AER Reflection

1.      Assessment Page During First Teaching Block

  As I am going into my first teaching block I am looking for resources that can help me along the way.  For assessment I will be using my digital portfolio on assessment to help guide me.  The first thing that I would use to help guide me would be the AER Strategy Form.  This form will be a constant reference for how I will use assessment to tackle a variety of challenges such as ELL learners, special needs learners, or report cards.  I have included two resources for every section from the Ministry document Growing Success to help guide me in future uses of assessment.  

  I would also like to use my assessment page from my digital portfolio to continue to blog about my continuing experiences and challenges with assessment.  I believe I have already started off quite well with my first two posts on my past experiences with assessment and my recent experiences with assessment.  I would like to continue this blog by detailing how I am dealing with assessment during my first teaching block and how I am adjusting to assess my placement class.  I believe that this will help with my self-reflection as a teacher and allow me to refine my assessment strategies.  

3. Professional Learning Goal for Job Interview

  If I were to highlight one of my professional learning goals from my AER Strategy Form I would want to highlight my goal to better facilitate support learning for students who are form an Aboriginal, Metis, or Inuit background.  In my AER Strategy Form I have highlighted the need to research the need to study the social and economic conditions these students come from as well as talking to experts and advisors from these communities.  This will be done to help better understand the context that these students learn in and what challenges they might have to learning.  I have highlighted two Ministry of Education documents to help me develop this learning goal.  These resources can be found here and here.  Both of these documents help inform teachers about the learning styles these students might have based on the communities they are from while also providing practical strategies and tools for the successful instruction of Aboriginal, Metis, and Inuit students.  I believe that teachers in Ontario are under-equipped and to help with the effective education of these students.  I therefore believe that highlighting my knowledge and willingness to learn and develop this knowledge would be a desirable asset during a job interview.   

AER Strategy Form

 

 

 

 

Math Reflection Week 11: Formative Assessment

  This was an interesting week for math.  We got the chance to play an "eggcelent" game called, you guessed it, Egg Hunt.  The game requires students to plan out a route through Ontario cities where in each city you get a certain amount of eggs for only one visit.  The catch is that you only have 4,000 kilometers that you can travel.  The objective is to get as many eggs as possible while remaining within the allotted four thousand kilometers.  For this activity we worked in pairs and it was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and plan with.  Obviously this activity involved a lot of problem solving to find the optimal solution, but it also involved a lot of number sense keeping track of how many kilometers you have traveled.  For the activity we were provided the distances between cities, but students could perhaps measure it themselves and use a scale to convert it into kilometers.  I also like how this activity does a great job of incorporating Ontario geography into it.   Overall the activity was a lot of fun and I think it really got people thinking and planning which is great.  This activity or something similar to it is certainly something I would like to implement for a math or even geography class.

  Before this game though I class took the time to brainstorm about some ideas for formative assessment for math.  A lot of really good suggestions were given by my colleagues such as math problems of the day, gallery walks, KWL charts, exit cards, self-assessments, and just regular conversations and questions.  I have posted a photo of all the strategies we wrote on the white board below.  I would certainly be interested in implementing some of these forms of assessment in my own classroom or during my placements. 

 

 Michael Feagan. (Nov. 24, 2016). Strategies for Assessment [photo].

  

Language and Literacy: Oral Communications

  I have been looking forward to this week's blog post ever since I settled on the idea that I would write about how tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) can better develop oral communication skills.  Oral Communications has three overall expectations: listen in order to understand and respond appropriately, use speaking skills and strategies appropriately to communicate, and reflect on and identify their strengths as listeners and speakers.  I believe that oral communication is something that is often neglected in favor of reading and writing, which is a shame as I believe good oral communication skills can help to improve reading in writing skills.  You can read more about the benefits of oral communication for learning from this article about using formal debates in the classroom.  The focus of this post however, is on the use of tabletop RPGs in the classroom to help and improve oral communication skills.

