A teacher engages in career-long professional learning and ongoing critical reflection to improve teaching and learning.
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FNMI
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Reviewing Research
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Collaboration
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Applying Research
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Feedback and Technology
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Enhancing understanding of First NATIONS, metis, and inuit worldviews, cultural beliefs, languages, and values
As part of the social context of schooling, I chose to research indigenous students and reserve schools for my issue inquiry project. The project had to provide a balanced perspective on the issue at hand and then comes to a reasoned judgement using the appropriate resources and academic research.
Supporting Indigenous Students | |
File Size: | 411 kb |
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Seeking, critically reviewing and applying educational research to improve practice
For social studies curriculum and instruction, I reviewed and analyzed the front matter of the social studies program of study K-12 as well as the academic article "Identity and the Forthcoming Alberta Social Studies Curriculum: A Postcolonial Reading" by Laura A. Thompson. A front matter analysis of the curriculum gave me a new perspective on the purpose of social studies as well as how citizenship and the question of what citizenship means is embedded within the curriculum. After completing this, when planning my units for my grade four class I considered how my assignments, mini-lessons, and activities would incorporate citizenship, identity, and multiple perspectives, as well as critical and creative thinking, historical and geographic thinking, the research process, and communication.
My inquiry unit for my grade four class was centered around storytelling and can be found here: |
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collaborating with other teachers to build personal and collective professional capacities and expertise
The link below will take you to an inquiry project for a social context class. In collaborating with my peers to explore this inquiry question, I learnt more about the specific social contexts behind latest educational research and pilot projects. I extended my professional capacities and expertise on the potential opportunities and issues that can arise when implementing international studies into my classroom. In podcast format, this inquiry project addresses core questions surrounding how we define success in schools, the purpose of schooling, and the cultural values reflected in an education system.
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SEEKING, CRITICALLY REVIEWING AND APPLYING EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH TO IMPROVE PRACTICE
Story Vine Reflection | |
File Size: | 1529 kb |
File Type: | docx |
actively seeking out feedback and maintaining an awareness of emerging technologies TO ENHANCE TEACHING PRACTICE
My Literacy journey
As a reflective practitioner, this project on my own literacy journey allowed me to perceive literacy through the eyes of a student. I also sought out peer critiques and teacher feedback in the making of this stop motion video. Stop motion was a new technology to me, I watched tutorials and found an easy to use app which I could now share with my students to tell their own stories. By reflecting on my own learning journey I can empathize and better understand student learning as well as see the value in receiving feedback as outlined in my reflection to improve my use of this technology.
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A stop motion video on the impact of literacy and my literacy growth over my life. From being read to as a child, to struggling with assigned homework, to my future as an educator, this video follows my journey. I want to go on to inspire and nurture my students using literature and teaching literacy in my classroom, and this video portrays those foundations and how this vision came to be.
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Reflection
My Literacy Journey was a project that surprised me; when we were first assigned this project, I thought that I did not have very much to write about because I like literacy and English class, I do some reading outside of school, and my journey isn’t something that I have truly considered before. After watching the video in the first class, however, about the father learning to read his son’s book, it really made me think about how I take my literacy for granted, and about how I learnt what I know today.
I began engaging with this project by brainstorming happy memories of reading and writing in school and at home, I also talked to my parents about what types of books they read to me and they told me how these were some of their happiest times. After this prewriting stage, I began to think about how I could represent my journey, I considered a road map or talking about walking through each stage, but then I thought about the words that I want to define me as a teacher and one word that really stood out to me was ‘nurture’. I considered how I have grown and been nurtured by those around me over the years and chose the theme of trees being planted and nurtured and pushing through adversity in order to grow. In the drafting stages I drew the life cycle of a plant and wrote notes relating to each aspect such as seeds, roots, seedling, rain, thunder, young tree and mature tree. In the drafting stages, I chose to free flow write, simply typing out all of my thoughts, emotions, and memories and then I began to organize and rearrange. I also considered the importance of language in my life and how I want to engage with language and literacy in the future. I revised my work by crossing out some pieces and adding in other ideas. In the editing stage I decided to simplify my long sentences into a narrative with fragmented sentences at times to reflect how memories come to mind in snippets and imagery to reinforce the idea of nurture and growth. As my writing was to be read by me as an audio for my stop motion not to be read by a reader, I decided to write as I would say it and often read aloud as I was writing and editing. In the evaluation stage I asked my peers what they thought of my writing and if the ideas of what I want to go on to do and the importance of language to me fit into the autobiographical story, I also showed them the part of the stop motion I had so far. The feedback I received was useful: I needed to speed up the video a little to keep the story moving, and I needed to rearrange the ending to link the importance of language to my story. As I continued to work on my video, the script kept me focussed and having a final copy of the script allowed me to mold the video to what I wanted to communicate. This project really made me think about how I do value literacy and language, and also the challenges I have faced and overcame in developing my skills. I loved reflecting on my memories of literacy and realizing how many people played a part in my journey. I think that putting my goals and love for literacy into a project allows me to refer back to how I want to help nurture my students in this area as I become a teacher, and value the influence literacy has on all of us. |