Reflection Week 1
As a University student in a modern, rapidly moving society, I rely heavily on technology for most aspects of my life, whether it be banking, transportation, or my education, as do most of my peers. Though looking back at my education experience, tech has always been present in the classroom and vital to how schools in BC have operated during my upbringing. Even before cell phones took off with the invention of the iPhone in 2007, teachers were able to use tech to assist with almost all classroom tasks. I often question tech applications because of how often they can make things more complicated. Being intentionally rational, I feel, is key to my navigation with tech. The positives must show that they outweigh the negatives and not dilute the meaning of the purpose.
My biggest hurdle in post-secondary education has always been tech. The constant formatting and navigating of different sites, courses, and submission requests overwhelms me and distracts me quite often from the key takeaways from classes I have attended. With that in mind, I do feel that things only get better from doing them. So tech will improve and become simpler, or it might just overcomplicate the purpose and revert to a simple order. I remain optimistic of the use of tech in school but will still try to find analog methods to engage my curiosity as a fun experiment and to simplify the big, wide, wild world of tech.
Reflection week 3: AI in School District 63
AI in the classroom is a hot topic these days, with a lot of further implications and discussions happening regarding its effects on the whole picture. I liked Darcy’s chat regarding digital safety and discussing their approach on AI and school district 62’s goals. After looking through the provinces page, I feel like it neglected a large section of AI that is commonly being used in teaching to make things more efficient, and that is assessment. “Digital literacy and the use of AI in education: supports for British Columbia schools” did not mention anything regarding teachers’ use of AI for assessing children. I personally view that as a breach of privacy, using AI to form assessments by entering personal notes into chatbots. The whole idea that assessment is about relationships is neglected, and then the students’ information is used to grab an unknown amount of information to compare to, and the assessment is watered down. I feel if we are to learn about tech, we need to learn about usage, dangers and rights before we go further into teaching students.
PSI Reflection.
The PSI field trip was an incredible learning experience. As someone who attended public schools in Kelowna my whole life, it was a refreshing experience to see an alternative to how students can learn in the inquiry-based format. The school offered an approach to learning that facilitated students to help them get over the many developmental gaps we often see in public schools. Often, learners who do not feel engaged in standard classroom models fall behind and are deemed unproductive members of the school. They can be alienated and do not get to reach their full learning potential, simply because the traditional learning model does not speak to their motivations. If only all students could pursue meaningful, personalized pursuits that boost their confidence and could be guided by individuals who see their potential and not just how they are not following the narrow course of the traditional learning model in BC. Meeting the president of the school, Jeff, he introduced himself as a high school dropout pursuing a PHD and talked about the PSII philosophy that allows students to follow what they are actually interested in, and understand their assessment is about how the student emerges personally by growing through inquiry. The model does not have standardized guidelines like common curricula, where students are assessed on general guidelines. As someone who thrives on practical learning and loves following rabbit holes into discovery, I felt like I really connected with the philosophy and want to bring more of an inquiry-based approach into future projects as I pursue the remainder of the Bachelor of Education Program.
Ester Maloney and National Film Board of Canada Reflection
The National Film Board of Canada is truly a hidden gem, not discussed and utilized enough in our daily lives. I am surprised I have not heard about it or seen it used yet. The large library of films covers stories of great significance to Canadian culture. The education offers ready-to-go lessons down to timeline, subjects, and age range on virtually every subject. Ester Maloney, the presenter and director of education for the NFBC was keen to share specific info and show us film trailers about emerging cultures, Indigenous life. The library of films can even be categorized by the age of the film and by the Nation. The most captivating part about the PDD was how the film board is staying up to date with common issues we see arising in today’s schools. Ester discussed that they teach lessons on healthy masculinity, which is a great offer considering the amount of social media can portray many versions of unhealthy examples for males to look up to. The content in the presentation was great because the subjects covered are things not typically in students’ view while attending school. This allows the teacher to hear how students feel about complex issues and provide them with learning that is appropriate to them. I hope to use the NFBC as a resource to help teach and correlate the incredible films and lessons into the practicum this coming April.