  Earlier I have discussed how RPGs can be used to improve reading skills so I won't be spending time here again explaining what RPGs are.  If you're curious as to what they are you can read my earlier post on the reading strand or my genius hour on RPGs in the classroom.  I wanted to share a TED Talk from journalist, critic and teacher Ethan Gilsdorf who highlights how an RPG like Dungeons and Dragons can help children to become better people.  Most of the life skills that Ethan highlights come from the oral communication component that is integral to RPGs.  You can watch the video below to get an idea of what an RPG is and also what skills it can provide players.



  One of the most important skills for oral communication which is also highlighted as an overall expectation is the ability to listen well.  To me this skill goes hand in hand with developing patience, being able to wait and listen for your time to talk next.  RPGs help to develop these skills as you must work together to cooperatively tell a story.  These skills are highlighted in Brian Fogila's article on how Dungeons and Dragons teaches students patience.  The only problem I have with the last two sources is that they use Dungeons and Dragons as their base.  For many this name might sound familiar, in terms of the RPG industry D&D is the most recognized game.  For students though I feel like this would be inappropriate, not because of the subject matter but because the rules can get in the way of the players/students ideas.  To this end I would recommend a less rules heavy and less preparation demanding RPG such as Dungeon World.  I believe that these games can help students express themselves creatively and problem solve in a low risk safe space.  Although many of them are in fantasy settings this is not a requirement for RPGs.  You can find games that are set in historical or  a particular mythological settings if that is something you would rather focus on.  You can also find games that are more friendly for younger grades to introduce them early without fear of the content.  For starters you could always tone down the content of an existing game like Dungeon World, or find a new game.  One that I found that I think would be great for younger kids is called Engine Heart, a game where you play WALL-E like robots and the best part about it is it's free and open source.

  I have played RPGs regularly now for the past 8 or so years, and I honestly believe that it helped make me, and the people I played with, better at communicating.  I will not lie, it is awkward and strange at first but I believe that's more the case the older you are when you start playing.  I believe that younger kids are more open to acting as another character and I believe that RPGs can help create a safe low risk environment that allows students to problem solve or act creatively through oral communication. 

Assessment Blog Post 2

  The Ontario Ministry of Education document Growing Success for me has changed the ways I view assessment.  For me the sections on The Achievement Chart and Assessment for and as learning have offered the greatest change in perspectives.  Each subject's curriculum (Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, etc.) has a section detailing the achievement chart categories and what they mean for the specific subjects.  In Growing Success though it details what these categories mean more generally such as Knowledge and Understand, Thinking, Communication and Application.  The document goes on to explain what the grade levels for these categories entails relating to the provincial standards.  To me this is very important as the Achievement Chart helps to form my assessment of learning.  The language used in the Achievement Chart is what I would use to create rubrics.  To me a standard like this is really helpful for informing how to do assessment of learning in my placement.

  All of this being said there are different ways of assessment detailed in Growing Success, namely assessment for and as learning.  This is something I still feel I am grappling with to understand better.  I understand assessment as learning, it involves different forms of self and peer assessment so that students can better assess their own learning.  However, I am not sure when this form of assessment is most appropriate and if it is appropriate for all students at all grade levels.  I believe that self-assessment is something a teacher has to model, but I am unsure how.  This is something that I would like to look into more, how to model self-assessment of work to students and teach them how to do it.  Assessment for learning to me is a bit more confusing.  I know it involves diagnostic and formative assessment: diagnostic being assessment of student knowledge before instruction, and formative being assessment during instruction.  The problem is that I am unsure how assessment for learning looks like outside of exit cards, anecdotal notes, observations and conversations with students.

  Clearly my learning about assessment is not done as I still have many questions left to be answered and explored.  I can only try to move forward with an open mind and the ability to adapt to new knowledge and experience when it comes to assessment.  

