Category: Weekly Reflections

Classroom management techniques

Strategies for primary classrooms.

• Routines/expectations – Music to get students ready for the next activity. Slides for visuals (helps with French language barriers. Timers/Bells can increase efficiency. When the music ends, the class is ready for the next activity.
• SEL check-ins – The “Inside Out” check-in uses familiar emotions that have been adapted for a movie. Written self-check-ins potentially give us a more in-depth analysis, but can pose challenges for younger students.
• Soft start – Tools for soft start include: Playdogh, painting/drawing, Calm music, Yoga, Reading, and Counting.
• Modelling – I do, We do, You do Have examples of each level of quality (emerging, developing, proficient, extending)
• Inquiry/strength-based approach – Student agency Meeting both those who don’t care or those who are extending
• Grading – students use digital portfolios to share work, allowing parents to be well-informed about what the child is doing at school. The student’s best/most important work is posted online to this portfolio.
• Co-creation and collaboration – as teachers, we should seek out and find solutions with our colleagues. That being said, co-creating rules and assessment rubrics with the students can increase buy-in for activities and assignments.
• Culturally responsive – Teachers must be aware of and able to educate others about the Indigenous peoples of Canada. Including FPPL in our teaching strategies is a good first step. Make sure to also include the 5Rs: Responsive relationships, reason, resources, reflective dialogue, recognition.

Here are some check-ins to throw up on the board board at the start of a class.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/teaching-tools/aboriginal-education/principles_of_learning.pdf

Hour of Code and Video games

For today’s class, we got to work on the website “Hour of Code.” This website provides simple, step-by-step instructions to assemble pre-fabricated chunks of code into creations that would normally be overly complicated for an elementary student.

Here are some sample snowflake designs I created using the Elsa and Anna tutorial from Hour of Code.

Here is the code I had to write to get it to make these patterns.

Here is a link to the Elsa & Anna Hour of Code walkthrough so that you too can create snowflakes with code.

Computational thinking

Can computational thinking help learners become better problem solvers? I believe that the process of taking apart a complex idea by breaking it into parts is a fantastic way to learn. For example, we can apply this principle to the PB&J sandwich-making tutorial we viewed in class. If we simply toss a bunch of instructions to a computer, we could end up with something that most definitely does not meet our expectations, but meets the parameters that were given to the computer. By analyzing each step carefully, we can give clear and specific instructions to a wonder snack.

Gaming in education

I think that the game “Minecraft” is a versatile platform that can offer a variety of lessons for students. Let’s look at the block-based nature of the game as a platform for math. In my grade 2-3 class, the students are learning to examine an image of a pyramid to determine how many squares it would take to make it. An image is great, but what if the teacher could move around the pyramid in 3D? What if after the students have made their guesses, they get to build the pyramid to determine if they were right? What if they got to CREATE THEIR OWN SHAPES TO SHARE!!! Boom! Massive callback to “Redefinition” from the SAMR model. Finally, Minecraft teaches important life lessons such as “We do not fear death, but what we stand to lose from it.”

Incorporating Drawing and Design into Learning

Sketchnotes

Here are two sketchnotes that I made in class today. The first is on the benefits of taking notes on paper. The second is on learning french words related to travel.

The purpose of these sketchnotes is to help quickly retain information by forcing yourself to summarize what you are learning. Drawing and text together engage multimedia learning practices, leading to better retention of information.

I think that sketchnoting would work excellently for a grade 2-3 class. At this age, they still have trouble forming sentences, let alone taking notes on a topic. If they can use images and incorporate words they see from the board in a sketchnote, they could almost have proper “notes.”

What is SAMR?

The SAMR evaluation method helps to analyze the usefulness of technology adaptations in a classroom. The acronym stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. For instance, the use of iPads in schools falls into two domains of SAMR. iPads can be simply used as a substitution for a pen and paper, but they are also capable of creating perfect shapes and imputing images that can be classified as augmentation. There would be no modification or redefinition in these cases.

Here is a link for more on SAMR

One thing to take away from SAMR is that if you can do something without substituting technology, then it might be best to keep it simple. It is important to evaluate what specific benefits using technology brings, so that money and time are not wasted creating a redundant resource.

Accessibility design

Accessibility design is making all places and resources available for everyone at all times. Making online resources accessible is relatively simple compared to building accommodating infrastructure, but it is often overlooked in the design process. It never occurred to me that the command “click the green button to continue” to be inaccessible for the colourblind, however I have often thought about the colourblind using stoplights while driving. Although it is our ethical duty to ensure all work we publish to the general public is accessible by the everyone, it is also the law. These features are not only better for those with disabilities, as the improvements make the websites easier to use for all users.

Here is an example of closed captioning, a feature that provides speech to text for videos.

Here is an example of a photo that has been adapted for those with visual impairment using text-to-speech.

I think that digital accessibility is often overlooked for two reasons. First, checking a website to make sure it is accessible to everyone takes time and money for the producer of the website. If most people can easily access it, there is less incentive to make it available to the entire population. Second, I believe that many people have limited knowledge of digital accessibility and, although it is without any negative intent, the process of making a website suited for everyone can easily be overlooked.

The alternate text for images surprised me, mainly because making a website accessible for the visually impaired causes me to think about text as the main drawback of reading a website. The images of a website are essential, but when thinking about a disability as significant as this it can be overlooked.

3D Printing

I had a blast today in class. There is so much value for kids to work on projects such as these, bringing imagination to life while forcing them to use critical thinking and problem-solving. I have always wanted to create something with a 3D printer, so this was a pretty cool experience.

