Growing in leaps and bounds!

Looking back at my first term as a student teacher, it is amazing to see how much I have I have learned already. I remember my first day in the classroom how nervous I was. I couldn’t even imagine myself getting in front of a classroom full of students as a teacher. It’s not that I get nervous when public speaking, in fact public speaking is an asset I have as an aspiring teacher. I was nervous because of the image I have of what a teacher should be like. To me teachers were these all-knowing people who had an answer to everything. I was almost overwhelmed with the pressure of teaching. Things began to change. Through interaction with students in small groups and during work periods, I began to develop an understanding of how to communicate in a classroom setting. I felt like I was actually helping students with their learning. Was I actually teaching!?

A few weeks into my first term as a student teacher, my co-op teacher asked me if I wanted to lead a lesson. I was excited at the opportunity, but again also nervous. I didn’t really have much time to prepare and brush up on any background information. It was a History 30 article on the fur trade. My task was to read the article and explain what the author was saying. It went really well!  I read it with a good teacher voice and didn’t stumble over words. My biggest fear was sounding like a bad reader. Teachers are never bad at reading out loud. Periodically I would be given the opportunity to lead a reading or even sometimes a lecture/ note taking lesson. I could actually feel myself develop as a teacher with each time in front of a class. It was really cool!

Just last week, my last day in school for the term, I felt as if the students trusted me as their teacher. My co-op teacher was away and the class had a sub. The sub was running late, so I was given a key to the classroom by the office staff. It felt awesome! It was like a symbol of my development as a teacher. With the sub late, I began the class using the note left by the co-op teacher. I liked that feeling of being the real teacher, even if it only lasted for 5 minutes.

During all of the classes that day, the students were given work periods on upcoming essays. When the students had questions about their assignments, they came to me for help. I felt as if I had earned their trust through my role as a student teacher. I would also like to say I gave the students great advice for their papers. Many of the students were struggling with referencing in Chicago style. I happen to be a pro at this; a product of years of history paper writing. By showing them reference tips, I had real effect on the success of the students.

After reflecting on my first term, I was surprised at how much I have learnt about teaching. I’m already looking forward to my internship.

We are life long learners too

Today I came to the realization that becoming a teacher will be a lifelong journey. To say that anyone can master the art of teaching would be naive. We will always be presented with different situations that we will have to adapt to. I have come to realize that one of the best skills we can develop as teachers will be the ability to read our school environment and the students in our class. We will have to be able to cater our class to meet the needs of our students. Easier said than done. Take for example this conversation I had with a few students.  

Last week I had been helping one of my history classes with a French Revolution simulation assignment. The class was divided up into the 3 estates and were to come up with a list of complaints for King Louis. The idea behind the assignment is that the students will realize that on all issues the 3^rd estate is out voted by the other two, and they will have uncovered the beginning causes of the French Revolution. When asking students how the simulation went, they responded with comments of dissatisfaction. They told me in a history class they like when the teacher talks and they take notes. This caught me by surprise as I thought students hated lectures and notes.

Upon further reflection I realized that to meet the needs of all students we need to gauge the learning styles of our classes. But at the same time, we may have many different learning styles in one classroom. We will have to use a variety of techniques in order to ensure our students meet the learning outcomes and reach their full potential. We need to create an inclusive school environment and this includes including everyone’s learning preference.  It is possible that there are some students in the class who learn better through simulation activities. When it comes time to design lesson plans and activities, I will have to take into account all of the different learning styles of the class. For as long as I am teaching, I will always have to come up with new approaches to teaching similar lessons. We have to be active in our reflection throughout our teaching career. Our teaching will always be evolving.

Our mark driven world

Before beginning my study in the College of Education, assessment and evaluation always fascinated me. I had no idea of how teachers were able to arrive at a numeric grade on an assignment handed. There were obvious differences in quality of student work, but to be able to pinpoint a number out of 100 that a student deserves mystified me. I feel like evaluating student work is such a subjective task that a student’s mark can vary so much based on the teacher. In a mark driven society, this seems to have real world consequences.

