Well ladies and gentlemen, first term has been over for quite some time now and second term is well underway. I can't believe that it has taken me this long to update my blog, but clearly without ICT class I can't stay on top of it.
So to catch everyone up, first term, I think, went swimmingly! I really feel that I will take a lot of first term with me through my teaching career and I'm very thankful to the professors, teachers, and colleagues for making it so awesome.
On to second term!
So far, second term has been a completely different experience. I think I can contribute a lot of my serious lack of posting to the enormous work load this semester holds. I'm finding this term to be a lot more academic and a lot more work. I actually have to read textbooks, take notes, memorize and write essays! I really shouldn't be complaining, but compared to last semester, it's as if I'm back in my undergrad years.
Courses this Term:
EDCI 431: Educational Philosophy
ED-D 406: Adolescent Psychology
ED-D 337B: Assessment
EDCI 448: ESL
ED-D 420: Exceptional Learners
EDCI 352: Multiliteracies.
Impressions so far:
EDCI 431: Educational Philosophy with Shane Goodridge is quite an interesting class. I definitely do not have a philosophy background and a lot of the concepts and vocabulary he uses goes way over my head, but I still think that I'm learning something. He has successfully created an environment where our opinions, comments and questions are welcome so long as we back up our assertions and argue them. By nature it seems that Shane is an argumentative person; it's nothing personal, he simply likes to argue - even if he agrees with you. This may be construed as "hostile", "unwelcoming", or "mean", but in fact he's teaching us a valuable lesson. It seems that over the course of our own schooling we have been trained to be submissive, to believe that the teacher or adult is always right; in Shane's class, it's as if he's breaking that wall down, and forcing us to make an opinion, create a philosophy and stick with it, no matter what the differing opinions are. Not everyone will agree with everything, and it's important to voice your opinions and stick with them - it's a valuable lesson to be learned and one that we should teach our students.
Here's a clip of sounds poetry about the "Uncoolness of Having an Opinion" watch it - it's awesome!
ED-D 406: Adolescent Psychology with the amazing Cindy Brown, is a lot like Adolescent Psychology last term. She's funny, and engaging and makes psychology interesting.
ED-D 337B: Assessment with Lisa Starr is one of the courses that I'm not quite sure about yet. I like the class, and I understand the purpose of it; however, I think that assessment, and assessment practices should have been taught in our methods class last term and then just have had methods all year round.
EDCI 448: ESL is my elective this year and it takes place online. So far, I'm not that enthused about it. I really want to learn about teaching ESL but I find that the online nature of the course doesn't serve its best interest. Moodle is definitely not the most user friendly interactive site, but it is what we have to use.
ED-D 420: Exceptional Learners with Jen Morgan is turning out to be quite interesting. She is super knowledgeable and definitely wants us to learn. I think that this course will definitely be one of the more useful ones simply because it's not about when we'll have an exceptional student in our class, it's about how many we'll have in a given class. The reality of the situation is that learning and cognitive disabilities are becoming more and more prevalent in the school system and as future educators we need to know how to incorporate and include these students in the classroom.
EDCI 352: Multiliteracies.with Kirk Longpre, I've heard, is a lot like the cross curricular class that many of my colleagues had last term. I have two teachables so I did not take the cross curricular class, and I'm finding this multiliteracies class to be very useful. We're learning a lot about various strategies that encourage students to read and understand what they are reading. I will start posting these strategies on the blog as soon as I can.
Spring Practicum:
BIG NEWS! I'm heading to King George Secondary for my five week practicum! I'm very excited about this placement for a few reasons:
1. I have been told that it's a great community with great kids
2. It's located in Vancouver which means I get to live at home with my family
3. I've been told that I will be teaching grade 8 English!
I can't wait to start!
Ok, that's all for now, I'll try my best to stay on top of posting.
LC
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