According to elearningindustry.com, “Online learning… refers to the delivery of educational content and instruction through the internet.”

This week’s presentation spoke about different types of online learning; including video conferencing, synchronous, asynchronous, open schedule, and fixed time learning. In our small group, we discussed which type of online learning is most beneficial for us (more on that in a moment).

This current class utilizes a number of tools to reach all of the learners. UR Courses uses Moodle as a hub for everything, Zoom is where we can meet for classes or with our groups (as it is open all the time), and we share work on blogs and can access each other’s work through the blog hub. We also utilize shared documents thanks to Google’s Workspace and use the Discord to ask questions, share resources, and communicate with each other.

Photo by ejlindstrom on Pixabay

As an adult learner with a career and a hectic home schedule, the flexibility that comes with an online course is a necessity… without it, I’m sure I wouldn’t be furthering my education.

That being said, it is my belief that too much flexibility is not beneficial for my own personal learning. I appreciate taking synchronous classes, which were defined in our presentation as having a required class time each week. This allows me to stay on track, ask questions of my classmates and instructor, and keep  more of a routine. I discussed this with my husband, asking if he would prefer synchronous or asynchronous (viewing instructional videos at any time) classes. His response was, “well if you aren’t meeting every week you can just rip out all the videos and do a half decent job to get it over with.”

And therein lies the problem… WHY are we here? Why did I apply to be in this program and pay tuition? To get it over with? To bump myself up on the pay grid? Or did I do it to learn?

I am doing this because I love what I do, and I am in a place where I am ready to learn and grow in my career.

I personally do not believe that I have ever gotten as much knowledge and interest from any asynchronous courses I have taken… it has always been about getting it done. Which is not what learning is about. It’s about finding something that interests you and taking in as much as you can to grow both personally and professionally.

For that reason, I believe that the Zoom class time would be the most useful tool when it comes to online and blended learning.  According to “Teaching in a Digital Age“, this would fall under the category of Social Media.

“Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein (2010) define social media as

a group of Internet-based applications that …allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content, based on interactions among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.”

It is imperative to have that face-to-face time to ask questions and mull things over in discussions.

Photo by 14995841 on Pixabay

When COVID hit us in March 2020, I was having a tough year in the classroom. I was teaching a group that I had already taught in grade 2, and again in grade 3. I knew that they were a challenging group, and that they would test boundaries. To be honest, when they announced that the school would be closing I felt a huge sense of RELIEF. This was my third year with this crew and I was ready for a break.

By May, I was ready to get back into the classroom. I came to realize that I feed off of the energy of those around me, and without the energy of the classroom I was bored with teaching. It also had a profound effect on the students.

In class we talked about how school is more than just the curriculum. My students were coming to school to get breakfast, to learn about hygiene, to learn social skills, problem solving skills, and to feed off of the energy of those around them just like I do. The joy of learning was gone. It just wasn’t the same.

For this reason, I do not think that online education is a good idea for our growing and maturing learners. There will of course be the exceptions to the rule, but being out of the house and around peers is an integral part of the education system. It comes with challenges, yes… but those challenges inspire growth in students that will lead to happy, healthy, and successful futures. As someone who was truly looking forward to distance learning, I can say with confidence that (in most cases) this is NOT beneficial to our students.

After hearing this weeks presenters speak on productivity suites, I realized a few things…

1. There are cracks that need to be filled in.
2. There are pros and cons to everything.

Now, let me explain and ramble on about what I mean exactly. Productivity suites, like Microsoft Office, Google Workspace and Apple iWork (just to name a few), have their benefits for our students and prepare them for their future in the workplace. With productivity suites, students are able to be creative! They can make and design their own presentations to share with their colleges in the workplace. Using productivity suites allows for students to collaborate with each other and foster team work. Technology is an ongoing thing. It is not going away anytime soon. The more we teach our students HOW to use technology and how to manage different productivity suites, the better prepared they will be for their futures. I wish that I had these opportunities when I was in school, because then I would feel more prepared and advanced when it came to working through spreadsheets, presentations, etc., as I think that many of us had to teach ourselves how to navigate these platforms.

