The unexpected information I learned at Westcast

Wow, well I just attended an amazing conference for university education students.  The conference is called WestCast and brings together education students from all over western Canada for 2 full days of networking and professional development seminars. I would love to talk to you about what I learned in each of the seminar but I think something more interesting is what I learned from the fellow students that I talked to.
I never realised before this conference that each University has its own very unique set up to teaching new teachers.  When it comes to student teaching in the classroom every University has a defferent scheduling.  To start I think it would be best to explain the practice at the university that I go to, Brandon University.
Here in Brandon you enter the Faculty of Education after you have completed at least one undergrad degree.  From there you have a 2 year program where you will spend a total of 25 weeks in the classroom in something that is known as a placement.  A placement is a time where you are not attending University courses but are in public schools, observing qualified teacher and teaching students.
The 2 years of your schooling are split into 4 terms, 2 terms per year and there is 1 placement per term.  Each of our placements you go to a different school and work with different classroom teachers and students.
Our first placement is 5 weeks and takes place in the middle of our first term. The second is 7 weeks and lands at the end of the term. The third one is split, we spend the first week of the term in the classroom to see what it is like to start a school year then go back mid term for 5 weeks. Our last placement is 7 weeks at the end of our forth term. We are expected to take on 25% of the teaching load in the first placement and then 50%, 75% and 100% in the following placements.
I enjoy this set up, it provides a lot of variety and gives you an opportunity to work on your skills in placements that are long enough to get to know the students and practice but not too long as to cause anxiety.
What came as a surprise to me is how many differences there are in programs across Canada.  For example at the University of Saskatchewan students in their first 2 terms spend every Friday and then 2 full weeks at the end of term in a classroom. During their their third term they spend 16 straight weeks in a classroom where by the end of their placement they are teaching full time.
The University of Calgary offers another interesting approach,  There they have 4 placements similar to Brandon University but in their first 2 placements they mostly observe and in their third placement they go to a school with 3 or 4 other students and observe and teach as a group.  In their final placement they teach full time.
These are just 2 examples and they are from programs where you first need to have a degree and then enter the Faculty of Education as an after degree program.  There are some school that offer education as a concurrent program,  The University of Winnipeg is one of these.  It a 5 year program.  Here you take courses in both your teachable area and education throughout your 5 years. They also spend their first year going to classrooms one day a week observing.  In your second year you get a block placement where you are mostly observing.  In the following 3 years you have block placements where you are actually teaching working your way up to full time teaching in your last placement.
On the contrary the University of Calgary offers a concurrent program that is also 5 years and but you only take education classes and do placements in your 3rd and 5th year.
Another very different program comes out of Ontario.  Here it is only a one year after degree program with a one month placement at the end of it.
Though all these are very different I can see pros and cons to all of them.  I do have personal preferences and that is one of the reasons I am at Brandon University but to express those would be unfair as I have not experienced what it is like to be involved in other programs.  I do wish that there was some consistency across Canada so that all teachers were trained the same way and that our degrees were transferable across Canada.  To do this we would probably need to have a constant curriculum across our whole country, which  we do not, and that is whole bigger issue.
I invite any one who is reading this to share with me the training that is required in your country, province or school to become a teacher. I also wish for you to share with me your feelings about that program.
p.s. My explanations of the programs that I have shared are from my understanding of what the students told me at WestCast and brief readings on the University's website. To the best of my knowledge they are correct but by no means should you hold my information to be 100% correct. If you want guaranteed information I invite you to call the University in question and ask them about their program directly.

Making Connections

Think back to your first day of high school.  If your childhood was anything like mine you remember being nervous about whether your new clothes were the right fashion and if you would have someone to sit with at lunch.  For the most part you just wanted to fit in.  By the end of the first week you had made a few new friends and by the end of the year your new friends had become the people you did everything with.  You had made new connections and ones you thought would last a lifetime.

Looking at your friends now, some may be from that group you had in grade 9, but most of them are new.  They may be people you met in University, or at a summer job.  If you are older then me they are likely people that you work with or have kids that are a similar age to yours.  Either way they are the people that surround you and support you now.  These people are important for you to be successful and happy in life.

