared knowledge with one another. I actually enjoyed this class because I knew that I could go and just learn and not be stressed with copying pages and pages of notes for an exam that tests memory. This class also changed my perspective on education, as why would I as a future teacher want to be someone who teaches in a style that I disliked in my educational path. We as prospective teachers should take the themes learned in this class and become the change. We need to change education to the new story; use technology, assess performance, be humorous , make education exciting so students want to wake up every day and want to be in your classroom to learn. And of course make it a welcoming environment for everyone and be the teacher who you want to be. I know we all have it in us we as young perspective teachers can be the difference in changing education
Wednesday, 5 November 2014
Integrating the Curriculum
After working on the curriculum assignment over the last two weeks, I have been able to gain a greater appreciation of the complexities of designing an integrated curriculum. So far we as a group have completed both the vertical and horizontal scan and have completed the Know, Do and Be chart for our grade levels. We as a group are focusing on grades 9-10 and the subjects are mathematics and geography. Before we started this assignment we were a bit apprehensive with these two subjects as well felt that they were on two different ends of the spectrum. It wasn't until we dug deep into the Ontario curriculum that we found some similarities between the two subjects. For example, since grade 9 geography has been changing over the years, there are many science and mathematical applications that students need to "Know" for the class. In the grade 9 geography there is an analysis of graphs portion specifically looking at demographic trends of Canada. This is similar to that of grade 9 and 10 math as a large portion of the curriculum deals with graphical analysis (specifically linear and quadratic functions). Next, there are a lot of 21st century skills (Do) that cross between both subjects. For example, in geography it was found that students learn 21st century GIS skills such as simple use of google earth and QGIS. In terms of Mathematics, there is a computational skills component that students learn in grade 9 and 10 such as use of graphing calculators and possibly other graphical software. Finally, in terms of BE, students in geography will be a lot more geographically spatially aware, creative and educated with the curriculum and overall think with a geographical mindset. Similarly, in math, students become creative analytical thinkers in which they look at the real world problems with a mathematical mindset. Overall, this project has opened up my eyes to the curriculum designing process and I am looking forward to working on our proposed RPAT idea and presenting our findings.
Thursday, 9 October 2014
Designing the Curriculum for the future
In the old story, the curriculum was designed around the idea that the teacher was the instructor and students were the containers. Many classes that I took in my educational path had similar patterns in their curriculum. In EDUC 4P19 we are taught the new story way of designing a curriculum. For each unit, there is 4 major steps that must be considered in order to ensure optimal student engagement, learning and development. What is most important about these 4 steps is that in the new story they actually can be changed and altered to fit a specific unit in terms of the teacher's own experiences. For example, for a challenging unit in Math or History that students seem to historically struggle on every year, these steps can change in accordance to the students in the specific classroom. So for one class you may teach the unit one way but different in another, yet you are still getting the exact same information out of the unit in both situations. This is the flexibility of the Backward Design as although it is relatively linear the context can be altered. I think understanding these four points is critical for a future educator as
The pre-step involves knowing your curriculum and knowing your students. This involves scanning through the introductory section of a document with the KDB guiding the scanning process. Here you would look to see where the Know Be and Do fit into the curriculum. In the old story there wouldn't be much in terms of scanning as the KBD wasn't nearly as emphasized as it is now. The most important things you can gather from the scanning all relates to newer educational styles e.g. constructivist teaching, democracy, social justice etc. The second major part of the pre-step is knowing your students. You need to focus on what course you are teaching, whether it is optional or compulsory, academic or applied as this all alters the curriculum you will make. For example, as a prespective geography teacher I know that grade 9 geography is compulsory so the student motivation and academic proficiency will vary compared to a grade 12 advanced functions class. I need to be able to conduct a diagnostic and understand where the students are in terms of geography and alter the unit to that class. For example instead of completing a non-engaging task of creating a map of Canada with capital cities and colouring it in, why not have the students use open source computer-based mapping programs and download data and create their maps online. This will not only improve their knowledge of Canada but also improve their computer skills (building on 21st century skills)
The next step stage 1 is identifying the most important things for students to Know, Do and Be at the end of the learning period. This involves scanning curriculums of past grades to find critical learning in the mandated outcomes You then need to select a few broad-based outcomes that represent the organizing process and deconstruct the Know Do and Be from the chart. With this, you can construct the KDB Umbrella which was discussed in detail last blog post. It is crucial to incorporate the Big Ideas, Enduring Understandings and twenty-first century skills for optimal development.
