On Friday (Oct.25th) I met with teachers in science rolls within the division. We shared resources and discussed how to improve upon our teaching in the science field specifically. I discovered new apps and engagement resources to apply in the classroom. This time was especially useful for teachers that were able to review diploma scores in order to reflect on areas of improvement in their practice. Even though these educators may have been teaching for extended periods of time, they still were learning about ways to improve. They are life-long learners. It was a great opportunity for me to collaborate with teachers in the division and share some of the resources that I have.
Today (Oct. 28th) I attended the CESD PD Day. This was a fantastic experience overall! We had 2 keynote speakers then an additional session. I had the pleasure to hear George Couros speak again in the keynote address as well as in the breakout session. Not only is George a pedagog, he emulates life long learning. Along with George was a psychologist from Ontario named Dr. Ian Brown who spoke about boys and education.
Dr. Brown raised some very interesting points and showed us some very intriguing stats about the education system and young men. In the past few decades, there has been a decline in educational success of young men. This is what he identified as "Boys Adrift". He attributed this apathy to school/ societal structure, medication, video games, and endocrine disruptions. It was interesting for me to hear more about the biological portion of why this apathy might be more inherent than we think. The most interesting portion of Dr. Browns speech for me was the impact of society on young men. Back in the day, there was more of a role from fathers to teach their sons to be "good men". This, to an extent, included an emphasis on the importance of getting a quality education. This responsibility of learning how to be a "good man" has now been handed over to the child (son). Since media has an active role in the child's life, this is where they begin to learn about what men 'should' be like. Our media doesn't necessarily emphasize the importance of education, therefore this component is often lacking. The statistics of male drop-out rates in Canada were eye-opening! I think the take home message from this session was that just like we have to differentiate instruction for a variety of learning needs, we should also consider how to differentiate out lessons for young men.
George Couros is always an interesting person to learn from. I was able to expand on my knowledge and skill set from ConnectEd Canada. George uses technology as a way of connecting with professionals around the globe. Twitter has proven to be a highly effective strategy for this. One of the interesting points that he raised was about self-reflection. This is also something that I have recently reflected on myself. It sounds kind of like 'Reflection-inception' but I am continuing to understand its importance in education. As a student, a time that I have learned a great deal about science was with a hands-on experience where I had to reflect on my learning. This was through the University of Lethbridge Co-op program. As the student, I thoroughly enjoyed the hands on learning even though I had no initial experience in an agriculture setting. I also was able to reflect monthly about what I had learned on the job. After some thinking about this, I know that I learn best this way as a student so how can I now make my classroom reflect this. This thought of mine was mirrored through George's speech. The use of technology can ease this process. The use of blogging (here is the 'inception' again) has proven to be useful to improve literacy in young adults. Not only does this engage learners, but it also makes them accountable for their learning. We have to be careful in the way that we implement technology in the classroom. George said in his speech, "It isn't what can I do with this technology? It is what can I do that I COULDN'T do before". He also mentioned that the technology really only has a small part to do with it. What we have to do is change the way we think. Technology and social networking is a great resource, but now we have to be careful of our digital footprint. Through modelling we can help students achieve all of these goals.
Throughout the sessions, I was also able to reflect on the presenters themselves. One of my goals for the year is student engagement. At these sessions, we no longer are the teachers but we become the students. So we ask ourselves, when were we most engaged? And why?
Some of the points that I recognized when I was engaged:
- Personal connection to the presenter
- Humour
- Engagement through media
- The presenter adapted to the audience
- The presenter had a solid background of skills and knowledge related to their presentation
- Changed proximity throughout the presentation
I would like to work on some of these skills to improve student engagement in my classroom. For more on my experience at the PD day check out my Twitter @JulieAnderson10 (twitter.com/JulieAnderson10). Really enjoyed the day!
One of the quotes that resonated with me most from the day was:
"Learning is creation, not consumption"
- George Couros