FInal blog post

Suggestions to improve this class

Less blog posts. 

With 8 classes already, the sheer number of blog posts we've written for 342A, 442 and 450B outweighs everything we've done in all of our other classes combined. I think focusing on quality rather than quantity would be a better use of time. 

Also blogger is very outdated, and UBC has canvas, which is excellent for showing what posts are missing and keeps things organized. I find going through blogger is somewhat cluttered and difficult to find what I need. Also we wouldn't have to send each other 60 + invites at the beginning of the year, and accept 60+ invites because Canvas already has us organized into our classrooms. Using blogger ruins a big part of the experience in my opinion. 

What I took away:
I think I've learned a lot from our inquiry project the most! I was always interested in having group work being a focus in my classroom so I was excited to be given the chance to do some research on it. 

Exit Slip: October 14

Jo Boaler & Allie Kohn videos

I loved both of these videos and I even rewatched them again because I agree whole heartedly with the messages they're trying to spread. Obviously there's constraints that can't allow all of their views from taking shape as of yet, like not having mark in the context of higher grade levels. But I think they both do an amazing job of just highlighting the glaring issues of having marks and giving the wrong kind of "praise"

Inquiry project 1

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pRgHxsNuip1Rq7KcqyUfAR4mpL4-cLYd_-yt6XW278I/edit#slide=id.g1072f8d0b07_3_315

Entrance slip: October 21

1) What are your "student bird" and "teacher bird" thoughts about assigning percentages or letter grades in the assessment of student work? What do the grades indicate? How are they arrived at? Whose purposes do they serve?

I believe assigning percentages and grades make students perform more for their marks, rather than the learning. But because of that, I don't think they're a good indication of what they've learned but rather how effective of a test taker they are. How they're arrived varies considerably from teacher to teacher as I've seen in my assessment classes. Depending on your perspective of what's important a teacher can assign a zero or a perfect mark depending on what they perceive to be important. The purpose of grades, are partially for a student to understand and assess where they're at in their learning, but they may even be more for universities so they can see where a student is at before accepting them if they've passed certain criteria. 

2) What are some of the unintended side effects of grading? How do grades and marks in themselves format the social relations and learning situations in a classroom, a school, a district?

students perform more for their marks, rather than the learning. It can also devastate a students self esteem as it ranks them instead of motivates them. Test anxiety is another common issue associated with mark. Grades can also promote unhealthy competition and make them less willing to help each other learn, especially in university situations where marks are based on a scale. This creates a cutthroat environment, and these behaviours can carry on into adulthood.

3) Could you imagine teaching math and/or science without giving grades? How could a teacher encourage learning without having an emphasis on grading?

Yes I can because I've seen it happen in classrooms already where students receive narrative feedback. I've seen this have a great effect on students and I plan on using narrative feedback as much as I can instead of grades. 

Entrance slip: October 14

Dancing teachers into being with a garden

how these ideas interact with your own hopes and concerns about taking up the profession of teaching

"It begins with noticing that teachers are in the squared-off boxes of classrooms for most

(or all) of their teacher education experiences."

I find myself butting heads with a lot of ideas in this article,  on of how I would run my classroom. I don't really find my self wanting to teach in a garden or dance. It talks about being in a classroom being a problem but I just don't see it that way. If anything taking my students outside presents more of a problem from my viewpoint. I plan on incorporating technology, which most of the time requires wifi, or the projector, my students will need a place to write on, and I can't expect them to bring out their table in and out, the weather will be unpredictable. I could go on and on. 

what images and metaphors you take away from the reading

" teachers and learners sit inside rectilinear rooms, at tables, chairs and desks, and talk about things

that are not present, within the straight-line, right-angled grid structures that are

always present. Tiled floors and ceilings, windows, boards, ranks of chairs and desks,

bookshelves, boxes, the corners of the room itself, all are rectilinear."

It talks a lot about how these things essentially "box" us in, and create almost a prison, but I don't see it that way. Schools can be a place for creative freedoms if the classroom and teacher allows it. It's not the place that's important, it's the people and the mindset. You can't 'think outside the box' if you're never in the box. 

things you agree and disagree with, wonder about and/or can extend to other ideas about teaching in a fast-changing and uncertain world.

Read above.