Stage 2 involves assessment to demonstrate what the students have learned in the unit. I'm sure we all remember no matter what high school class we had, there was always a "unit test" at the end of each unit (about a month long). From my perspective I got very used to and very good at memorizing the night before a unit test as they were always structured the same. For example there was usually multiple choice at the beginning, short answers or short problems then essay style or long problems at the end. In the "new story" that we will be teaching in a lot of learning is skill based and complex which cannot always be tested. It is maybe better to demonstrate it by a performance and overall better assessed using qualitative feedback and not quantitative. For example, in a computer technology class, it would be a lot more beneficial to asses students ability at the end of a unit to design a basic game using a computer language (e.g. Python, Java, C++) more so then testing them about that language.
Stage 3 focuses on the daily activities that lead to student's understanding of the material. This is an extremely important step as truly understanding a unit will take a sum of the daily activities. The difficult part of this step is creating daily activities that students will gather information and yet stay engaged. For example, instead of teaching the children about latitude and longitude why not show them. An activity could be entering in various latitudes and longitudes into google earth and having them describe what landforms they see in the satellite images. This will not only teach students how latitude and longitude works but also help them understand Canada's landscape as they can measure features and look at them in a 3-d perspective
Overall, I believe these 4 stages are extremely important for curriculum development as they cover all the necessary requirements but also keep you organized for each unit to ensure a engaging and informative classroom for all students.
The pre-step involves knowing your curriculum and knowing your students. This involves scanning through the introductory section of a document with the KDB guiding the scanning process. Here you would look to see where the Know Be and Do fit into the curriculum. In the old story there wouldn't be much in terms of scanning as the KBD wasn't nearly as emphasized as it is now. The most important things you can gather from the scanning all relates to newer educational styles e.g. constructivist teaching, democracy, social justice etc. The second major part of the pre-step is knowing your students. You need to focus on what course you are teaching, whether it is optional or compulsory, academic or applied as this all alters the curriculum you will make. For example, as a prespective geography teacher I know that grade 9 geography is compulsory so the student motivation and academic proficiency will vary compared to a grade 12 advanced functions class. I need to be able to conduct a diagnostic and understand where the students are in terms of geography and alter the unit to that class. For example instead of completing a non-engaging task of creating a map of Canada with capital cities and colouring it in, why not have the students use open source computer-based mapping programs and download data and create their maps online. This will not only improve their knowledge of Canada but also improve their computer skills (building on 21st century skills)
The next step stage 1 is identifying the most important things for students to Know, Do and Be at the end of the learning period. This involves scanning curriculums of past grades to find critical learning in the mandated outcomes You then need to select a few broad-based outcomes that represent the organizing process and deconstruct the Know Do and Be from the chart. With this, you can construct the KDB Umbrella which was discussed in detail last blog post. It is crucial to incorporate the Big Ideas, Enduring Understandings and twenty-first century skills for optimal development.
Stage 2 involves assessment to demonstrate what the students have learned in the unit. I'm sure we all remember no matter what high school class we had, there was always a "unit test" at the end of each unit (about a month long). From my perspective I got very used to and very good at memorizing the night before a unit test as they were always structured the same. For example there was usually multiple choice at the beginning, short answers or short problems then essay style or long problems at the end. In the "new story" that we will be teaching in a lot of learning is skill based and complex which cannot always be tested. It is maybe better to demonstrate it by a performance and overall better assessed using qualitative feedback and not quantitative. For example, in a computer technology class, it would be a lot more beneficial to asses students ability at the end of a unit to design a basic game using a computer language (e.g. Python, Java, C++) more so then testing them about that language.
Stage 3 focuses on the daily activities that lead to student's understanding of the material. This is an extremely important step as truly understanding a unit will take a sum of the daily activities. The difficult part of this step is creating daily activities that students will gather information and yet stay engaged. For example, instead of teaching the children about latitude and longitude why not show them. An activity could be entering in various latitudes and longitudes into google earth and having them describe what landforms they see in the satellite images. This will not only teach students how latitude and longitude works but also help them understand Canada's landscape as they can measure features and look at them in a 3-d perspective
Overall, I believe these 4 stages are extremely important for curriculum development as they cover all the necessary requirements but also keep you organized for each unit to ensure a engaging and informative classroom for all students.