I have an example from my high school career of the subjective nature of grades. I was in a combined history English/History class with a different teacher for the two subject areas. History has always been my favorite subject area and I did well in this portion of the class. From my enjoyment of history, I was an active participant in class discussions and developed a good rapport with the teacher. My English class was a different a story. I often disagreed with the teacher’s interpretation and explanation of literature. He taught the English class in a way that I just could just not relate to. I could tell that the teacher did not think highly of my ability as a student. When it came time to hand in the term paper that was to be graded independently by each teacher, their interpretation of me as a student, and the subjective nature of evaluation became apparent. The history teacher gave me a mark in the low 80’s whereas the English teacher gave me a mark in the high 60’s. As a high school student, I was very confused from this experience. Now that I am in the College of Education and learning about assessment and evaluation, I understand this event differently and am able to learn from it.

  First off, the obvious is to be evaluating the work handed in by the student and not the preconceived ability of the student. Even if we have a notion of the work expected to be handed in by a student, we have to be willing to be surprised by the improvement a student makes in their class work. After all, the goal of school is for students to improve and learn for the lessons of the class.

I had a chance this year to visit a classroom that takes a different approach to evaluation. In this class, the teachers do not give grades on assignments. Instead, they give the students feedback on what they did well, and things they could improve on. The students are then given the opportunity to add to their assignment based on the advice of the teachers. This approach has awesome benefits. The students are not mark driven and give assignments their full effort because the assignment means something to them. With the teacher feedback, they are able to learn from their assignment and develop better skills as a student and lifelong learner. This is one of the goals of our educational philosophy and this no mark system is living it.

Group Work

During my in school observation, I was able to apply Gallagher’s theories on group work and watch how they worked in practice. The first thing I noticed that related to the Gallagher’s chapter was the ineffectiveness of large groups. The problem I encountered was a result of two group discussions occurring to close in the classroom to one another. The two smaller groups merged into one larger group and there was almost no effort to answer the questions assigned by the teacher. The two groups were more interested in talking about their personal lives.

            The other problem I noticed was students waiting to be given the answers by the group member they considered to have the best answers. The assignment asked for the students to give their own opinion on the topic and provide a solution, and yet they were waiting for only the perspective of the one student. Even in an assignment that did not have a right answer, they students wanted to have what the perceived to be the best answer. Rather than trying to arrive at a solution with an array of opinions, only one view point was expressed. I should also note that the group member providing all the answers was not taking the assignment seriously and derailed the other member’s opportunities to benefit from the activity.

            To fix these problems, I think smaller groups would be effective. As well, the groups should be more separated from one another. Classrooms don’t provide the best environment for group work. It might have worked better if one of the groups was sent to another location in the school for the activity.

            If the groups had been 3-4 members, it would allow all students an opportunity to express their opinion and make for a more effective activity. For the quieter students, they may be more comfortable sharing their opinions in a smaller group. At the same time, it is still likely that one student will dominate the discussion. The hope with a smaller group is that the other students will be able to add their opinion within the topics raised by the other student.

            Overall I believe that group activities are an effective way to engage students. Through group work, students are provided an opportunity to express their opinions and become part of the learning process. Rather than rely on the teacher for answers, group activities put the onus on the students to learn. I will use group work in my classes, but will be careful to set parameters that allow the most effective outcomes from the students.

Memorable day in the teaching career of Brandon

I would like to share about a memorable teaching moment that happened to me last week. In all of my history classes, the teacher differed to me for a breakdown of the American presidential election. Well, politics is a passion of mine and I jumped at the opportunity to teach students about this topic. Even though it is American politics and my dream is having a class interested in Canadian politics, I found that the American election provided a great teaching opportunity. Along with teaching them about how the system works, I was able to include aspects of the opposing ideologies and there plans for the United Sates. The students were very interested in what I was saying and had lots of questions. I think much of their curiosity came from the large amount of media coverage the election received. From this, I had an incredibly engaged class that wanted to learn about the election. I was proud of my teaching techniques because I could tell the students understood what was happening the night before. Most of the students did not understand how the Electoral College works. After my quick demo, they understood! It was awesome!!    

