Christine Ho Younghusband

Feeling Validated

It’s been 2-weeks since Learning Forward 2016 in Vancouver and I am grateful to have the opportunity to start my winter break with a edu-blog of gratitude. I must admit, I was kind of a grump during the first bits of the conference. I missed the pre-conference and read awesome things about the first two days before the conference of professional learning on Twitter. Thank you all in my PLN for tweeting. I was totally jelly during the 2-days and totally happy for you and your professional learning.

I started the conference weekend with driving into downtown Vancouver during the Rogers Santa Clause Parade. I was trying get to the other side of the Granville Street Bridge for a meeting and got there 15 minutes early (versus 1.5-hours early). Lucky. Post meeting, we were off to our hotel and about to embark on the start of the Learning Forward conference. I opted to part ways with my cohort to experience the welcome appie gathering at the Vancouver Conference Centre. A live band of retired superintendents, BC school trustees, and delicious food, it made for a fun evening.

The next day was the first day of the conference. Sadly, I had two Pecha Kucha presentations to give that afternoon that I was frantically trying to prepare for. I wanted to memorize both presentations. Who is crazy enough to memorize TWO 6+ minute presentations? Me. I opted to stay in my hotel room after the morning breakfast and meeting with the Minister to practice. Over and over again… I tried to memorize TWO presentations on research. Long story made short, I read my script… wholeheartedly. I was personally disappointed but my edu-fans said I did just fine. Thank you!!! Thank you for listening and thank you for your support.

Now onto day two of the conference and the start of my professional learning. I loved the workshop I was attending. It was about formative assessment but I much enjoyed being the learner and looking at formative assessment from a different point of view. I met folks from Texas and loved the presenter’s enthusiasm and authenticity. It was something I could strive for as a presenter, but also I had learned much more about formative assessment in connection to summative assessment. If anything, the workshop was a gentle way to shift gears in my thinking for the weekend.

Mid-workshop was lunch and another keynote presentation. I opted out of the catered lunch (again) and met up with my dissertation supervisor for lunch. We had a great conversation and I gained a greater perspective of higher education, professional learning, and my dissertation process. I can see the end or at least the 11th and 12th month of the dissertation process. Right now, my dissertation is in my committee’s hands and look forward to their feedback. After lunch, I made it back just in time to hear the student band perform and see the keynote presentation from Pasi Sahlberg. It might be a future blog entry… but I loved his presentation.

I walked away so inspired by Pasi and the day ends with #InnovationIGNITEbc at Science World. I abducted my fellow school trustee to be part of this learning experience. My bad. But it was sooooo good. I connected and reconnected with people from my PLN but also I was inspired by the innovation of BC educators. When we think it’s impossible, the truth is, it is possible if we want it to be possible. One after the other, we saw presentations from BC educators who were making it happen… for students!!! How can you not be inspired? Hats off to all of the IGNITE presenters. I respect and grateful for you, your presentation, and your work.

The final day of Learning Forward Conference included two more workshops and brunch. I learned a tonne about professional learning from my morning workshop. From the presentation, planning and purpose matters with professional learning. The primary focus is student learning, thus professional learning plans start from here. Made 100% sense to me, but the narratives from each presenter revealed real challenges but also real success. I appreciated their presentation and lovely takeways. Thank you. You have given me several ideas on professional learning and planning.

The conference ends with brunch with my edu-buddy Rose Pillay, selfies with BC educators (and friends), and my last workshop with Douglas Reeves on “Finishing the Dissertation.” What can I say? I feel validated. In this workshop, each participant had to speak about their research, methodology, and post-dissertation intentions. Most of the participants were still in the conceptual beginnings of the dissertation process. Hello? I’ve been there and did that (many times over). Douglas provided some valuable formative feedback to each participant. Wise words. Loved it immensely. When I spoke, he said very little about mine (meaning, I think I’m on track).

Douglas: “Leave future research for later.” ME: Got it. Left it. Feeling validated.