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
The Future Starts Now
Up to this point in my educational career, I have had little if any introduction to the structural mechanics of the classroom. In many other classes I have learned about aspects of child development, educational philosophers and even educational theories but I have never learned about what goes into a curriculum or even how it is formed. Until taking EDUC 4P19 I probably would've thought that creating a curriculum was pretty rudimentary and standard. This is probably because my grade school and high school experience was one that encompassed the"old story". I found that most of my classes had the same curriculum structure lessons every day, one test after a unit is done and assignments in between. This made my personal education experience boring and stale as the curriculums in class were never exciting as they have the potential to be. After reading the chapters and the lectures for this week, I realized that creating a curriculum is an incredibly long and well-though out process to ensure students are are not just memorizing facts but actually creating and understanding their own learning which will promote interest in the subject and student development.
From what I gathered from the reading, it is important to integrate the KBD method into your curriculum documents. What KDB stands for is Know, Do and Be which overall provides a common vocabulary. All three of these interconnect to provide an visual umbrella that creates a curriculum that is challenging and innovative yet promotes critical thinking in students.
The Know comprises the content that is mandated in curriculum documents. In the "old story: the know was the information in your head that was filled from the teacher at the front of the room. Even if you didn't know pay attention the whole year in class, you knew you could spend a couple hours the night before and memorize definitions, graphs, diagrams that would be on the test and still get a very good test score. I wonder, is this truly "Knowing" the material or is it just remembering facts? I can remember countless times memorizing definitions and facts for highschool exams the night before even if I didn't truly understand them. This is why the old "Know" is at the bottom of the structure of knowledge. We as prospective teachers need to implement more Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings in our Know to ensure a true conceptual understanding. And I do believe we are on the right path but we must continue and move forward.
The video below describes the Norwegian education system and provides a completely different perspective on what we North Americans think about Norwegian education. Although as a country they do place an incredibly high amount of money and resources into their education system, as of late they have had high drop-out rates and less than average test scores? This video describes that the curriculum must integrate technology (ICT Movement) to keep students interested in learning and overall make it an experience in which they can create, evaluate and challenge their thinking.
Moving on...
The Do contains twenty-first-century-skills which enhances creativity, critical thinking and collaboration to be prepared for the 21st century world. I like the textbook, personally believe that in order for students to to be prepared for the 21st century world we must be giving them an opportunity to develop 21st century skills. I feel that the root of these skills involve interactive knowledge with the use of technology. But the students can't facilitate that themselves, they don't create the curriculum. The curriculum is created from us, our experiences, we as prospective teacher's are already so familiar with technology in our everyday lives... why not use it for the better of our students?
The Be is the idea of incorporating innovative ideas into our curriculum that addresses respect and individual character development. Although knowledge is incredibly important for students to gather in the education system I feel that students learning about their own identity is important. And I would also like to note that as a human being we can constantly develop our character as new situations arise. This is why the Be is not only important in grade school it is very important in high school and even into adult life.
Overall I believe this curriculum framework, KDB is an incredibly useful way to make sure that all the essentially parts of the "new story" education system are met. With this curriculum framework and the use of technology in the future I feel that us as prospective teachers will each provide a unique, challenging yet interactive environment for students to reach their true potential.
From what I gathered from the reading, it is important to integrate the KBD method into your curriculum documents. What KDB stands for is Know, Do and Be which overall provides a common vocabulary. All three of these interconnect to provide an visual umbrella that creates a curriculum that is challenging and innovative yet promotes critical thinking in students.
The Know comprises the content that is mandated in curriculum documents. In the "old story: the know was the information in your head that was filled from the teacher at the front of the room. Even if you didn't know pay attention the whole year in class, you knew you could spend a couple hours the night before and memorize definitions, graphs, diagrams that would be on the test and still get a very good test score. I wonder, is this truly "Knowing" the material or is it just remembering facts? I can remember countless times memorizing definitions and facts for highschool exams the night before even if I didn't truly understand them. This is why the old "Know" is at the bottom of the structure of knowledge. We as prospective teachers need to implement more Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings in our Know to ensure a true conceptual understanding. And I do believe we are on the right path but we must continue and move forward.
The video below describes the Norwegian education system and provides a completely different perspective on what we North Americans think about Norwegian education. Although as a country they do place an incredibly high amount of money and resources into their education system, as of late they have had high drop-out rates and less than average test scores? This video describes that the curriculum must integrate technology (ICT Movement) to keep students interested in learning and overall make it an experience in which they can create, evaluate and challenge their thinking.
Moving on...
