Exit Slip for November 26

 

In today's class, Karishma and I spent the whole class working on our project about indigenous perspectives in the classrooms. We have already found our resources, and today we discussed the real-world connections from other people with the help of discussions. We are planning to incorporate those discussions into our project. We also started working on our slides by starting with an introduction about the indigenous knowledge, literature review, and engaging activity. 

    I also talked to Susan about my and my SA plan to engage students through activities relating to indigenous cultures during my long practicum. I am thrilled that Susan tries to connect me with a person who can help me to connect with Tsawwassen Indigenous learning resources.   

Exit slip for Inquiry-based project discussion (Nov 19)

 

While finding articles relevant to our project, we came across with so many resources which provides ideas and activities to engage students in the classrooms. During the small group discussion, we were going through the articles which seemed relevant to the Indigenous Perspective in the Canadian curriculum. Still, unfortunately, there were not enough resources for the Canadian context. So, we are still going through the resources to make a relevant connection with the researches and our thoughts. 

           We also discussed the outline for the presentation, in which we will start with the introduction of Indigenous perspectives and how it is related to the math classroom. We will discuss the impact of this on the students, and we are thinking about an interactive activity (weaving using recycled paper) during our presentation to engage all the classmates. I am hoping to ask my older son (grade 7) about his thoughts on incorporating indigenous knowledge into the classroom. Will he able to differentiate the leaning using indigenous perspective and how?

           

Exit Slip on class discussion about thinking creatively

 

Source: https://terrynwilliams.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/do-you-think-your-culture-supports-critical-thinking/

I felt today’s group discussions connect with my short practicum experience. One thing I learn that the time and circumstances make you creative. As a teacher, we should be open-minded to adapt to any situations and think creatively to engage our students in the classroom. In our small group discussion, Adam, May, Max, and I discussed the validity of the sources and information. As teachers, we need to make sure that the information that we are providing to the students should be trustworthy and encourage students to think critically so that they can ask “why” questions. I also feel that teachers should be confident in their knowledge. During the short practicum, the students were learning about the factoring difference of squares, and one student asked me why we cannot factor “(a²+b²)” using the difference of squares. At that point, I remember, I got nervous because I did not want to give them incorrect information. I realized that in the math classroom, we don’t allow students to think critically because they have to follow some rules to solve the questions.

Exit Slip for October 22, 2020

 

The video “University of Nottingham women in mathematics” make me think that how one’s perception and interest can change throughout life. The experience shared by Ivette Fuentes resonated me with my experience of life. Like her, I was not good in mathematics until grade 7, but in high school, I was able to understand the concept and started to dig deeper into the math world. As a result, playing with number became my passion. The video also reflects that sometimes life teaches you how to follow the dreams by changing the direction. I think that there should not be any gender or cultural restrictions on learning. Anyone can be efficient in any field of education. As I discussed in-class discussion, some people have myths in India about learning interest-based on gender. For example, people have a myth that girls are more capable of accepting mental challenges; on the other hand, boys are more capable of doing physical work.

Exit slip for October 15

 

From my experience of high schooling in India, I want the society who don’t focus on grading and marks only. In India, we have only one big standardized exam at the end of the school year. Teachers should be focused on inclusive learning in the classrooms rather than the standardized exams. From my personal experience, standardized exams only create anxiety and depression among students. Due to that, anxiety or fear of not getting appropriate grades, students commit suicide. During our group discussion, we discussed the ways of reducing cheating during test or exams. I think teachers should put more emphasis on project-based learning and less focus on test or exams. It will also develop cognitive skills among students. Another way of reducing cheating is to use different versions of exams or tests in the same classroom. I remember my science teacher in high school used to give us five different versions of exams. The first version gave to the first person in a row and the sixth person in the row. In a nutshell, the marks and grading policy is the main contributors in the making of society.

