PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING & LEARNING

I grew up on the Opasquiak Cree Nation in Manitoba and moved to Vancouver Island in 2007 and now live, work, play, teach, and learn on the ancestral and unceeded lands of the Coast Salish people in the Cowichan Valley. A graduate of the University of Manitoba, I’ve been teaching secondary school English Studies, Creative Writing, Communications, Composition, New Media Studies, English Language Development (ELD), and Yearbook for 17 years. My goal as an educator is to establish a safe culture of learning and thinking in which youth can play, explore, take risks, develop their sense of self and community, and discover what they can do (in face-to-face as well as in online, distanced, contexts).


EXPERIENTIAL

This is how I teach . . .
because our experiences shape our values and we have the power to influence society.


Authentic. Opportunity. Voice. I design learning experiences that provide students with the opportunity to follow and develop their passions, create projects for real purposes and audiences, and celebrate their progress and achievements. Students need to play a central role in the direction of their learning.

ENVIRONMENT

This is my classroom . . .
because our learning environment impacts our sense of belonging and community.


Constructivist. Cognitivist. Socioculturalist. Curating a positive space is an important aspect of my practice. I believe it’s important to create a classroom community that is inviting, warm, and inclusive. We are more apt to share ideas, take risks, and think creatively in an environment that supports who we are.

INCLUSIVE

This is what I do . . .
because we need to break the silence; because we all deserve to be heard.


Empowerment. Openness. Advocacy. I have been participating in GLSENs Day of Silence since I began teaching in 2004 in Winnipeg, MB, when a group of students and I stood up against the bullying we were noticing and experiencing by taking a vow of silence in support of the 2SLGBTQIA community.


I’ve been playing with blended learning and a paperless classroom for the past few years and am interested in the impact it has on learning and teaching. I’m also curious about the affordances of educational technology in enriching discussions and community-building, especially in online contexts. Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) emphasize the importance of “joint problem solving and shared learning” as well as how “computer-based tools encourage spontaneous student collaboration.” I want to examine ways in which teachers can create purposeful opportunities, in both blended and distanced settings , for youth to engage meaningfully with each other. Gulati (2008) emphasizes that making discussions compulsory “limits opportunities for democratic knowledge construction, while enforcing conformist learning behaviour” (p. 187). This poses a challenge as we explore ways in which we can adapt face-to-face practices to a technology enhanced context, with purposeful engagement, participation, and teacher presence while avoiding “increased teacher monitoring and control over the learning process” (p. 188). I want to build a repertoire of strategies and applications to keeping discussions student-driven, reflection-oriented, and open format to give learners the autonomous space to think, reflect, organize, and connect.

I’m eager to explore new media literacies in our ever-evolving online culture. I’m passionate about writing and experimenting with literature, especially poetry, and have been exploring the creative potentials of digital media and platforms as we expand our understanding of what it means to read and write in today’s digital culture. Third generation electronic literature takes creative writing and coding to social media platforms (Flores, 2021), spaces in which youth are invested I’m interested in examining ways in which educators can integrate affinity spaces into their learning environments to extend learning beyond the walls of the classroom, build literacy, and enhance student efficacy.

Assessment has been at the forefront of my professional development for the past five years and I have been leading my department in revising our practices, looking at the potential affordances of different online applications, such as Markboard (by Chalk) and JumpRope. Moving from a traditional model towards competency-based assessment at the secondary school level in a culture that still values percent grades and exam scores can be challenging. One of my educational goals is open-source digital gradebook that will log, analyze, and summarize the kind of data that will support teachers and learners in this shift in mindset and practice.

In his virtual address to School District 27, Dr Martin Brokenleg (2015) repeats the phrase “let me do it myself” while sharing the First People’s holistic approach to learning. Collective teacher efficacy is incredibly important for learning and growth, as we too need to play, explore, and take risks to advance our professional practice (Fisher and Hattie, 2021). As I explore and innovate ways in which to fill the gaps and adapt what I know about face-to-face and blended learning to online, distanced contexts, I intend to challenge myself, learn from my peers, play with new tools, reflect on my practice, and be curious.

METAPHOR: PHILOSOPHY of LEARNING

Spoon feeding teaches you nothing but the shape of the spoon.

E. M. Foster

This short video illustrates my philosophy of learning and how I examine this idea with my students at the beginning of each course. It’s important to build student efficacy, and they need to be included in the creation of the classroom culture of learning.

MY PEDAGOGY of TEACHING & LEARNING

This Concept Map illustrates my personal perspective on teaching and learning theory and how it connects with my instructional design structure.


GOALS | PHILOSOPHY | E-LEARNINGINCLUSIVE EDUCATION | GAMES & LEARNING | NEW MEDIA


References

Brokenleg, M. [School District 27 Residential Schools and Reconciliation]. (2015, October 26). First Nations Principles of Learning [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/0PgrfCVCt_A

Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm 

Fisher, D. and Hattie, J. (2021, October 18). Collective Student Efficacy [virtual workshop]. Corwin.

Flores, L. (2021). Third generation electronic literature. Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms, & Practices (E. O’Sullivan, Ed.). New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 26-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501363474.ch-002

Gulati, S. (2008). Compulsory participation in online discussion: Is this constructivism or normalisation of learning? Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 45 (2), pp. 183 – 192. http://doi.org/10.1080/14703290801950427

Microsoft Education Team. (2021, August 24). Reading Progress: Now available in Microsoft Teams. Education Blog. Retrieved from https://educationblog.microsoft.com/en-us/2021/08/reading-progress-now-available-in-microsoft-teams