Digital Resources and Personal Connection to Canva
Digital resources are an integral part of the classrooms in BC. Being familiar and knowledgeable with the software and hardware offered by the district as a teacher in all roles can help establish efficient work practices and offer accessible, fun ways to learn for students. Having presentations with the school district’s tech administrators has been really useful. Getting familiar with the different tech formats was a forethought before attending these information sessions. Oftentimes, onboarding and learning about these tools can be a large learning task in and of itself, so getting familiar, I feel, is a great opportunity before the practicum and will make it easier to settle in during our first week. The new VLLC program Ana spoke about was my favourite part of the presentation. The simplified collection of resources shows how sometimes that software can be hard to access, and makes it so teachers will not use the resource as often due to certain barriers. The simplified platform offers an easy-to-reach resource that everyone can use. The other software I was excited to hear about was Canva. I use Canva in almost all of my classwork and enjoy the simplicity and user-friendly experience of it. In the future, I hope to do some introductory-level courses about Canva and all of its uses in the classroom. Learning to use Canva, I noticed that my work process became easier because the process felt more creative and fun. I hope to promote and teach the tool to students to boost their creativity and make putting together a presentation feel as though it is not a chore but just them extending their voice to the project.
Gamified Learning
Learning about Minecraft Education was an eye-opening workshop to the large number of opportunities available in the software. The classes where we get to learn about one specific tool used in the education space, I always feel I get the most out of. Especially with the focus of teachers helping teach teachers how to use it, so students can gain skills as well. Kara highlighted the developmental benefits of the game, showing student persistence and teambuilding opportunities. The nature of the game is challenging, and the autonomy of the open world forces students to make decisions and see how it can affect the world negatively or positively. The portion of the game I look forward to experimenting with is the cross-curricular activities and learning about other time periods and cultures through interacting in other worlds. The PNW Coast Experience is an incredible opportunity for students to learn about Indigenous culture. I would be curious to hear Indigenous perspectives on the learning tool and how it can help benefit teaching about Indigenous culture in the PNW.
The other part of the lesson I really appreciated was Mike’s history of touch screens and digital gamified education. The questions about our experience in which games we remember brought back a lot of great memories for the whole cohort. Hearing a teacher’s perspective on using the game was a great way to engage us and excite us about other gamified learning modalities.
Coding in the Classroom
Coding is such a unique facet of education, and I am just starting learning about its many uses as I never grew up with the subject. Often, when I grew up, I would hear terms about coding and would associate it with a degree of almost mysticism. It seemed as though only a small group of the population had the capabilities to understand the inner workings of the ever-so complex devices we interact with in everyday life. Looking at coding now with a fresh pair of lenses, I see it at its root as an understanding of organising and orchestrating a program to perform a task. Coding is looking at the whole sequence of events and refining it down to a functional program, A process that we do in our everyday lives. I see the value in this skill for students, as it allows them to understand the order of operations of something, and if we miss a step, it can throw off the whole sequence. I feel that is a skill often learned through a lot of trial and error in our many daily tasks, but rarely do we actually get to practice scenarios and learn about them in a much more direct way. I feel as though my mysticism about the subject grew into a sense of appreciation for those who can achieve and perform these tasks and problem-solve their way out of situations that seem to be abstract. I am excited to learn in the classroom more about the large world of coding. The Scratch Program out of MIT is such a great resource and can teach students and teachers so much about all facets of the curriculum through storytelling and design by learning coding language. It makes coding knowledge accessible and achievable for all levels and helps us understand the big world we have live our lives through vicariously online.
FINAL Reflection!!!
During my education experience at UVIC, I feel I have always been analyzing aspects of course content to real-world applications. In my coursework reflections, I connect to the real-world application of the material to my own experiences to try and express personal understanding of the content. I have been really fortunate to discuss my learning process at length with all my professors, and this course was a great exercise to be accountable for a new type of coursework and learn new strategies in how to be effective in completing those tasks. My biggest takeaway is being realistic and honest with others and myself about my progress. Communicating with teachers to understand what is clear helps me outline how to execute that process. I would say my examples have not been overly researched, but I try to pull from experience by using material I can relate to and expand on. I aim to use video as an evidence piece of my work, accompanied by links to helpful resources, to inspire my work. During the reflection process, I have incorporated many examples to incorporate processes of gamified learning and other software into my pedagogical process. I think my favorite example would be the National Film Board of Canada, simply because of the vast number of films offered and lesson plans to expand on. During my time presenting, I felt like I was able to accomplish a meaningful presentation style during the group presentation on gamified learning. I enjoy presenting and feel it is one of my best attributes as a teacher candidate, and I will incorporate the aspects of that in many facets of teaching practice.