The Do contains twenty-first-century-skills which enhances creativity, critical thinking and collaboration to be prepared for the 21st century world. I like the textbook, personally believe that in order for students to to be prepared for the 21st century world we must be giving them an opportunity to develop 21st century skills. I feel that the root of these skills involve interactive knowledge with the use of technology. But the students can't facilitate that themselves, they don't create the curriculum. The curriculum is created from us, our experiences, we as prospective teacher's are already so familiar with technology in our everyday lives... why not use it for the better of our students?
The Be is the idea of incorporating innovative ideas into our curriculum that addresses respect and individual character development. Although knowledge is incredibly important for students to gather in the education system I feel that students learning about their own identity is important. And I would also like to note that as a human being we can constantly develop our character as new situations arise. This is why the Be is not only important in grade school it is very important in high school and even into adult life.
Overall I believe this curriculum framework, KDB is an incredibly useful way to make sure that all the essentially parts of the "new story" education system are met. With this curriculum framework and the use of technology in the future I feel that us as prospective teachers will each provide a unique, challenging yet interactive environment for students to reach their true potential.
Wednesday, 10 September 2014
Reflection of Week 1
After completing the Week 1 chapter reading from "Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment" and learning from the first lecture, I found a few notable topics that I will be reflecting on. Overall, from both the readings and the lecture material I found that the major topic that was to be learned this week was the idea that the education curriculum, classroom and teacher are changing from the "old story" to the "new story". Essentially what this is, is the transition from the standard curriculum (standardize tests, teacher as dictator etc) to a much more integrated curriculum one that encourages the use of technology, productive teacher feedback etc. which all overall help for a much better development of all students.
First, as a prospective teacher I really found it interesting learning about the four models of the curriculum: traditional, project-based learning, holisitc and social reconstruction. I felt that although it is great that most educational models of curriculum are shifting towards the "social reconstruction" model one in which promotes social justice and fairness it is important to note that some of the practices from other models should still be used today. For example, although there are a lot of flaws found within the traditional model such as promoting poor student socialization and interaction, in every classroom there are certain aspects where direct instruction can be beneficial. In fact, I believe that in certain situations direct instruction can be helpful as it reinforces mannerisms and that the teacher is the facilitator. In relation to this idea, I also found it very interesting to learn that primary students learned Spanish language easier through story telling. In my personal experiences in elementary school French class I too found learning French was a lot easier when we acted out plays and stories more so than just basic dictating. Overall, I feel that all four models of the curriculum should be introduced when necessary as I believe they will provide the optimal classroom development for both students and teachers.
Next, I also found that the four differentiated learning strategies for teaching and assessing were helpful to me as a prospective teacher. I feel that the DI research Carol Tomlinson did an excellent job when she created the four major learning strategies for students to cover all different abilities. I do sort of feel that there may be a few more strategies for each specific teacher depending on their own personal experiences which maybe useful to them personally.
Third, until I read this chapter, I wouldn't have thought much in terms of a difference between individualization and personalization. From what I gathered in the chapter, personalization is how the learner derive their own learning based skills based on past experiences and future goals. In personalization however the teacher actually facilitates the learning. Meanwhile individualization is when teachers actually change the structure of the lesson, subject etc. to gear it towards the needs of a specific learner. Similarly differentiation means that the teacher change the curriculum structure as well but they change it for the entire class to reach a goal. I really think that this will help me in the future as a prospective teacher as it will help me understand different approaches to deal with various scenarios. I feel that in the "new story" the idea of the teacher changing the structure has sort of diminished and education has been more focused on individualization. I think it has been focused more on students understanding how they learn best on their own with the teacher guiding them when necessary.
The fourth major aspect that I observed in the first lecture is the change of assessment from the "old story" to the "new story". The new story attempts to relinquish old evaluation practices such as percentages, letter grades, bell curves etc. as this does not overall enhance student learning but it just evaluates it. I feel that students cannot truly learn from memorizing and practicing tests as this just reiterates that school is a game and not every student learns in that way (white privledge). Learning about the new story assessment which allows for self and peer assessment, gives students a chance to observe and truly reflect on their work and allow them to answer the questions such as Am I truly satistified with my effort? and was there anything I could improve on? This self-reflection has been proven to help students reach their goals as they are better understanding themselves as a learner. Also, after reading about the productive teacher feedback in terms of assessment, I never really realized that there were ways to be positive and still provide constructive feedback to students which is helping me personally shift to my new story. The only critisism that I had for this change was that I do feel that in certain situations standardized testing could be beneficial. In many job environments students will have to deal with high pressure situations in which they must make a confident and formative decision. I feel that sometimes standardize testing can increase students skills to be able to work under pressure.