So, yes. There are benefits to productivity suites and they play a role in digital literacy. They are valuable tools in both school and workplace settings. For example, I use Microsoft Office daily as I create and share my lesson plans. I use spreadsheets to help with me class lists, staying organized, assessment…the list goes on and on.

However, there are “cracks” or gaps to fill as well. Not everyone will find these benefits in productivity suites. I believe, especially after engaging with last weeks discussion, that privacy and affordability are the two biggest cracks/gaps.

Who is paying for these fees? What about the upgrades? What about the devices themselves? Not every school board has the funds to cough up money for these things. Are we, as teachers, properly trained to help guide students through using productivity suites in a safe and beneficial way? I for one, don’t think I would confidently say that I am.

I think as educators, we need to think about how to fill in these “cracks,” before we get too excited about going forward with using the new productivity suites on the market. We need to be mindful of all of our students and think about benefits vs. downfalls.

Productivity Suites

What is a productivity suite, and what is their current role in education?

According to Forbes, an office (or productivity) suite is “… a set of productivity applications that typically include email, file sharing, document editing and collaborative tools.”

NYTimes.com explains the popularity of Google’s Productivity Suite by stating that “Today, more than half the nation’s primary-and secondary-school students… use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs”

In my own teaching experience, Google really took over in my school division around 2015. Instead of using large laptops to create presentations on Powerpoint and type essays on Word we began making the switch to Chromebooks, which were clearly a more affordable option. It also allowed us to move from 1 device per 2 students to a 1:1 device to student ratio.

Photo by ElisaRiva on Pixabay

Slowly, I started to see the benefits of moving to Google’s Productivity Suites:

• It was easy to move my Word Files and Powerpoints into Docs and Slides
• Students were able to collaborate on presentations and assignments without sharing a device
• Files were accessible from everywhere
• Students could share their working assignments with me for some additional support, instead of needing to bring a laptop up to me for assistance.

In 2017, a colleague introduced me to Google Classrooms, and it was an absolute game changer for me as an educator. It was a way to organize assignments, grades, due dates, everything in one place. I wasn’t chasing down papers or keeping constant checklists, because everything could be submitted and tallied on the Google Classroom. In my mind, this opened up my time to focus more on the content I was teaching instead of organizing and collecting everything.

Might as well be a photo of my desk before Productivity Suites – Photo by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

That being said, this was a time when I was teaching in a community school, where many of our students did not have access to technology at home. The way we worked with this was by giving students the option to print out any unfinished work at school, and take it home to complete by hand. I needed to remember to focus on the quality of their work and not just the outward appearance.

Photo by 377053 on Pixabay

There is the issue of copy and pasting from the internet and claiming it as one’s own work, but I truly don’t believe this is a new thing. When we were strictly using textbooks, students always copied word-for-word from the textbook. I even remember my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Friesen, explaining to my class back in 2002 that we needed to explain answers in our own words, and try to make connections to our own lives/previous learning to show that we truly understand something.

If anything, it is easier for me to check if students have been copy-pasting from websites. All I need to do is copy a snippet into Google and it will likely locate the source of the plagiarized information for me.

Access to Productivity Suites and online tools means that we need to look at how we are teaching and WHY we are teaching it. What base knowledge should students have, and where should we teach them how to help themselves? How can they locate trustworthy websites and sources when you can pretty much search up any answer that you want to find online? How can they give authors credit where credit is due?

Now, to something that I had truly never considered before last week’s presentation…

What is Google getting from this? According to Google Workspace for Education itself, School Divisions are indeed paying for it’s services. The Classroom Help page also states that:

Classroom doesn’t use your content for advertising

There are no ads in Google Workspace for Education Core Services, and core service data is not used for advertising purposes. Also, if ads are shown in Additional Services and you’re using your Google Workspace for Education account in K-12 (primary and secondary school), we don’t show you personalized ads, which means we don’t use information from your account or past activity to target ads. However, we may show ads based on general factors like your search query, the time of day, or the content of a page you’re reading.