Math Reflection Week 10: Probability and Data Management

  For this week our class was focused on data management and probability.  For me personally I always enjoyed probability and data management, I always see it as kind of a game.  For probability this outlook seems obvious as often lessons in probability involve dice, cards and spinners.  I always got a certain enjoyment out of understanding the odds or likelihood of certain outcomes in the context of games.  To me data management ties into this as it can represent the likelihood of these events in a understandable form. For this week I had the chance to develop a math question with a photo to accompany it.  So due to the timing I decided to make a probability question.  The question is simple enough, if you were to roll 5 dice and each time you rolled you removed the dice that came up as 1 eventually all dice will be eliminated.  If we were to do this process 10 times how many rolls on average will we have to make?  I quite like this problem as it can easily become a whole lesson where the students break up into groups with chart paper to keep track of their experiment.  I also like it because it lets students use dice as manipulatives.  This activity can also be easily extended to incorporate the data management strand by having students graph their outcomes.  At the end all the students can come together and the whole class can combine the data to come up with a class average.  I have personally designed this lesson with a grade 8 class in mind and as such it best fits those curriculum expectations for data management and probability.  You can read through the curriculum expectations here, for this assignment it would be the first and second specific expectation for probability.

  In class we had the opportunity to experience other data management and probability activities.  My table group was assigned the task of guessing how many times we could toss a ball into a cup and guess the likelihood of those events occurring.  We of course got the opportunity to actually toss the ball into the cup, which was fun.  I quite liked this activity because its not your typical roll rice or toss a coin probability activity.  It nicely incorporated prediction into it by giving us the predictions, with our responsibility being to guess how likely they are to occur.  

  Both of these activities I feel like can be turned into a lesson easily and are defiantly going on my list of things to consider implementing in a class during my placement.  I believe that both activities are great for teaching probability and data management as they allow for the use of engaging manipulatives and allow for collaborative group work.  I always loved learning about probability so I would love to get the chance to try and translate that passion and interest into a lesson. 

Math Reflection Week 9: Measurement and Digital Tools

  For this week in our math course we are exploring how to teach measurements to students.  If geometry was my favorite strand in math then measurement was probably my second favorite.  Students learn measurement in math in three stages throughout the grades: definition/comparison, nonstandard units, and then standard units.  Nonstandard units mean using things like cubes, while standard units is measuring in centimeters or grams.  You can explore how this translates to a grade by grade level at the math curriculum here.  Throughout the grade levels students perform two overall expectations that are generally the same.  First they develop good measurement sense using estimation or physical measuring using a variety of strategies.  Second they determine measurement relationships, the relationships among units and measurable attributes among various shapes depending on the grade level.  I believe one of the reasons why I enjoyed both geometry and measurement is because they encourage the use of math manipulative.  Having something concrete to work with defiantly helped my learning and understanding of units of measurement.   

  If you want to know what teaching measurements looks like you can watch one of my teacher colleagues present a measurement lessons here.  I quite like this activity because it makes good use of math manipulatives, having students cut out images from magazines, having students estimate which ones are larger, compare them by size, and then calculate the area of the images using graph paper as a guide.   This lesson also makes use of different means of assessment for and as learning.  Her "students" made conjectures and hypothesis while they worked and the teacher gave feedback to these questions.  As stated earlier this lesson also makes good use of manipulatives, a great idea for a grade 4-5 lesson who often need these concrete manipulatives.  You can find strategies for providing assessment for and as learning in math here.  As I stated earlier this lesson makes good use of assessing reasoning and proving and representing.  The instructor does an excellent job of providing encouragement for the student's learning asking questions to the students, encouraging communication and having the students share their strategies. 

  I also had a chance this week to read and hear about my professor's (Rebecca Bunz's) strategies for better integration and evaluation of digital tools in the classroom.  I don't really think I have the space to go over everything about her strategy here, nor do I think I would be able to do it a good service in doing so.  Instead I would like to highlight one particular stage of her plan that stood out to me.  Stage 5 of her plan focuses on searching, finding, and evaluating digital tools, and highlights that teachers need to consider the cost, rating, age appropriateness, user policy, features, and above all play all the levels.  I believe that this level of scrutiny is so important to do if you are planning on using a digital tool for instruction.  Most important of all though you must consider if this tool will help your students achieve curriculum standards and learning goals.  This feeds back into the earlier criteria, that the teacher must familiarize themselves with the tool and determine if it achieves the goals you want, and if does not can it be accommodated.   Of course this is only step 5, and although it might sounds important there are other steps you have to take to use step 5 successfully, like establishing a PLC.