Several things to consider. 1. Everyone spends too much time staring at a screen each day. If we can make something without the use of a 3D printer, we can avoid unnecessary screen use. That being said, this is educational screen time and will create something physical to play with for the kids. 2. Not everyone will be able to use this resource, even if it is on a platform as easy to use as TINKERCAD. There were students in our class today that struggled, so if university students have a hard time how will a 3rd grader do? 3. The world already has enough stuff in it, so is it really that awesome to melt a bunch of plastic into a little trinket if it means were adding more to a landfill. These creations need structures and supports to print, which will be discarded as soon as the product is done. We discussed this last part during our class today.

On that note of useless plastic; here is what I created both before and during our class today.

The house was my first design and was the most straightforward to make. I pretty much just stacked pieces on top of each other. The chess piece and the mushroom were more complicated, needing many adjustments to work properly.

Generative AI

GenAI stands for Generative Artificial Intelligence, a subcategory of Artificial Intelligence. GenAI is used to create images, texts, and even videos from simple text prompts. By searching and comparing what we ask to past work and ideas, GenAI creates a unique response to the demand it was given but does not actually create any new ideas. It simply recycles what it has been given to learn from.

If you were to ask for a summary of a well-known text, Chat GPT (a GenAI) would give an excellent, highly in-depth response. When it comes to the need for facts and credible information, GenAI isn’t your best bet. It will always give you a response, but it can often contain false information. Known as hallucinations, Gen AI will fabricate evidence to fulfill your needs even if the material is pulled out of nowhere.

Despite these drawbacks, GenAI has proved itself to be quite valuable for my learning at UVic. As I am terrible with spelling, I have found tools like Grammarly to help avoid simple mistakes so that I can get my point across. Although spellcheck is not directly GenAI, Grammarly does have functions that can re-write your work to make it sound “better.” This function only comes with the paid-premium version. AI can do much more then spellcheck. As another example of useful AI for education, Chat GPT is great for getting started on projects. Sometimes all I need to get going is a conversation with someone to get my ideas flowing. By bouncing off simple topics to Chat GPT and seeing what sticks, I can get on the right track for my work. The final project mainly will have very little to do with the answers I initially got, but it is still an invaluable tool to get off the ground.

For those who are newer to Gen AI, you should check out Stable Diffusions, a free GenAI image creator. This program could be excellent for generating the exact images necessary for a presentation or a classroom. Here are some of my first attempts at AI image generating.

Multimedia learning

H5P is really freaking cool. This editing tool allows you to take any video and add text bubbles, images, and even interactive quizzes. Until this course, I had no idea this was possible, especially for someone with limited tech skills. This tool enhances a student’s connection to the material, and I can see it being quite useful in the future of my teaching career

I wonder how easy this tool would be to use in a classroom setting. I can see there being a bit of pushback from teachers who have limited experience with tech. I don’t think that it would be easy for high school students to use this platform, as it was decently challenging for a class of university students working on it together. As far as accessibility for students in terms of a medium for content, there are limited options. Although I know very little about it, there is a website called Lumi that is supposed to be the bridge between students and teachers. For more information follow the interactive link below.

Although I have yet to decide what age of students I want to teach, I can see this being useful for intermediate students and above. As long as they can read and have beginner technology skills, they should be fine. As for younger kids, H5P could be used to insert pictures or to put breaks in the video, however, I can’t see the quizzing or text bubble functions being applicable as they generally can’t read or write. I can see this tool being particularly useful in more senior years of education, as it forces students to prove they have viewed the readings. The quizzing function also can introduce the style of questions students would receive on an exam, possibly reducing test anxiety.

H5P is an example of multi-media learning. By adding text to key aspects of the video, H5P can be used to attain the modality/split attention theory. This forces the viewer to use different learning channels to code the information they receive, making them more likely to remember. H5P allows a content creator to tap into the spatial and temporal ambiguity theory. Placing the text directly on the screen means that users do not have to go searching for key points or text, allowing for efficient learning.

This is a link to the website I used –> https://www.coolmathgames.com/

If you had enough time to read this far, do yourself a treat and play a couple of levels! Grab a friend for an enhanced experience!

Sept. 15th, 2024

New Ways of Learning

This is a small video that I remember seeing in high school, and it relates well to the course content at hand. Although it may be a little on the theatrical side, its portrayal of our stagnant education system is easy to grasp for any audience.

Do we need to reimagine education? Yes. As shown in the short film Most Likely to Succeed, today’s education system is suitable for the creation of 19th-century factory workers. Its structured days are broken down by bells and blocks to increase organization, not education, claims speaker Ken Robinson (12:36). This method of education doesn’t prepare today’s students for entering into the modern workforce, one that requires critical thinking and ingenuity over structure and obedience.

Now that we have established the need for change, what’s the next step? Why don’t we change everything today? The steps forward will take time as there are obstacles for teachers to overcome. One difficulty is that teachers of today have been taught how to teach in this system. Additionally, the costs of creating new programs and classroom redesign would fall to teachers. Even if these weren’t issues, parents would have to agree to these changes. Concerns of students being prepared for post-secondary education would provide pushback, regardless of the validity of the claims.

I am looking forward to learning about alternatives to the current system, a system that is seemingly not fit for many. Although I believe many of the changes from the documentary would improve our systems, I have some concerns. I worry about students who need rigidity and firm instruction to learn. I need due dates to make sure I get work done. In my years of elementary, if the teacher wasn’t breathing down my neck and forcing me to work, it wouldn’t get done. Alternatively, less structure may have had more of an effect on me and forced me to take more responsibility.

For those reading, please comment if you feel the video represented how you felt after Rich’s lecture or if it was too off base.