Burning Question

I feel a blog coming on. This is so interesting. Now that I am not doing reflective journals for Educ 471 on my blog, I have the niggling feeling from within that motivates me to write. Of course inspiration comes when I am sitting in my car and on the ferry heading home. Classic. So what’s today’s blog topic? My dissertation.

I am returning home from being at a meeting in Vancouver and IGNITE35 session in Langley. I love hanging out with friends and I enjoy the pecha kucha style presentations at IGNITE. Go figure… all of my Educ 471 students had to do an IGNITE to demonstrate their learning. IGNITE35 presents speakers from the Langley School District and messages they want to share with us. Yes, IGNITE is “PD in a pub.”

At IGNITE35, there were three rounds of speakers. Between each round there is an opportunity to chat with others. I often think this informal chatter is the best professional learning. I have to opportunity to catch up with friends, discuss IGNITE presentations, and meet new people. I often learn the best things from people when the conversation is unplanned, informal, and strangely serendipitous.

Between one of the breaks, I was talking to my friend’s friend. She congratulated me on submitting my dissertation to my committee and asked me what my study was about. I hate talking about  my study. I get a little self-conscious. Who would be interested in what I’m interested in? To my surprise, when I do share, I find more often than not that people are engaged and interested. And yes, the question prompted another opportunity to practice my 2-minute edu-elevator pitch.

My friend’s friend follows up with a second question. “Why are you doing this? Are you doing it for fun?” Hmm… for fun? I would not say that the dissertation process has been “fun.” I guess on some level I have finally found some intrinsic satisfaction from engaging in my research and realized that the “goods external” has its limitations. So, my initial response was… “I believe I started the program for the wrong reasons.” She responded by saying that this was common.

Now nearing the end, I appreciate the process and understand the struggles and small victories serve a purpose. My supervisor asked me the same question a few years ago. At that time, I was stumped. He said that I could do this for the intrinsic good of it, but do I have goals such as continuing research, getting a job, or something like that. Sadly, I think the only way I can get through this process right now is for the “goods internal.” I trust that the goods external will come.

My dissertation has been an exceptional vehicle for me to understand myself more as a researcher, learner, and educational leader. The research and writing process has been a meta-experience, connecting my professional learning with what I was researching. THE BIG AHA. If I dig a little deeper, I had a question to answer. A burning question… It’s a question that I wanted to answer for almost 20 years.

It took time to disembed myself from my own beliefs and hurt feelings to see the problem from a researcher’s point of view. I sorted out my thoughts, had the right conversations and experiences, and allowed the data to speak to me. First, I am so surprised how much I enjoyed the data analysis process. The numbers tell a story… the story I’ve always wanted to tell as a narrative. I am happy and satisfied with my findings. Second, I hired an editor to help me with my grammar, flow, and clarity.

The best part about my editor, Audrey Owen, she is a friend and colleague. She is frank, candid, and to the point. She is also kind, generous, and detail oriented. I love all of these qualities. Furthermore, I trust her with my study. Many years ago, we completed our master degrees together on the Sunshine Coast in 2001. After our editing session, she reminded me that she remembered that this was a burning question for me during our program. She caught me off guard. I didn’t realize this.

Looking back further, I remember going to a principals meeting in my school district (in the 90s pre-masters) as a young mathematics teacher proposing to this group that elementary school teachers should learn more about mathematics before teaching mathematics. One principal piped up after my presentation and said, “Who would want to do that? Nobody.” That was a deal breaker and the conversation ended. Obviously, this is a burning question I continue to have. I’m not the only one. I found other people “out there” with similar questions, interests, and concerns.

So I guess if I had to answer my friend’s friend’s question again… “Why are you doing this?”… The answer is not for fun and I’m not doing it to get a job… even though they might be outcomes of this learning process. I have a question to answer. I’ve put many things aside (i.e. career, financial security, family life, etc.) to get this done. What is worth it? Yes it was. Would I do it again? Yes I would. I learned so much with the dissertation process and all of the experiences I have been fortunate to be a part of to build perspective and insight on professional learning, mathematics education, and the BC education system. I am very grateful. #ontheroadtocompletion

Saying Goodbye – Week 12

Aw… saying goodbye is not easy to do. We just had our last class together. The summative journals are rolling in and they still have a curriculum project to write and send. Aside from that, all of the participation activities are complete and all IGNITE presentations done. The course is complete… with a mound of marking to do soon. I look forward to reading what each of them had to say. We personalized learning in this class in light of BC’s New Curriculum. We focused on curricular and core competencies and used curriculum development as course content. Brilliant.

