My First Term, Queen's Faculty of Education

I think the title should be aptly named “How I am learning teach”. We have all had teachers that stick out in our mind. Some of those memories are good and some are bad. Unfortunately in my primary and secondary school experience I can only recall a handful of teachers that loved their job.  For those that did love their jobs, there methods looked anything but modern; however they cared about their students. I would like to think I can draw from a more modern pedagogy, but the things that stayed with me are how important it is to let kids know you think they are a worthwhile investment. People always ask me why my kids are such happy kids. It’s not from placating them with material things. I gave them my time. That’s it. Kids want to be fed spiritually. They want to know that you are listening and they want to have a discussion. As a father I learned how to talk to children and not talk down to them. Prior to having children you could not get me to hold a child, now I love holding babies. It has been a blessed experience!

For the last 10 years I have been volunteering with my brother’s Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) Outdoor Ed. Class. I really wish I had something like this when I was in high school. I observed the SHSM class not knowing anything about pedagogy. For instance, every day after climbing a peak in the Adirondacks my brother would get his class to debrief around a campfire. He would use prompting questions such “What do remember the most about today”, “What would you do differently”, “Name one thing that you learned today” and so on. I realise now in getting the students to debrief this way he was getting the students to think about their experience and to think metacognatively. In listening to the students I could hear the neural connections being made when they contrasted what they thought they learned in class to what they experienced that day.

I’m a visual, kinesthetic learner and as such I really enjoyed facilitating these high school students’ learning. The first thing that I noticed is that the students who were not so academic in school were the most curious when it came to the natural world. They were also the most helpful students when it came to team exercises such as cooking, setting up tents and lighting fires.  I see enormous potential in teaching integrated programs. I think everyone learns something about themselves in these experiential programs, especially those students would normally be hindered by the negative stimulus found inside four walls.  Canopy Meg (Lowman) the professor who I will be doing my alternative practicum with has a saying; “No student left indoors”. Similarly, Zabe MacEachren, my Environmental Foci instructor uses the term “Environmental Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” instead of “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

There’s no question, the most practical hands on experience I’ve had teaching has been on my practicum. Leading a class is an extremely challenging task that keeps you wondering and learning on an ongoing basis. A common rookie mistake that I was making at the beginning of my practicum was focusing too much on the delivery of content and not enough on the student’s learning. Near the end of my practicum I was a little more relaxed and started taking the time to start a discussion with the students. In my next practicum I want to take the “extra 4-5 second wait time” and not judge whether a respondent was correct or not, until we are ready to formulate a class note.  I was also aware that I was nervously directing all my questions and answers through 3 or 4 students. At the end of the lesson my associate teacher would highlight the fact that it was a great lesson plan but there were 25 other students who were completely lost.  This hit home and I began to realize that I wasn’t using my time effectively by spending hours preparing only to teach 4 students. I followed a faulty assumption that students shared the same interpretation of knowledge that I shared. I didn’t take enough time to evaluate students understanding.  I also realized that I was working far too much and not getting the students more actively involved.

One experience which I cherish and has affected my learning/teaching is marrying into an Anishnawbe family. As the fastest growing demographic in Canada it is very important to talk to Native people and not about them. Sadly many Canadians don’t have conversations with Native people. Eternal talk is essential to Native sovereignty. Without open dialogue there can be no harmony.  This is particularly true in the area of Native education. The MOE has policy on Native inclusion, however, the bulk of the policy recommendations that were made by the National Indian Brotherhood (Now know as the Assembly of First Nations) in the 70s and accepted by the accepted by the Minster of Indian and Northern Affairs has not been ratified. The common recommendation that the National Indian Brotherhood made was the reclamation of native education by natives. In living with my native family there was a cognitive dissonance at first because I held fast to a linear progressive mind set. However, I’ve learned to step out of that mindset and look at the world holistically through the medicine wheel. I think if I were to incorporate curricula through the medicine wheel it would bring a cultural context to lessons. This is especially true of science, because there is allot of mistrust towards science in the Native community. Using the medicine wheel would also be a powerful tool for all students of various cultural backgrounds since it shows how a topic fits into an open interwoven world. “The teachings found on the Medicine Wheel create a bio-psychosocial and spiritual foundation for human behaviour and interaction.” (Dancing To Eagle Spirit Society – 2008)

In both my curriculum courses we’ve spent a fair bit of time talking about student and teacher misconceptions and how hard they are to diagnose and remedy.  The interesting thing is most alternative conceptions result from teacher’s oversimplification of lesson material. Teacher’s need to be thoughtful in the choice of words they are using as they lay the ground work for more in depth understanding. It’s particularly useful to use a variety of models and exercises to convey ideas so that students can see what is being put forward is just a portrayal of our current understanding of phenomenon and that these models are constantly changing. It’s also imperative that teachers are specialists in their field and that they stay current in the subject matter and how to best teach their subject matter.

In my next practicum placement I hope to have the freedom to take advantage of the great resources found on D2L and the PEEL website. Using the predict, observe explain method is such a great student centred way of learning.  I particularly enjoyed seeing how you turned a widely held misconception into a teachable moment after the “Candle in a jar” POE. As I plan for my next practicum this week I will be looking at the unit (plants) that I’ll be teaching and thinking about a top down approach to assessment and learning.  One of the comments I received on my last placement was that I didn’t effectively make links from one lesson to the next as I moved through the unit. Using a top down approach to unit lesson planning not only focuses in on the ultimate goals and expectations (as found in the curriculum guideline) by outlining the summative assessment task but also it clearly outlines the steps the students are going to use to get to the summit.

Finally, I have a profound respect for my colleagues both in the Faculty of Education as well in the schools. I feel an enormous amount of support from everyone involved in the whole process of education. I’ve had a lot of words of encouragement particularly during my first practicum where I ran into allot of difficulty. I felt safe in talking to my colleagues as well as my faculty liaison about some real challenges in my life. I felt reassured by everyone that I would make a good teacher even when I was full of self doubt.  My hope is that as I continue my teaching career there will be a culture that fosters support and mutual respect.  Having experienced the high school setting I now know there are days where you feel pretty foolish and demoralized.  I think those days become fewer the more we teach ourselves to be human and that students are at the centre of learning.