However, because I have the ability to search for whatever answers I truly want to find, I can also find an article from The Verge that says “Google uses student data from Chromebooks and Google Workplace for Education ‘for its own purposes,’ which isn’t allowed under European privacy law.” The article further goes on to stay that Denmark may be phasing out Chromebooks due to this.

I don’t know what to believe or who to believe… what I want to know is what information would be collected and how is it used? I’m going to ask our Supervisor of Learning and Technology to see what I can learn from them.

To be continued…

• Postman wrote: “…We now know that “Sesame Street” encourages children to love school only if school is like “Sesame Street.” Which is to say, we now know that “Sesame Street” undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents.” In a blog post, unpack the implications of this quote, particularly the idea that Sesame Street undermines traditional schooling. What does Postman mean here, and how might we extend this idea to the broader effects of AV technologies in schools, from the earliest AV technologies all the way up to the current culture of smartphones and the push towards BYOD and the integration of smartphones in classrooms? What are the grander implications of the array of AV technologies, from film projectors to apps and interactive educational shows to personalized devices and tools like YouTube (Khan Academy, Crash Course, etc), when we think about the format of schooling? How do AV technologies change the way we might think about school? You should tie in tonight’s student presentation as well as the readings provided by the group where possible.

In this post, I will be unpacking the above blog prompt.

There is no doubt that audio visual technologies do enhance education in certain aspects. They make it more fun, engaging, and interactive. The presentation from this week definitely showed us that! We did break out spaces, watched videos, and were put into groups to answer questions using pictures and GIFs. By allowing our students to participate in activities like these ones mentioned, and by using more audio visual tech in our classrooms, we engage our students and peak their interests. However, will this go “too far?” Are there some negative outcomes because of all the use of audio visual technology to make learning “fun”?

I believe that Neil Postman’s quote reflects the fact that we are constantly trying to “entertain” our learners/students as teachers. Although I believe that AV tech can be very beneficial (as mentioned above), I also agree that it can make things harder for us as educators. Shows like Sesame Street portray school and education as always being engaging, fun and interactive. Whereas traditional schooling involves levels of discipline, structure and focus. This can be a downfall for students who come to school with this image in their head. Not ALL learning is fun! This is true. I loved certain aspects and activities in school, but I also disliked some and found some lessons “boring.” This is also the reality of life and work in general.

Many of our learners come into our classrooms today with lots of exposure to AV technology, such as televisions, smart phones, iPad’s and tablets. I hear of people saying they don’t want to raise an “iPad kid,” for this very reason. When children have no limit on screen time, and always need to have AV tech in front of them to stay engaged, it makes our jobs as parents and educators harder to keep them focused and learn. Teachers have become entertainers on top of all the other “hats” we wear on a daily basis, just to allow our students to stay engaged and learn something from our lessons.

There is a big push on “bring your own device” to school. I teach Pre-K, so this does not really affect me as much as teachers who teach middle-high schoolers. However, I cant help but think about those who come from lower-income households. Where does this technology come from for them? Do they then get the same education as other students who come to school with the newest smart phones and technology to enhance their education? How do we, as educators, know that our students are using their technology devices to enhance their education? How do we know that they are not cheating or distracted? This also ties in to our previous discussion from the last couple of weeks. Using audio visual technology in classrooms also has implications on the teachers, who now need to teach students exactly how to use these devices to benefit their learning (which websites to access, how to protect their privacy, what could be dangerous, etc.)

In conclusion, AV tech enhances education in many ways, but it also continues to have it’s downfalls and brings up a lot of questions that many do not have the answers to. There are definitely grander implications to AV technology integrated into our schools and classrooms and we continue to unpack these as educators.

“…We now know that “Sesame Street” encourages children to love school only if school is like “Sesame Street.” Which is to say, we now know that “Sesame Street” undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents.” – Neil Postman 

Photo by Kapa65 on Pixabay

Postman brought up so many great points in this article, Learning in the Age of Television. I find it so fascinating that the ideas he wrote about in 1985 are still very applicable today.