Finally, the final major aspect that I want to comment on is the use of technology in the classroom. I was very excited to read about this in the chapter as myself feel that I am pretty technologically inclined due to my past experiences. Agreeing with this article I feel that the incorporations of technologies such as digital media (youtube) social media (gmail, facebook, twitter), online lessons etc. would all be extremely beneficial to students providing ample opportunites for growth and development. In relation to my own experience, this is huge for my future, as myself being a prospective geography teacher can now easily use GIS (Geographic Information System) softwares to teach children about various aspects of our world.
First, as a prospective teacher I really found it interesting learning about the four models of the curriculum: traditional, project-based learning, holisitc and social reconstruction. I felt that although it is great that most educational models of curriculum are shifting towards the "social reconstruction" model one in which promotes social justice and fairness it is important to note that some of the practices from other models should still be used today. For example, although there are a lot of flaws found within the traditional model such as promoting poor student socialization and interaction, in every classroom there are certain aspects where direct instruction can be beneficial. In fact, I believe that in certain situations direct instruction can be helpful as it reinforces mannerisms and that the teacher is the facilitator. In relation to this idea, I also found it very interesting to learn that primary students learned Spanish language easier through story telling. In my personal experiences in elementary school French class I too found learning French was a lot easier when we acted out plays and stories more so than just basic dictating. Overall, I feel that all four models of the curriculum should be introduced when necessary as I believe they will provide the optimal classroom development for both students and teachers.
Next, I also found that the four differentiated learning strategies for teaching and assessing were helpful to me as a prospective teacher. I feel that the DI research Carol Tomlinson did an excellent job when she created the four major learning strategies for students to cover all different abilities. I do sort of feel that there may be a few more strategies for each specific teacher depending on their own personal experiences which maybe useful to them personally.
Third, until I read this chapter, I wouldn't have thought much in terms of a difference between individualization and personalization. From what I gathered in the chapter, personalization is how the learner derive their own learning based skills based on past experiences and future goals. In personalization however the teacher actually facilitates the learning. Meanwhile individualization is when teachers actually change the structure of the lesson, subject etc. to gear it towards the needs of a specific learner. Similarly differentiation means that the teacher change the curriculum structure as well but they change it for the entire class to reach a goal. I really think that this will help me in the future as a prospective teacher as it will help me understand different approaches to deal with various scenarios. I feel that in the "new story" the idea of the teacher changing the structure has sort of diminished and education has been more focused on individualization. I think it has been focused more on students understanding how they learn best on their own with the teacher guiding them when necessary.
The fourth major aspect that I observed in the first lecture is the change of assessment from the "old story" to the "new story". The new story attempts to relinquish old evaluation practices such as percentages, letter grades, bell curves etc. as this does not overall enhance student learning but it just evaluates it. I feel that students cannot truly learn from memorizing and practicing tests as this just reiterates that school is a game and not every student learns in that way (white privledge). Learning about the new story assessment which allows for self and peer assessment, gives students a chance to observe and truly reflect on their work and allow them to answer the questions such as Am I truly satistified with my effort? and was there anything I could improve on? This self-reflection has been proven to help students reach their goals as they are better understanding themselves as a learner. Also, after reading about the productive teacher feedback in terms of assessment, I never really realized that there were ways to be positive and still provide constructive feedback to students which is helping me personally shift to my new story. The only critisism that I had for this change was that I do feel that in certain situations standardized testing could be beneficial. In many job environments students will have to deal with high pressure situations in which they must make a confident and formative decision. I feel that sometimes standardize testing can increase students skills to be able to work under pressure.
Finally, the final major aspect that I want to comment on is the use of technology in the classroom. I was very excited to read about this in the chapter as myself feel that I am pretty technologically inclined due to my past experiences. Agreeing with this article I feel that the incorporations of technologies such as digital media (youtube) social media (gmail, facebook, twitter), online lessons etc. would all be extremely beneficial to students providing ample opportunites for growth and development. In relation to my own experience, this is huge for my future, as myself being a prospective geography teacher can now easily use GIS (Geographic Information System) softwares to teach children about various aspects of our world.
Introduction
Hello everyone I am a concurrent education student at Brock with a first teachable in Physical Geography and a second teachable in Math. This blog will mostly be focused on my personal reflections on various topics discussed in EDUC 4P19 Hope you all find this blog useful.
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