What an incredible group of students. We had accomplished what I had hoped to accomplish and more. These students exceeded my expectations time and time again. They explored what was important to them in the context of curriculum development. They reflected on their lived experiences as learners and shared those experiences as teachers. I walk away from this class richer and wiser. They have enlightened me and taught me what is possible. I said to many of my students tonight, us coming together in Educ 471 was serendipitous. We were all interconnected and co-contributors to this course. How lucky am I?

Even the photo was inspired by my students. They thought I should be in the picture as well and one of my students started asking me technology questions and why wasn’t I doing it. Hmm… Why not a selfie? That seemed more inline with my current understandings. It turned out pretty good, I must say… unlike the “crazy” photo I asked them to take. If you follow me on Twitter @ChristineYH, I posted a “before and after” photo. We took a serious planned pose and a “crazy” pose. Well, after weeks of talking about creativity and critical thinking… we were not that crazy after all.

All I can say is… thank you, thank you, thank you. I wanted to hug everybody. It got weird sometimes. Some students seemed like he/she wanted to hug, but didn’t. I hugged some students that did really seem to want to be hugged. And, I hugged many where it was definitely mutual. I wished I could have had this class all school year. I was just starting to get to know each of them, their strengths, and their interests. I wish them all the best in their future endeavours. Not all of these students are education bound. Many are in economics and the humanities. Nonetheless, I hope they have a better understanding of education and curriculum development.

This will be my last blog in this series. Not only am I say goodbye to my students, but I am saying goodbye to this blog series and teaching up at SFU (for now). I did not post the 13 week blog reflections of Educ 471. I might post this one. You can certainly read the rest of them by scrolling back. Sigh… I guess that’s it. I had wanted to tell my students that I had finished my final draft of my dissertation before class started today. I had a few unexpected hiccups (as I was working my car in the parking lot), but I did manage to finish the current draft of my dissertation, which I just sent to my committee to review less than an hour ago. Woohoo!!! Yay, I did it. If any of my students read my blog (and I know some of you do)… it’s done!!!

ULTIMATE REFLECTION: One of the best teaching/learning experiences ever!!!

Numbers Dropping – Week 11

One week left of classes and attendance is noticeably down. I mean, there are a handful to students absent due to various reasons, but it is a bit disappointing. I understand that students have to make choices. Students who were in my class candidly shared that information with me. Reassuring on the one hand but aggravating on the other. It’s the end of the term and students budgeting their time to get papers done and study for tests. I get that. If grades are driving the learning-train, then students are going to act accordingly to get the grades.

Stepping away from this rain cloud was the awesome IGNITE presentations and this final reading reflection. This student was signed up to do her reading reflection today and she was late to class because she got a flat tire on the way to school. Instead of giving up or postponing her reading reflection, she sent me an email to reassure me that she was still coming to class and that she might be late. During our break, she arrived. Wow. I was so impressed by her determination to come to class and readiness to present. She opted to present after the IGNITE presentations.

I would call her “the closer.” That was so bold to want to end the class with her reading reflection. What surprised me more was that she made a PowerPoint presentation for her reading reflection (she was one of two in my class of 35). What made the presentation more impressive was that the article was nothing like what she had expected (based on the title). She was disappointed and expressed that disappointment during her presentation. As a result, she delved into the article with additional research to gain a deeper understanding of “Leading from the Middle.”

She held the class for about 20 minutes. I was engaged.  She pretty much hit the major points of the public education system and roles of each level of governance or government had in curriculum development. She found examples of top-down curriculum development and bottom-up examples. She got it. Her presentation was compelling and she ends her presentation/reading reflection questioning whether or not if it would be appropriate to lead from the middle in the context of curriculum development. Wow. She left me speechless. Good question. Great presentation.