He says that Sesame Street relieved parents of the responsibility of teaching their children how to read and  lessened the guilt of leaving their children in front of the TV. (Postman, Learning in the Age of Television)

This brings up thoughts of CoComelon‘s educational nursery rhyme videos on repeat for my nieces and nephews, and Ms Rachel’s Toddler Learning Videos that successfully distract my friends’ toddlers while they prepare meals or tidy up the house. I have always feared that over-exposure to screen time at an early age had links to ADHD and emotional regulation difficulties, but if it’s educational, is it still an issue? Is it the content, or the bright colours, or the sound, or the constant scene changes that is the real problem?

I watched my sister raise her first child with a strict no-screen policy. She took it upon herself to create learning experiences for her child, and I also believe that because of this, my first niece has a lot of patience, a long attention span, and is able to entertain herself with anything readily available. That being said, she may be the exact same child now even with exposure to screen time.

Photo by Vika_Glitter on Pixabay

It’s my own belief that we need to find a balance to everything. If something seems too good to be true, then there is a reason why.

Audio Visual Technology has an important place in education, particularly when it comes to creating meaningful learning experiences. According to the Regeneration Music Project, “The combination of sound and visuals creates a multisensory experience that can evoke emotions, drive engagement, and leave a lasting impression. ”

• My question to you is, if that we overdo it with the AV Technology, does it minimize these emotions, engagement, and lasting impressions mentioned in the above quote?

• Should there be a place in education for the more “mundane” tasks, that teach our students to complete things that are not always fun but necessary as they become independent adults?

• Does the role of AV Technology need to change based on our students? If they have constant access to audio visual technologies, do we need to bridge the gap? Isn’t that the role of schooling in the first place?

This brings me to another conversation that I have recently had with one of my colleagues, a pre-kindergarten teacher at a community school. My school division is running a play-based learning pilot program, and as a middle years teacher, it took me some time to wrap my head around. This colleague of mine made the argument that the role of school has always been to give students the learning that they are not receiving at home; in a time where students are exposed to so much screentime, they are missing out on the socialization and learning that can come from play. 

Photo by Saydung89 on Pixabay

It is possible that because students have constant access to tablets, televisions and smartphones, they find audio visual technology monotonous and dull?

With the implementation of play-based learning, it seems that we are moving away from the heavy use of AV Technology in the classroom. There is, of course, a place for it in education. But that doesn’t mean that it needs to be part of everything we do in the classroom.

It is my belief that Audio Visual Technology is a great way to ENHANCE student learning, but at the end of the day, the skills that we need to teach students so that they can lead happy, successful lives include interpersonal skills, critical thinking skills, and reslilience. This is something that can’t be taught BY screens, but something that needs to come from us as educators.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the overuse of AV Tech in the classroom and play-based learning! Do you think we are going from one extreme to the other? Do you think there is a fine balance?

Life has been a roller coaster for me as an educator and I have seen the highs and lows of this ride  while dealing with learners of different backgrounds and with diverse needs. My learners come with a level of proficiency and learning. Therefore, my highs in these stints have been:

• When I made an observable difference to my audience and also to the organization.
• My own learning and knowledge gain after every facilitation. So together we all ride on that wave of crest. 

My lows have been those times: 

• When either my audience have not benefitted or have gained any knowledge.
• The organization could not benefit in some tangible way
• When personally I did not feel any knowledge/experience gain from that point of coming together
• When there has been a need for learning for myself and I have been Unable to fulfill it

As a facilitator I have experimented with various ways of imparting knowledge. My target audience have majorly been a bunch of people who are already knowledgeable, informed and come to me for specific value addition. So as a facilitator, the content for my training is always dictated by the organization, in the form of their competency framework, or as a result of their training needs analysis and together in collaboration it is finalized. As a facilitator I play with this curriculum to make it as impactful and engaging as possible. According to the Adult learning theory of Malcolm Knowles there are 5 ways in which adults perceive/expect learning:

Self-Concept- Self paced, self-assessed learning methods

Adult learner experience – Case studies to intersperse knowledge with the learners’ own experience

