Reflective practitioner

What are your thoughts?

Please watch this and reflect.

After taking some time to digest the fact that there is no history of education class, I have not come to any reasonable conclusion as to why it is not offered. Now that teacher's college is a two year program, universities must be teaching the history of education. I looked at a few schools and …. (hopes up).... Nothing. Even with a two year program there is not one class that focuses on history of education. I must say that I am extremely biased because I love teaching history. When I was in school most of my teachers did not like teaching history as some teachers let the students know their dislike for the subject. I personally love history and I think it is fascinating. What I do know is that even if you do not like a course (as a teachers) you should never let your students know you do not like a course. If one of your students love's course “x” and you say that you dislike course “x”, you can break rapport with that student. Studying history is important to understand why

After I finished all of the reading for Mod 2 I came to a realization: it is very odd that teachers do not learn about the history of teaching. After taking some time to digest the lack of learning about the history of education, I questioned how this may affect my teaching. In my initial education training I did not have a course that explored the history of education. What does this say about history as a subject? I remember having classes about how to teach math and language, but where was history? It was bunched in with social studies. I am a teachers of social studies at the senior level and the history of any topic is important to explore. How do you know where you going if you do not know where you have been? From a teaching perspective, I believe that if we studied the history of education (specifically pedagogy) teachers could have a better understanding of the role of teachers. I also believe, that a lot of the confusion that is present for new teachers (the where do I fit

I wanted a space to show others how I go about completing a task. Your style may be different and I wanted others to see "messy" the work can be at times. This work is partly edited. My rough notes are usually not edited. My usual strategy Step 1- Know what is due and when it is due Step 2- Make a plan Step 3- Start gathering information and begin to answer questions Step 4- Complete the tasks Step 5- Get someone else to proof read my work Step 6- Reread my work Step 7- Submit This is my process. Please comment below and tell me about your process. Part 1 read two articles Amabile- Save on desktop Amabile, T.M., Goldfarb, P., & Brackfield, S.C. (1990). Social influences on creativity: Evaluation, coaction, and surveillance. Creativity Research Journal, 3(1), 6–21. On a verbal task in Study 1 and an artistic task in Study 2, creativity was lower in the groups expecting evaluation than those not expecting evaluation. Tchaikovsky, 1906) s

I was reading the posts of my peers and realized how much information was taken into consideration for completing module 1 tasks. One thing I noticed was a lot of my fellow students used online sources. I thought about the use of online support to answer our questions and I began to think. There are many different uses of online support in answering our definitions. Some people used YouTube and blog based definitions. Other people used academic journals online. Some people used professional associations and online dictionaries. I know when I started the definition task, I used an online dictionary to get a feel for the dictionaries definition. After I had an general idea, I began reading academic journals about each of the 4 words we had to define. With all of this information available at the click of a button, I realized that I really need to teach student's how to research properly. I noticed in some of the papers students submitted during the year a lot of their research came f

After completing module 1, I wanted to reflect on what I have learned from the activities I completed. One of the larger activities this week was to define creativity, innovation, teaching, and learning. There is a lot of research on all of these topics. A simple Google search reveals thousands of different pieces of literature to support one trying to come up with a definition.  After reading over a bunch of different material I came up with my own definition. The second challenge in module 1, was to read other student's definition and modify my definition accordingly. I was amazed to see the variance in the definitions. Some students wrote very short and precise definitions and other students posted longer more detailed definitions. After reading a few I modified my definitions with key points that I thought I needed to added. What have I learned from this activity? society defines what certain words mean and how they are to be used. There is no one right answer to any questions.

To be an effective teacher, I need to be aware of my weaknesses. Before the reading this week (I will post them at the bottom) I thought I was not creative. What I learned this week is that I am not creative in the context in which I was taught, Art. My skills in Art do not come from a pen or a paint brush. My skills in Art come from my ability to create things or in athletics. I am skilled in construction and in playing sports. Two creations I made this week were a jewelry holder and a coat rack using only scrap wood from construction, I am currently completing at a family members house. Based on the reading, I learned that creativity is hindered when there are too many constrictions or there is a fear of being evaluated. Also, that most of what we think of as creative are a product of what people want and expect to see in Art. Most of what I produced in my elementary school days was a product that was being marked and there were many constraints. I felt that I was not good at Art or

We were asked to define four words: innovation, creativity, teaching, and learning. At first this task seemed easy to accomplish. After working for hours, I came to the conclusion that it is not easy to define any of these terms. There is a lot of conflicting literature surrounding each of the words. Trying to navigate what is right and wrong seemed a frivolous task. How I define a word will not be the exact way that you define a word. My ideas will not be exactly the same as your ideas. Definition are not static, they are fluid and dynamic. Different groups will have different answers. The main idea is that we all try to LEARN from each other. I will post my definition and feel free to comment. William.

I have used Weebly before as a blog. For PME 811, I will use Blogger. A bit about myself. I am a teacher in the Toronto area and I am completing my Professional Masters of Education. Sports are my passions and I love to do any physical activity.