Yes… I can dwell on a few missing students… or I can relish in the awesome work students are doing in this class. The student presentations were excellent and students are already handing in assignments early (even though they asked for an extension for another assignment that’s due). I appreciate student voice and advocacy. Yes, I completely understand their situation and yes, I gave an extension. I am so grateful that my students are willing to ask. I am truly honoured.

Going Meta – Week 10

A deep sigh… only a few more weeks left of Educ 471 and I am stoked about how these students receive feedback, respond to feedback, and provide feedback. We have been working on developing and selecting curricular competencies to be evaluated on. We spend class time discussing assessment and their assessment to ensure that we all have a shared understanding but also ensure that there are no surprises. They have a lot of say in their assessment and evaluation process as we had embedded it as part of our curriculum development in our curriculum development course. We’re thinking about our thinking. We’re going meta.

One conversation caught my attention… and yes, it was about assessment and evaluation. We are fast approaching the end of our course and it is of great importance to me and my students that we are clear about expectations and evaluation framework. One of the final assignments is called the SUMMATIVE JOURNAL ENTRY. We’ve been journalling each week through out the course and from our entries, which reflect what we have learned and thought, we would write a final journal entry to conclude the course and their big ideas from the course.

One student had their computer ‘destroyed’ during the course and lost all of their journal entries to date. This is devistating as I love listening to the 10 minutes of click-clacking during the class when we have a moment to reflect on our learning. This student’s intentin was to rewrite all the the journal entries lost becaused I had asked the students at the beginning of the course to hand in their draft journal entries along with their Summative Journal Entry. This student was going to comply but last class seemed overwhelmed by the task. I would be too.

The most interesting part of this conversation for me was that this Summative Journal Entry was the only document I was going to assess and evaluate. The draft journal entries was only for accountability. I know that this student lost their journal entries in their ‘destroyed’ computer and this person had to buy another one. Then, this student had full-intentions of rewriting them so that they could “comply to the rules,” which in hindsight made no sense when I was only going to mark the Summative Journal. I had to rethink about what I was doing.

Luckily, there was another student listening in to the conversation. Here comes student voice… this student offers a solution. Why not cite date, source, thought as part of the Summative Journal instead of handing in all 10-12 weeks of entries? Why not. Great idea. Not everyone in the class was click-clacking away during class and everyone has a different way of processing their thoughts and reflecting. This was a win-win solution. Remember (to self) we only evaluate what we value. It was the big ideas or “take aways” from the course that mattered to me, not the compliance of journal writing, even though this is an integral part of the assignment.

I love how this class gets me thinking about my thinking and I love how they are spending their time thinking about their thinking. There are parts of this course I would redo or improve on for the next time… no question. This is my first time teaching at SFU as a sessional and I appreciate the students’ insight on what works and doesn’t work. They have come a long way and I’m so proud of the work they are accomplishing. Students keep me humble. BTW: they did great on the third round of curricular competency development. #thumbsup

Team Building – Week 9

I love collaboration and competition. It reminds me of curling… (but that’s for another blog). We’re working together, we have a common goal, and we’re motivated to WIN. This week’s warm-up activity changed momentum and we’re team building. The challenge… teams of 5, 20 pieces of paper, 7 minutes… make the tallest tower. GO!

OK… I thought our team did pretty awesome… but we did not “win.” That said, we were very satisfied with our teamwork, our ideas, and our collaborative approach to building our tower. I noticed that my team members drifted off to other teams to help out. What the? How super cool is that? We’re helping others to do OUR best.

There is nothing I like more than a warm-up activity that nourishes, exercises, and develops all 3 Core Competencies are in action: Thinking, Communication, and Personal/Social. We were problem solving. There was no extrinsic motivation… no prizes, no marks, no stickers… just the sheer pleasure of competition.