Readiness to learn – Enumerate the benefits in the present or future context and present the knowledge

Orientation of learning – Collaborate with the organization to build value for the knowledge

Motivation to learn – Social interaction/engagement, lowering the filters, Reinforcement of positive behavior, redirecting the unwanted behavior (being sensitive) enhances the desire to learn 

Problem Centred Focus – Application of the learning

Additionally, I find constructivism to be a valuable perspective in learning. Encouraging participants to construct their own understanding through hands-on activities, discussions, and problem-solving not only makes the learning more meaningful but also fosters a collaborative and interactive environment. This approach resonates with my belief that adults learn best when actively engaged in the learning process and when they can connect new information to their existing knowledge.

My methodology, approach to any type of social interaction has been immensely affected by Neuro linguistic programming. It is a toolset to create excellence. NLP tells how to train your brain, your language to achieve the results you wish to achieve.

As an NLP master coach, and then as an educator I believe in the two out of many presupposition of NLP which says; 

• The Map is not the territory
• Every experience has a structure- It can be reused to recreate experiences

NLP communication model is about: how we communicate with our environment and ourselvese. We arrange and manage the information( through our sensory perception ) in our head by deleting, distorting or generalizing based on our past experiences, memory, habits, values, beliefs,etx. That gives meaning to those experiences and leads to learning. That learning leads  to an outcome, which is called Behaviour. 

reference: adroitnaukri.com

With my this belief, I operate as a facilitator. Therefore for me my facilitation is a mix of Behaviorist, cognitivist and constructivist theory,

Constructivism:

In my approach to teaching, I find great value in constructivism. I see learning as a process where individuals actively build their understanding through hands-on experiences, discussions, and problem-solving. By creating an interactive and collaborative atmosphere, I encourage learners to construct their own knowledge. This theory aligns with my belief that meaningful learning occurs when individuals are actively involved in making sense of new information and connecting it to what they already know.

Behaviorism:

While acknowledging the importance of learner autonomy, I recognize the role of behaviorism in certain contexts. Employing behaviorist principles, of stimulus and response, I incorporate clear objectives, milestones, and structured activities interspersed with debriefing to guide the learners. Especially in skill-building scenarios, relating the activity with appropriate theory, providing immediate feedback and creating a well-organized learning path can help effectively shape behaviors and contribute to the overall learning experience.

Cognitivism:

In my teaching philosophy, I integrate the principles of cognitivism, recognizing the significance of mental processes and the role of the “NLP model of communication” in learning. As an educator and a student of Adult education, I understand that learners actively process information, organize knowledge, and create mental models to comprehend new concepts.

Hence, this means designing instructional activities that stimulate critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making. 

Furthermore, I acknowledge the individual differences in cognitive processes among learners. Therefore, I tailor my teaching methods to accommodate diverse learning styles and preferences, providing opportunities for reflection and self-assessment. By incorporating cognitivist principles, I aim to foster a deep understanding of the subject matter, encouraging learners to apply their knowledge in various contexts and develop transferable skills.

In most of the training projects where the objective was clear and the emphasis was on experiential learning, I have opted for Game based learning solutions. My instructional design, consisted of game-based learning and experiential techniques to enhance the overall learning experience. The incorporation of immediate feedback mechanisms, reinforced and redirected the behaviour. This fostered a sense of accomplishment. A part of Game based learning was also to play and have game scenarios that necessitated advanced cognitive skills, encouraging learners to engage in critical thinking and complex problem-solving. The collaborative nature of these experiences also aligned with constructivist principles, promoting the exchange of knowledge among participants. Hands-on activities and reflective sessions, integral components of experiential learning, facilitated a practical understanding of concepts. Additionally, every training program is focussed on the target audience and designed with adaptability in mind, accommodating individual learning styles to ensure a comprehensive and engaging learning environment.

Reference: Mandeep K Kochhar(Adroit learning & manpower put ltd)

Join me on a journey as I look back at my ten years of teaching and reflect on how three different learning theories have shaped my philosophies of education.