 

Reading for social justice

Following on a theme I touched on last week, I would like to share my appreciation for post-colonial literature. I believe that post-colonial literature works much to give voice to people of the underclasses and to people who have been silenced by colonial rule. Furthermore, post-colonial texts work to challenge the status-quo, which I believe is an important part of any literary study.

As future teachers, we should use texts that ask our students to question certain elements of our society. This is part of what makes studying post-colonial texts so important. While discussing themes within a text, we can easily start to apply these themes to a real world situation. Literature has the ability to change the way people view there world. It provides the reader an opportunity to walk in someone else shoes. From this perspective, we are able to use literature as a devise to challenge power in our society.

In the post-colonial era, literature has become an instrument of societal change. We no longer share stories solely for entertainment purposes. Although a great story is always entertaining, post-colonial literature challenges the reader to recognize the topics addressed in a real world setting. As we look for deeper reading, it becomes evident when examine literature with a post-colonial lens. It is easy for our students to answer the question “why are we reading this”.

Since entering the College of Education and being introduced to teaching for social justice, I see studying post-colonial literature as the perfect way to this. After reading and examining the story critically with emphasis on post-colonial issues, the opportunities to tie the themes of the story into a social justice lesson become evident. This is why I enjoy using the post-colonial critical perspective.  

When it comes to using literary theory to analyze texts, I have favored the Marxist perspective since being introduced to in university English classes. Chapter 4 of Deborah Appleman’s book Critical Encounters talks about bringing the Marxist perspective into a high school classroom. I liked this idea as I feel we can learn most about our own lives expressed in literature by reading with a Marxist lens. I believe the Marxist lens allows us to move beyond the text, and study the wider implications literature has in society.

In regards to the Marxist theory, literature has moved to give voice to a wider range of people. Included in this are voices of lower class people, speaking out against the various forms of oppression in their lives. There was once a time when literature was a device of the upper class. The Marxist theory can also be used to show the class structures in these older texts. I feel it is valuable to show high school students these varying class perspectives as they are represented in literature. Our society today is very much stratified and this is often represented in the literature we study.

Using Marxist literary theory allows us to move beyond the plot of a story and begin to see the author’s message in a wider context.  As teachers, this approach can help our students gain a deeper understanding of the texts the encounter. They will gain the ability to see beyond the characters and the plot and will be able to see the themes reflected in other places. I firmly believe that the stories we read and write are a reflection of our society.

 Important social issues are often raised through literature as the mode of communication allows people who have been silenced a chance to speak. In particular I think of the relatively recent emergence of strong works of Aboriginal literature. This perspective was once rare in Canadian literature, but now we are able to use the Marxist lens to understand the challenges and oppression this marginalized group has faced. It is really cool because we can understand so much about these social issues from reading their stories.

I would also like to point out that there are numerous opportunities to achieve outcomes within the Saskatchewan Curriculum documents by using the Marxists literary theory.

Is it ELA or EAL?

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to observe and help in an English class for EAL students. This class style presents obvious challenges as these students need to meet the curricular outcomes, but also overcoming the language barrier was very difficult. So if ELA is required for graduation, then how can we gear English class to students who are still learning English?

To start off, I would like to state that I believe it is not fair to grade these students based on their comprehension of English literature. For example, the students I was helping had great ideas and made interesting connections between the text and their lives. In order to achieve these results, I had to find a way to make the content of the novel relevant to them. Not an easy task.

The class was studying the hunger games. The teacher told me that it was going very slowly. It had taken them over a week to read 1 chapter as the students would often need to stop and ask what certain words mean, or what was happening in the book. This makes any novel study very difficult. In response, the teacher showed the film version of the hunger games, hoping that the visual version would help the class understand the story. From talking to the students about the film, they seemed to have understood the basic plot elements.

After the film, the class was given question about the hunger games. Many of the students struggle with this activity because they didn’t understand what they were being asked to do. Every student needed help from the teacher. I was glad I was there to help answer the question. Most of the students needed me to rephrase the question so they could understand what it was asking. Once they understood the question, they had pretty good answers.