Exit slips: October 7

sit spots and drawing the geometry of leaves

 It was cool drawing geometry leaves. It almost felt therapeutic, and I was so engrossed in drawing the lines of the leaves geometrically, you could even say I was in a 'flow'. 

Exit slip: September 23

Reflection on rope-making, braiding, net-making, poetry,

After reading sharons article, and doing the activity I can safely say that rope braiding isn't for me. But it was still a good way to get my mind off everything else, if only for a few minutes. 

I enjoy poetry more and I like being able to express myself through poetry when I'm inspired. Working with my hands doesn't really have the same effect for me, but I can't say that for everyone, as I know a lot of others in our class had a good time with their rope braiding. 

Exit slip: September 16

Reflection on sketching human-made and growing things, etc.

Things in nature are free to become whatever they want in whatever shape they want, where as human made things are rigid, with sharp lines, everything having a purpose. 

Hexaflexagon Response

 The videos were cute and interesting, and I think there's something to be said about bringing humour and excitement like hers to a classroom. The class was more or less fully engaged, and maybe that has something to do with most everyone having a mathematical background, or tired of doing routine school work. But I believe part of it can be attributed to the excitement the youtuber brought to the video itself. It's often been mentioned in class that showing interest in your own work can be infectious for your students as well, and I believe we saw that firsthand.

Annotated Bibliography

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_VpmjNtKnYeBl7H-HsIRl_OW-hBFulHXEma6cM82vuY/edit

"Short films challenging culture and gender stereotypes" and "Women, gender(s), the Nobel Prize and physics" Response

Are there some who might be systematically excluded because they cannot imagine 'someone like them' in these roles? How can we minimize these kinds of barriers in our roles as teachers?

What can we do, as secondary school teachers of math and physics, to welcome women and other underrepresented groups of people into these disciplines?

I think as in many of the videos, and articles the common thread is that those who are not white-men have a difficult time seeing themselves as someone who can be a 'math person'. This is because throughout history, white men are presented as the centre of all great mathematical discoveries. We know that this isn't true yet we celebrate the accomplishments of white men more than any other race or gender in the mathematical field. That's why all of these articles and videos highlight these mathematicians specifically and their achievements, to give younger folk another idea of what a 'mathematician' is or can be. And I think this is a great solution or at leas the beginning steps to correct the public idea of what a mathematician is or looks like. Math doesn't belong to one race or gender - it's universal; as we've seen throughout history, math has been and always will be an accumulation of knowledge that people of all backgrounds has contributed to. So why not highlight a more diverse group of people to demonstrate that?

Entrance slip - October 7

"School mathematics has traditionally organized some of its applications around the needs of the moment." 

When I first started reading this I wasn't sure of the connection, ecological sustainability and math education seemed like a bit of a stretch, but this makes sense. Throughout human history, math problems have always been posed in terms of current needs. For example the Egyptians dividing up loafs of bread for multiple workers. I'm not sure in what form problems of the future might look, but posing climate problems as math problems might be one of the first necessary steps in guiding the future of humanity to address those issues. People generally ignore these issues or brush them off, but it's the future generations that'll suffer, so why not make them more aware now, and be comfortable with necessary talks. 

"Even though sustainable mathematics education is motivated by urgent issues of survival, it need not adopt the pessimistic tone of many writings on ecology." 

This is what I meant. People avoid these needed conversations because it makes them feel bad. If you grow up with these talks, and their in the open, it gets easier to deal with the actual problem at hand. I don't think we need to avoid the pessimistic tone entirely; I think it's important to know how serious this problem is, but it should also be delivered evenly with the knowledge that something can be done. 

Entrance Slip - September 23

 If I'm allowed to be honest in this blog, and I hope I am, I find myself struggling to get behind the idea of "backsourcing" as Kallis put it. The idea of teaching in a garden as well, seems so foreign to me but I WANT to be open to the idea. Maybe I'm a product of modern day thinking and I'm too stuck in my ways but I don't like that as an answer. I hate the idea that I'm incapable of changing, the teachers that I felt were the most uninspiring were the teachers that weren't willing to try something new or change to the modern day. So I'm making a conscious decision to be more open to the idea everyday; my worst fear would be to reflect on myself one day and realize that I'VE become one of 'those' teachers. It's not as if I'm opposed to this at all, I just can't picture myself personally doing this or finding any motivation to want to learn to do this.