Behaviourism

According to Anthony William (Tony) Bates’ book Teaching in a Digital Age, “At the heart of behaviourism is the idea that certain behavioural responses become associated in a mechanistic and invariant way with specific stimuli. Thus a certain stimulus will evoke a particular response.” (Bates, 2.3.3).

I can confidently, but not proudly, say that my earliest teaching years focused heavily on this theory. My first year as an educator, The Zones of Regulation was all the rage. We were asked to have the posters hanging in our rooms so we could point to the different colours and ask our students, “What zone are you in right now? What zone should you be in? What can you do to get back to that green zone?”

Just by drawing the students’ attention to these coloured posters, our questions would prompt them to calm down, and practice mindfulness to get themselves into a learning mindset.

I also spent a year trying out Class Dojo, which was very unsuccessful and short-lived. Although I enjoyed the short lessons on developing a growth mindset, the idea of having points sitting on the board for everyone to see was too distracting and frustrating for students. Very soon after beginning to use this behaviourist technique, I learned that it was counterproductive to subtract points for negative behaviour. This was embarrassing and shameful for the students that it effected, and immediately closed them off. It didn’t build a respectful relationship between myself and the students, and I have never believed in taking things away as a method to sway student behaviour.

Photo by ammcintosh1 on Pixabay

Now, what I try to do is start the year by making sure my classroom is a safe, nurturing community for students to come and feel loved and cared for. We create a class contract and spend time discussing the things that make us feel safe, and the things that allow us to learn. When we are trying something new I try to give students time to goof around and be kids.

This week, for example, we utilized Jamboard. I set aside the beginning of the lesson to make a blank board so students could hop on and play around with it… putting funny emojis and messages to each other, and trying to take over the space. When we were ready, we talked about how it can be used as a great discussion tool.

To sum up behaviourism in my teaching practice, I would say that I am trying to find a delicate balance between fostering a calm, effective learning environment and trying to gain total control over my students.

Cognitivism

“Cognitivists believe that humans learn from thinking. They believe that we learn from our experiences and that we can change our behaviors based on new information. Knowledge is considered an internal process rather than a product.” Main, P (2022, December 09). Cognitivism Learning Theories: A teachers guide. 

As a new teacher, I can say that I didn’t practice this learning theory as much as I do now. Inquiry- Based Learning was new to me and something that seemed too big to conquer. I tried creating inquiry projects to help students reach the learning outcomes in a more meaningful way, but it took a lot of time and a lot of preparation on top of being bounced from grade to grade and starting from scratch each year. When I started teaching, there were a lot of teachers who wanted to get hired, and I took whatever I was offered with the hope of that permanent full time contract.

• I started in Grade 7 along with Grade 5/6 prep coverage
• Next was one month of grades 1-5 Arts Ed coverage at a French Immersion School (no, I don’t speak French)
• The rest of that second year I was moved to Grade 2/3 in the mornings in one school, and 5-8 prep coverage in the afternoons at another (Mondays-Thursdays)
• From there I got a grade 3 position in the mornings, and a Grade 5/6 in the afternoons at a second school (still at 80%, but this time a permanent contract!)
• Next, I was finally able to get 100%, but 2 mornings a week I was the Music Itinerant at a second school.
• Finally a spot opened up for me to have Grade 6 full time in one school!
• Since then I have been bouncing between 5/6 and 6/7

With so much movement, I wasn’t willing to reinvent the wheel each year. So, what I did was keep my teaching basic. Here is the unit, these are the lessons, and at the end there will be a test which will require you to memorize the things.

So you can imagine my excitement when I learned about Genius Hour at a Middle Years Conference – meaningful learning that doesn’t require so much time on my end. It makes perfect sense… why don’t we also focus on teaching our students HOW to learn so they can continue to grow when they leave school?

Genius Hour for me was a wonderful experience when I had a class who was capable of it. My students were learning math, science, research skills, the arts, and everything in between. They were engaged, they were excited, and they loved sharing what they learned with each other! Am I doing Genius Hour this year? Nope. Will I in the future? It depends on the group of kids I have!