Although we declared a “winner”… a measurable outcome (seriously, with a measuring tape)… none of us felt like “losers.” We were more in awe of how tall the paper towers got. We could have continued the activity thinking about our thinking, communicating about teamwork and tactics, and how we could do better next time.

It was a beautiful and easy activity to facilitate… brought to us by one of the students in class. Using our hands, building, and creating. It reminds me of MAKER SPACES and how learning from making things can lend itself perfectly with BC’s New Curriculum. I can see inquiry. I can see personalization. I can see student engagement.

As we approach the end of our course… I would like to mention that we had two students collaborate and co-present their reading reflection in class, we had an inspirational and humorous video as our wild-card activity, and the third round of IGNITE presentations were wonder-full. I would definitely agree that to make space for student inquiry, there must be less  content, much like BC’s New Curriculum.

It was a great day… even though our class right in the middle of the US Election. That was a little distracting, but we managed to stay on task. Good job everyone!

Over Prepped – Week 8

I thought this slide was funny… but loved her IGNITE talk. She changed my perspective on online math learning. I had always thought that learning math online was difficult and challenging. I her presentation, she said that using technology was her strength, she like calling the shots when she was ready to write tests, and she found her online teacher supportive and helpful. What a nice connection to her lived experience, learning mathematics, and personalized learning. As a result, this was her best mark in math (an A) ever… even though she still hates math. OK. Noted.

6 IGNITE presentations, 2 reading reflections, one warm up activity, one wild card actity, and one make up reading reflection… we had a tonne of things to do in addition to talking about our final curriculum project. I was over planned. Last week, I was under planned. Where do I find the sweet spot? It depends (a classic education response). I had 2 additional activities planned for this week… but they have been postponed to future weeks. I do enjoy that the students are completely aligned to my edu-speak and it’s just a matter of fact. I am so proud of my shy students who mustered up the courage to present their IGNITE, loved the MATH warm up activity (a new numeracy idea), and “Where I am from…” Wild Card Activity. I am learning.

Four more weeks left in this course and I cannot believe how fast time has flown by. I wonder how we will end the course. I feel like there might be cake in the near future.

Feeling Ignited – Week 7

Wow. We are over the half-way mark in our Educ 471 course at SFU. Where has the time gone? I cannot believe what these students have accomplished and what they desire to know and learn. I am so impressed with this class and I am reminded of my purpose. We are imagining what’s possible. How can one not feel ignited?

It’s Week 7… we had our first round of IGNITE presentations. 5 students stepped up to be the FIRST presenters. Hats off to all those who are willing to pave the way for others by being FIRST. I much enjoyed the 5 presentations. I have yet to give feedback. Each student spoke with passion and personalized the BIG IDEAS.

Once again, the students exceeded my expectations. You know when things have turned in your class when you find yourself chasing the students versus your students chasing you. It’s an incredible feeling. These students have embraced the uncertainty of this course and became leaders of their own learning.

These students IGNITED the room. 20-slides, 5 minutes. The class is tasked to identify the BIG IDEAS while I was evaluating the students on the “curricular competencies” they designed and choose to be evaluated on. They are either “meeting expectations” or “not meeting expectations” with formative feedback provided via email.

I am bewildered by the whole notion of GRADING. I know that it is something that we have done for a long time… well, at least my lifetime… and I wonder if we are really supporting students and their learning. Is it possible that everyone can be a winner? With formative feedback, students have an opportunity to be better.

Choosing to improve or bridge the gap should be every students’ right. Not everything can be measured or behaviourally managed with a test, quiz, or bonus mark. Are we motivating students from the outside or the inside? Do we want students to love learning and learning about learning or test for content?

Not every “met expectations” on all 6 curricular competencies. My job is to follow up with those students and give them the opportunity to bridge that gap. In the end, the grade will be assigned. The student and the teacher have a choice. My choice as a teacher is to provide formative feedback to help students learn. Students will either choose to follow through and bridge the gap or not. This is a choice.

The summative assessment or assessment at the end of the course will be final and will be graded. Although I cannot help my students post final assignment, I can certainly help them during the weeks before to ensure that they are on track. This is a choice. I get it. Summative assessment signifies “the end of the learning process.”