The merits however aren't lost to me. If this becomes a norm then just like Kallis said then our thoughts and perceptions will change too. People will be more economically and environmentally conscious about the decisions they make, and they'll be more self sufficient in everyday things. I'm sure more people will have a sense of being capable as well as Kallis mentions. 

Something I found interesting that Kallis said that made me stop and reflect was, "Sometimes, creating situations that fulfill emotional, physical or spirtual needs can subtly open one's thinking to a new world of possibilities and show people what they didn't even know they were missing." I feel this might be the root of my disconnect with the natural world and the idea of backsourcing. I believe it when Kallis says that creating things can be fulfilling, and that others feel the same way. But I don't feel that way at all. I'm not a spiritual person, I'm emotionally fulfilled in the relationships I made already, and I don't have a physical need to exert myself into creating things. My lack of interest in this, I think, stems from a feeling that I'm missing that others seem to enjoy. I feel alienated in my ways as many others in my class feel excited and inspired at the opportunity at being outside but for me it seems like a bizarre concept. I constantly feel like there's something I'm not getting when we're outside and this might be the answer.

Entrance Slip - Sep 16

This weeks reading was a great follow up to the Frank McCourt mini documentary. By that I mean that both the writers and Frank brush on the topic of becoming a reflexive teacher in the modern age. A teacher that is flexible and adaptable and can adjust to "cope effectively with changing circumstances"(Grant & Zeichner, 1984, pg. 107). Obviously this is invaluable in a teacher, or perhaps I should say obvious to some. I hear too often from students and even teachers speaking on other teachers, that some get stuck in their ways and refuse to change, no matter how many years and classrooms pass them by. And make no mistake neither speak favourably about the type of environment and lessons they produce. In the article they stress that becoming a "reflective teacher is a continual process of growth" (Grant & Zeichner, 1984, pg. 111, and that the onus is on us to develop and nurture this skill. 

Grant and Zeichner go over what attributes to a reflexive teacher and they highlight 3 qualities in particular: open mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness. Open to new ideas and possibilities, being responsible for our own actions and their possible consequences, and whole heartedly dedicated and committed to teachings all students. Zeichner and Grant feel that honing these qualities as a teacher, will implore students to want to learn. As people change so to then should our teaching strategies change to meet the new growing minds of tomorrow. I think this is sound advice, no matter what the time period is, whether this is a classroom in ancient Greece or a modern classroom today. A teacher shouldn't force a student to bend to their thinking, but design a plan to meet theirs.  

But what really resonated with me the most in this article, and left me thinking even after reading the article is the following statement, "There are no greater errors that prospective teachers can make than those that stem from an unbending certainty to one's beliefs" on page 111. I know my own faults, as I spend a lot of time being introspective, and I know I have a stubbornness in me when it comes to my own beliefs. When I read that it made me more aware of something I already knew, but I know have to focus on. I have a tendency to think I'm very logical and that my beliefs are therefore logical leaving no room for other possibilities sometimes. But I've learned to be humble and accept that I'm wrong and that there's still quite a lot I need to learn. I feel that had I not read this I might have made the same mistake that Zeichner and Grant has warned in this article, and for that I'm grateful. 

 

Exit Slip - Sep 9

The importance of making connections with my students, and to be genuine and human around them. That's the single most important thing I took away from todays class, and from our video segment featuring Frank McCourt. Not that this was something all too new to me or probably anyone in the class, but watching Frank go through and talk about his life and experiences as a teacher and outside of his teaching career, really drives home how big of an impact it can have. Understanding your students, empathizing with them, getting to know them as a person. These are all things that are the makings of a genuine connection, and Frank sounds like he was an expert on this the way he described how he would handle situations in which the students were frustrated with or hated topics or books - how he'd sit there with them and talk about why they hate it together. I've always had the same notion that if you want the students to be interested and learn, it can't begin if they feel like it's just a process they have to go through, a chore to complete. The interest and drive to learn starts with you, the teacher. Being genuine and passionate about teaching can go a long way in my short experience as a tutor. Make them laugh, make them feel like they're heard, make them feel like they're talking to a human being. this is something I learned early on, and there's more lessons ahead of me, I'm sure. "If you're teaching and you're not learning, you're not teaching." - Frank McCourt

Hello World

This is my dog as a puppy.

Dexter —->

Enjoy his cuteness. ✌