With one of the main themes in the hunger games being inequality, I feel that the study of the book should have been done in compliment with discussion on Canadian society. I wonder if it would be better to create a class in which students new to Canada and English could take the themes out of the book, and study them as they appear in society. I think we need to find a solution that fits the needs of the students or we risk losing potentially brilliant ideas.

Different Perspective

In my last blog posting I wrote about my experience observing advanced English 20 at Walter Murray Collegiate. Well, last week I had the opportunity to view the other end of the ELA spectrum at Walter Murray.
I had the opportunity to observe and help a class at Walter Murray called "credit recovery". Students are placed in the class if they have been asked to discontinue their modified class. In credit recovery, the students are given a second chance to receive a credit by completing assignments given by the credit recovery teacher. At the end of the assignments, a mark is negotiated between the students and teacher.
While I was observing the class, I was instantly needed to help the students stay on task and complete their assignments. One of the students was assigned a short story to read, followed by a series of question to answer. I was drawn to this student as I noticed him not working on his assignment. I thought that if I worked with him, maybe he could finish his assignment.
While helping this student, I was thinking back to EDUC 498 and the readings to see if any strategy from class or readings could motivate the student to finish the assignment, or at least try working on it. To start, I quickly read the story so I would would know the answers to the questions. The student told me he had read the story as well, so together, we attempted the first question.
Who is the main character in the story?
I instantly thought back to EDUC 498 and how simple plot questions would not evoke deeper reading. As I found out from working on the questions, this student was unable to see the basic aspect of the short story. He didn't know the answer to question one. I was sure he didn't read it.
So I made him read the story again, and this time he could identify the main character. I would like to believe it was my second draft reading strategy that helped reach the answer, but I'm not sure.
I feel I did give him some valuable advice for completing plot based questions. Find the paragraph that relates to the question, reread it, and then find the exact sentence that answers the question. After I showed him a few examples, he was able to answer the remaining questions.
I have to be honest and say I enjoyed working with students who struggle with reading comprehension, rather than those who have already mastered it. I feel that by working with the students in credit recovery, I was having a larger impact in a student's life than I would facilitating a class conversation about detailed theme and metaphors. It was an eye opening experience.

October 2- Today I had my first experience in a high school English class as an observer. I was observing an advanced ELA 20 course at Walter Murray Collegiate. During my observation, I was looking for the strategies I read about in the first week’s readings from EDUC 498. In today’s ELA 20 class, the class read the poem “Children” by Kahlil Gibran. To introduce the poem, the teacher utilized the strategy suggested by the author of Deeper Meaning. The poem was presented to the class on an overhead, and the class was asked to read it once by themselves. When everyone had finished the poem, the teacher read the poem to the class. Deeper Meaning recommends that material should be read twice, for the students to first uncover the main points, and secondly begin to uncover the literary devices. The ELA 20 class had no issue uncovering the purpose of the poem beyond the basic text. As the teacher led the class through the poem line by line, I was amazed at the complex understanding the class had of the poet’s message. I’m sure part of the reason this class could grasp the intricate points of the poem was because it was an advanced level course. I would also like to think that with proper study and techniques, all students can read a poem and other literature the way in which the ELA 20 class I observed today did.

            Another successful strategy the teacher used that I noticed from Deeper Reading was relating the poem to the lives of the students. The poem was about the role of the parents in the guiding of their children. The poet argues that the parents are simply supposed to provide for the kids, but not force their beliefs and knowledge upon them. The poet argues to allow the next generation to decide how they wish to shape the future. The teacher used this argument to ask the class how they view the direction of their generation. An interesting class discussion was the result of this point raised within the poem. An effective strategy the teacher used to facilitate this discussion was to raise, and be able to argue for both sides. The students were forced to develop sound arguments in order to disprove the argument of the teacher. While they were forming their arguments, they were also uncovering how they view their role in society.

I think without the readings for EDUC 498, I wouldn’t have noticed the strategies teachers can use to engage their class. I think a successful ELA lesson gets the students to think beyond the plot and uncover the message within the text. There are numerous social messages present in any work of literature, and a class should focus on examining these aspects.