I am looking forward to the next 6 IGNITE presenters and what wisdom they have to impart on us. I love that the students have taken leadership in this course, ask good questions, and collectively contribute to the quality of the course. I am proud of the work these students are doing. The second half of the course will be awesome.

Student Leadership – Week 6

There is nothing I love more than students taking leadership of their own learning. On the one hand, it’s a little unnerving for me… as the teacher… not completely in control of student learning. On the other hand, I am in control and I am facilitating (or as a colleague said to me, ACTIVATING) student learning. Yes… that makes sense to me.

Students lead activities (aka. micro curricula), students participate willingly, students lead group discussions, students ask questions, students advocate for their own learning, students provide direction, students are accountable… STUDENTS ROCK!!! This week, we delved into BC’s New Curriculum started to design and develop our own curricular competencies for our upcoming IGNITE presentations on curriculum.

We also discussed and differentiated formative and summative assessment. The crazy part is, assessment has everything to do with how successful a curriculum is implemented, but has nothing to do with how curriculum is developed. Developing curriculum is focused on the WHAT and the WHY. The HOW is up to the teacher.

In our class… we are developing our curriculum in light of BC’s New Curriculum. Our IGNITE assignment is about personalizing their learning with the BIG IDEAS and content area of curriculum, curriculum development, and curriculum theory. Our commonality amongst all students are the curricular competencies. What are students expected to demonstrate and how will this be assessed?

We looked all all three core competency areas of thinking, communicating, and personal/social. At first, I asked each discussion group which core competency they wished to explore as we embarked on developing curricular competencies for our upcoming assignment. Worth mentioning, ALL of the groups wanted to look at the PERSONAL/SOCIAL core competency. So interesting… but not possible.

We looked at all three core competencies and developed DRAFT curricular competencies with our discussion groups. The students taught me about “collaborations” on CANVAS and we collated all of our group work on a live document. From this, we narrowed down the DRAFT curricular competencies to 12. Now, here is DEMOCRACY at its finest… we’re voting for 5. The vote is happening online and students will mutually on decide the curricular competencies.

The online vote ends tomorrow to give our first cohort of IGNITERS some time to prepare for Tuesday’s class. There will be at least one curricular competency per core competency. I can’t wait to see what the students decide. Furthermore, we will provide formative feedback to the presenter by identifying the BIG IDEA(s) at the end of the presentation. We’ll see how this goes. I am very excited to see how all of this unfolds. I hope they are excited too. #buildingtheplaneinthesky

Restorative Action – Week 5

I’m already falling behind on my journal reflections. My bad. I have the deepest respect for those who are attending school and balancing their life, work, and learning. I find myself doing the same and I want to honour the work of my Educ 471 by doing the same… journal reflections from the instructor’s perspective.

I love this photo… I’m sure the Christine in the photo would really hate this photo but it captures the kind of work my students are accomplishing in my class. It’s been a META project, if you will, where we are trying to best exemplify the ideals of BC’s New Curriculum in this class as we are learning about curriculum development ourselves.

What you see here is are the 3 core competencies… communication, thinking, and personal/social. I love that the students are seeing personal relevance in this course in addition to being active contributors to the course. I am proud that these students have embraced some of the ‘unusualities’ (made that word up) of this course.

I also took the opportunity this week to say sorry to my students (re: Twitter fiasco), acknowledge my strength as a teacher practitioner, and this course is being designed with BC’s New Curriculum in mind but it’s transforming as we are doing. I am taking a risk and what I am doing may not be the norm to any other Educ 471 course.

To see what is possible is to attempt to see what is possible… to nourish students as creative and critical thinker, to create space for students to collaborate and communicate during class as sense-makers, and to enable students to define and personalize their learning within the context of the course. I am learning with them.

Thank you Educ 471 students for being part of my teaching and learning experience. Coincidently, this week I had multiple moments of gratitude for past students I remain connected to (via social media) who share their gratitude, passion, and expertise with me… it’s way to cool for words to describe. Feeling restored.