Last week I read a blog post over at The Spicy Learning Blog that really got me thinking about some of my thoughts on classroom procedures and what type of policies and procedures I would have in my future classroom. During my student teaching placement at “S-School” I was told by many teachers that the school policy was that students were to not be wearing headphones while in the classroom. There were some specific students, however, that had permission to wear headphones to assist in their attention while working on projects and assignments. What I found though was… Read More
Resources To Start Off Your Week 45
So I spent the better part of the last month posting about First Nations resources so I have decided to switch it up and showcase a few different resources this week. As always, I will be adding these to my lists of resources under the Fav Websites heading. 1 ) Periodic Table of Comic Books– Learning about the Periodic Table of Elements? This is a fun version that I’m sure will entertain the comic-book lovers in your class. Two professors from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky have put together an interactive Periodic Table of… Read More
Connecting, Reflecting & Creating: Why We Blog
I have exciting news I want to share! A fellow student teacher, Tyler L, and myself will be presenting our very own Professional Development sessions!! Tyler and myself are both avid bloggers and we have actually spent some time this year sharing our experience with first year Faculty of Education students in their “ICT in Education” class. After some consultation with a professor we began working on our own Professional Development session on how blogging can benefit educators. What resulted was, Connecting, Reflecting & Creating: Why We Blog. “From being used as a reflective… Read More
Case Study of Aboriginal Content
One of our assignments that we worked on completing while student teaching was a case study of Aboriginal content in our schools. Was Aboriginal perspective being incorporated, was education inclusive to Aboriginal students, what would we have changed, what did we do, etc. For the most part, we had free reign in regards to what topics we discussed but it had to be within five pages. This did limit me to what I could cover but I tried to touch on as much info as I could. Here is what I created: ________________________________________________ Where I Was I… Read More
What Makes A Good Portfolio?
A major component of almost ALL of our Faculty of Education classes is our professional portfolio. This is what we will use to “sell ourselves” and let potential employers know what we have to offer their schools. It can be electronic:– Website– Blog– Slide-share– PowerPoint– etcOr it can be done in a hard-copy form:– Scrapbook– Binder– File System– etc I had started a portfolio last year when I first entered the Faculty of Education but now, looking back at it, I realize that it is not the best reflection of who I am. In that short… Read More
Resources To Start Off Your Week 44: First Nations Resources Cont.
If you happened to catch my quick post yesterday you know that I am now back at university attending the same classes I did before my student teaching pracitcum began. I am currently working on a few assignments for classes as well as putting together some reflective posts on my time at “S-School”. In the mean time, I wanted to share a great resource that I learned about today in my Aboriginal Studies class. As always, I will be adding this to my ever growing list of resources under the Fav Websites heading. 1 ) Speaking My Truth:… Read More
Back to the Life of a Student!
My student teaching placement officially finished up on Friday and I am so sad that it had to come to an end! Now don’t get me wrong, this placement was definitely my most intense one yet (if you couldn’t tell from my severe lack of posts during the past few weeks) but I still didn’t want it to finish. I am not sure if it is because I am getting more experience or if it had to do with the school itself, but this was the first time I had really felt like I knew my… Read More
Resources to Start Off Your Week 43: First Nations Resources Cont.
Last week I posted about five awesome First Nations resources that can be used in our classrooms and I am so excited about the traffic it received! To keep this topic going, I thought that this week I could share an actual project that I completed with my Grade 11 World Issues. As you know, our unit consisted of four sub-topics:– Ethno-diversity– World View– Effects of Assimilation– Indigenous Rights For our World View topic we looked at a variety of themes including religion, emotions, values, ethics, and relationship with the environment. Since there is only 9 students… Read More
My Evaluation From My Students
Tomorrow we will start our LAST week of our student teaching practicum and I can’t believe how fast it went by. I am so sad to think that I will be leaving my students already but I am happy about how well everything has gone over the past four weeks. I have had two formal evaluations by my supervisor from our university as well as two evaluations by each of my cooperating teachers and they have all gone wonderfully! I am happy to say that I received some great feedback as well as gaining some wonderful references for… Read More
Where in the World is… Whole Brain Teaching?
I know that there will be some of you out there that have been wondering where my Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday posts have gone. Is it because I have been busy with my student teaching practicum? Partially. The main reason, however, is because I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on who I am as a educator and what my personal teaching philosophy is. In my first semester of my education degree I was asked to create a document that described my personal teaching philosophy. What did I believe the purpose of education was? What… Read More