Considering Bloom’s Hierarchy of Learning, I felt (and still feel) that this form of learning pushed students beyond beyond remembering facts, past applying what they’ve learned, to creating their own projects and sharing those with others. 

Figure 2.4.1 Cognitive domain Image: © Atherton J S (2013) CC-NC-ND

Constructivism

According to Teaching in a Digital Age, “Constructivists believe that meaning or understanding is achieved by assimilating information, relating it to our existing knowledge, and cognitively processing it (in other words, thinking or reflecting on new information).” (Bates, 2.5.1)

This learning theory can also be applied through Genius Hour, but right now I see it most applied through play-based learning.

In my personal teaching, I try to practice the constructivist approach by taking advantage of situations happening to connect them to curricular outcomes and life-lessons. On one of our frigid winter days, we looked out the window and learned about sundogs… what causes them, when we can see them, and how this applied to our weather unit, light unit, or space unit in science.

In health, this looks like a group discussion on the media we consume, and how that media inadvertently shapes our ideas of what it means to be either male or female. To me, it is all about trying to get my students to look at the world more critically and find connections and places where they can better themselves and grow.

One more example of this would be in my English Language Arts program. In the past, I would borrow a novel set, and use it along with chapter questions and vocabulary words to teach.

This year I am working with my principal to do Literature Circles. What I LOVE about this is that my students are able to pick what books interest them out of 16 choices. Each book group has 3-5 members, and each week each member takes on a different role. One of my favourite roles is that of the Investigator. The job of the Investigator is to collect background information on the book to help enlighten the group. This is building curiosity in what we are reading.

For example, in this week’s group, the Investigator of the book Prisoner B-3087 shared information they found about the life of the book’s main character, Yanek Gruener. This led to a meaningful discussion about what humans are able to survive if they maintain hope. We learned about what Death Marches are, the dangerous power of hatred, and talked about why anyone would follow Adolf Hitler when his ideas were so barbaric and evil. To me, this discussion proved far more meaningful than answering basic chapter questions.

Well, that about sums it up! Thank you for sticking with me on this one. I have never sat back and thought about how much my teaching has changed over the course of my career. I am always open to learning and trying new things to better equip my students for a successful life when they leave school.

Every single one of the students in our classrooms are smart and capable. I think that one of the hardest parts of my job (as an educator) is to find out what works for all of my students, to encourage them to do the best they can.

As we talked about in this week’s discussion, learning brings change! There are different ways of learning and different theories. Personally, I have learned about these theories before, but never really dove into what they mean for us, in the classroom setting. For example, Katia used the example of Class Dojo being apart of the Behaviorism theory of learning. When I first started teaching, I actually used Class Dojo with my students. However, after awhile I realized that it seemed to be making those behaviours worse. In learning theories like Behaviorism, you are either right or you are wrong, just like Skinner’s Teaching Machine. Yet, I found that there are other (less demeaning) ways of classroom management.

Again, as we talked about in class, I think that the majority of teachers, myself included, fall under the Constructivism learning theory. I believe that all of our kiddos come to us with some sort of understanding and knowledge and it is our job to build on that. The most beneficial learning that I did throughout my university experience as an undergrad student, was my pre-internship and my internship. To be in the classroom, watching other teachers, and actually able to learn from role models, helped shape who I am as a teacher today. I do believe, however, that a lot of us (teachers) and our education system continues to function with a “mix” of all of the learning theories (ie: Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism), and that is not a bad thing!

I mentioned how I shifted my thinking about strategies such as Class Dojo, but I do also believe we need to shift our mindset away from “one size fits all” approach. When we think of Cognitivism learning theory, we think Piaget Stages of Development. This is where the “putting students in the same grade level based off their age”, can be a downfall. This is a bigger issue, but I think that less of our students would “fall through the cracks” if we chose to follow a more Constructivism approach, because as teachers we know that our students are diverse. They learn differently, they come to us from different backgrounds and they have their own strengths and also weaknesses.

I am by no means a perfect teacher, but I hope to continue these learnings to better understand my own management skills, and how I can construct my classroom to benefit my learners.