Exit Slip for October 8, 2020

 

Exit Slip for October 8, 2020

While learning through activities is so much fun. I feel so proud that I am part of this type of learning. Making rope and ribbon strands, I realize that it will help students to get engaged while learning and students will able to make connections with the real world. In discussion with groups, I found that physical movements will keep students active while learning. I really like the idea that taking small field trips, such as in the school playground will change the environment of learning. This also reminds me of my experience of observing a teacher while teaching the quadratic functions. He took students to the basketball court in the school playground to show the shape of parabola while shooting the ball to the hoop. I really like the ideas that some groups have posted, such as sinusoidal waves for teaching or learning trigonometry and making clear representation to show the connection between maths and craft. I am really excited to use embodied learning in my future classrooms.

Exit Slip on group discussion for October 1

 

 

Today’s group discussion cleared my doubts about spirituality and religion. I was confused with both terms at first glance, but after the conversation, I understand that both have some different perspectives. I know that everyone has their own beliefs of religion; as a teacher, I think we should not force students to believe in other religions. It should be their choice. We found that spirituality and science are mutually exclusive. In our discussion, I came to know that there should be room for uncertainty in classrooms. I think teachers can connect students with real situations by providing project-based learning which includes real scenarios or word problem that makes sense in reality.

Exit Slip on Reconciling ways of knowing

 

The webinar is so influential and heart touching. The quote of Dr Kimmer “ Grief is the mirror of our love and healing is the being relationship with the land” struck in my mind. It made me think that somehow I helped my grandparents to overcome their grief of losing their land, culture and belongings at the time of the partition of India and Pakistan. I feel that acknowledgement their ancestor and culture provide some assurance that their kids or grandkids are respecting their culture. Her stories and experiences are so inspirational, which encouraged me to think positively and take risks. I like her thoughts about working together as a whole community rather than blending indigenous cultures into western cultures. This way, you will provide acknowledgement to indigenous cultures and values. She also inspires me to think about the practice of bringing indigenous knowledge into education by collaboration while protecting the indigenous knowledge from knowledge miners. 

One thing I noticed about Nancy in the webinar that after opening and closing ceremony, she raised her hands. After the discussion in class, I came to know this is the way of showing respect and expressing the relationship to everything.

Exit Slip for September 17

 

Today's class was so thoughtful and interactive by discussions during breakout rooms. The discussion on the questions regarding conformity, time to reflect, planning vs. hyper planning, and role model as a teacher elaborate my ideas on Grant and Zeichner's article. I think that a teacher can do a quick reflection every day after each lesson, which will help to alter his/her next lesson. I also learned that the student's curiosity to learn will help the teacher to be reflective. There should be a balance between planning and hyper planning. 

    I agree with Joe Boaler's talk about "math is not a gift." I also believe that every child can be proficient in math during their school year. From my personal high school experience, students should be determined to keep going by learning from their mistakes. By considering her idea of the traditional approach and multi-dimensional learning approach, I believe that it is not a bad idea to use both approaches in one classroom rather than having two different classrooms in each approach. This will develop collaborative learning in the classroom, as well.

Exit slip for Frank McCourt's

 Hello, 

I am so excited to be a part of the program. I am hoping that i will learn so many new things as i started today with creating a blog. This is my first time to create a blog and seems so fascinating. I really enjoying the course about inquiry based teaching. 

    After watching Frank's videos, There are two things that struck in my mind that teachers should "hungry for knowledge" and "kids are crazy hormone monsters". Reflecting on that, I realize that a teacher is not only a teacher. A teacher is a learner too, who can learn from students as well. For example, in a math classroom, students from different cultural background learnt different methods to understand the concept then as a teacher, you can also learn those methods and use those methods in your teaching style. 

    As he said that "kids are crazy hormone monsters", that quote reminds me my experience with a student during my volunteer experience. There was a grade 8 student who was always curious to know why questions? I remember the class about dividing fractions and the teacher was explaining the steps to them and he asked why we need to multiply the reciprocal and who made these steps etc.

    I can imagine that Frank would be very proud when his student came to him and told him that he was his student. I think that was the proud and best moment that a teacher can feel that he was an important person in his student life.