You’re Different – Week 1
Fulfilling my commitment (and catching up). Here is the OFFICIAL Week 1 of my reflective journals for EDUC 471. Today was a full house. Yay! 32 students is the official count. It was so nice to see more students in the classroom. The class vibrates at a higher frequency. I love the buzz. It was great seeing new faces in the room.
Today, we had our FIRST warm-up activity. It was so nice. We all got into 4 groups, counted off by the student-facilitator. We were challenged by naming occupations, places, and food from A to Z. It was like survivor. The winning word was xynthan gum. Who would of thought? Well… I thought it… kinda said it… second guessed it. DOH.
The class started with many questions… about assessment… in this course. I am reminded that not all of these students have taken an education course before and many are accustomed to the major essay or final exam mindset. Throughout the class I was clarifying and fielding more questions. One the one hand, I love that students feel safe to ask. On the other hand, it was clear to me that I was not being clear with them. Their questions heightens my awareness of my audience, their prior experience, and their expectations of me. This is a good thing. I invite the questions.
After warm up, no other students had signed up for an activity, except for the class recorder. It was me who was left to summarize this week’s article… an oversight on my part regarding sign up. Furthermore, it provided me with some insight about my class. After our first week together, no one wanted to go first… not the the first week, first name on the list, or first to embark on facilitating a WILD CARD activity.
We had come to terms as a class that our academic risk taking level out of a scale of 1 to 10 was about a 3 or 4. We have much work to do and I hope that this will improve over time. That said, it was Week 0. I am confident things will change over time. What I do know is the STRENGTH in group discussion. Wow. The summaries that come from our group discussions are AMAZING. The groups are self-selected. Each member of the group has a role to fulfill. And, many of the groups report out much of what I had hoped for, while others give me something to think about.
As expected, what I imagined we would cover in a 4-hour time period, I’m a couple slides too many on my PowerPoint. I guess it is better to be over prepared than under, but I also like to be guided by the students and what they are learning and contributing to the course. In saying that, there must be a balance between teacher direction and student input. The class has to be meaningful and purposeful to both of us. I wonder about RIGOUR in this course. I believe there is some rigour, but it may not be as INTENSE as maybe a 400-level economics course. I have no idea.
What I do know for sure is, this class gets me thinking. I am now cognizant of the Chinese-student perspective and being an international student. I am also aware that many of the students know and understand curriculum development in a tacit way. And, many of the students find structure (and solace) from the syllabus, assessment, and due dates. Can I get away with one final assignment? When I taught Math 8-12, the final exam was worth 100% but 100% of my time was invested in Assessment for Learning. This makes me wonder about how I’m assessing in EDUC 471… and why.
Anyway, the class ends with an abbreviated ending (to be continued next class) and a few more questions from students about assessment. I love that students are willing to stay after class to seek clarification about what’s expected from them, but also challenges me to be more clear about what I’m expecting without being too prescriptive. As I was cleaning up, a student says to me, “You’re Different.” I believe this was a compliment, but my inner voice says, “why aren’t I like everyone else?” I shake my head because I am intentionally designing the course to be different.
After 2 weeks, I am madly in love with the student engagement, student input, and student voice in the course so far. I am learning as they are learning. I feel so privileged to do so and honoured that this class is allowing me to do so. We are learning and teaching together. For example, I love how I am trying to figure out how to post PDFs on CANVAS and I ask a student via email if she can see what was online. In no time, she confirmed that we had achieved success. It was 11pm!!! #nice