But what about your teaching life? Who supports you here? It is obvious that your co-workers do but I want to look bigger.  I can say in my student teaching experience, the internet supports me in finding great resources and lesson ideas.  This support is not very personal, and this is why I have been on a mission to make the internet a personal support. Joining twitter and adding local educators, I have been able to share with them resources, readings, and ideas.  If I am struggling with a unit plan or lesson idea I can just reach to my phone tweet it and within minutes have a bunch of people tweeting ideas back to me.  It is awesome, you never feel alone in planning and you never should.  Many teachers before me have had the same problems that I am going to face.  Anything from classroom management issues, to what poster should I hang on the wall can be solved by collaboration with others.  Twitter also allows me to connect with organizations like MTS (Manitoba Teacher Society) who keep me up to date on PD opportunities and news stories related to education.  

Starting a blog, though it seems very one sided, is a great way to connect with people.  Once you start blogging, you start checking out other people's blogs and learn that there are a lot of people out there talking about issues that are of importance to you.  You find ideas, strategies and perspective you never would have thought of on your own.  The blogging community is very supportive and always willing to give advice.

If you are not wanting to go so world wide, starting profession learning networks(PLN) are great ways of sharing information between teachers that are teaching the same things in your division or province.  They allow teachers to collaborate and with collaboration you are able to use the creative minds of more people to create a lesson that students will love.  The whole 2 heads are better then 1 saying!! If you are looking for a PLN right now I suggest looking into www.classroom20.com . It is a great place to learn and share.

So get out there, join twitter, start a blog and develop a PLN, you will not regret it and your students will thank you for it!!

Get Involved

TEACHER FIRED OVER FACEBOOK COMMENT 

We have all read a tabloid like this somewhere, why? Well some teachers did not take that warning that every student teacher gets on their first day of orientation: If you have Facebook you better up the security, change your name and keep it clean.  For all those teachers who have lost their jobs over Facebook those 3 little rules would have probably allowed them to still be in the classroom today. 

from: bluekdesign

Though the topic of Facebook in education is an interesting one it is not the one I want to talk about today.  Today I would like to talk about the complete opposite thing.  Rather than discussing all the ways that you can create a negative image in a community I want to talk about how to create positive ones.

I was fortunate to grow up in a very philanthropic family who always encouraged me to get involved in community events and fundraisers.  Also being on many sports teams throughout my high school career I learned what it meant to represent your town with class and sportsmanship.  These were important in giving a positive imagine to my community.

My brothers and I playing hockey

Now that I am in education giving a positive view of myself is important.  In just over a year I am going to be selling myself at some job interview in the hopes that I can land a job.  If I do manage to get a job then by that fall I will have many eyes and ears wondering just who I am and if the school board did the right thing in hiring me.  I, on the other hand, will be busy making lesson plans, unit outlines, developing activities, classroom management plans, etc., all the busy work a first time teacher.  Unfortunately cooping myself up in my home or classroom is not going to help my critics think I am a worthy teacher for their precious children.  To convince them I am right for the job I need to meet them and to do this I will have to leave my shelter of preparing and go out in the community.  If I go to local sporting events, plays and suppers I will surely meet my future student and parents.  Also if a managed a way to get involved like working canteens, volunteering at suppers or coaching a baseball team I would be able to send a message that I am committed to this community.  This will surely give my critics a reason to  feel I worthy of educating their children even before their kids go back to school.

My friends and I playing Volleyball

Another thing to consider is that as a first time teacher the job you will get will likely be in a community you are unfamiliar with.  Getting involved in the community and volunteering for the local centers is a great way to meet people in a casual, yet positive way.  You will need these connections as the stressful first year of teaching progresses.  Besides the local bar, though a beverage after a tough day of work may be nice, is not something you want to associate yourself with when trying to build a professional image in a community.

In concluding I challenge all you new students going out into the field this year to get involved in your community.  It will help with teacher parent relationship and give you a needed escape form the hours of preparing I know you are will be going through.

Good luck and get out there!

after social Inclusion

Well that was an interesting PD session. I really enjoyed the information Brock Brown gave us.  He is definitely a very knowledgeable man.  Having spent many years working with inner city kids in Winnipeg he was able to give us a perspective most of us had never experienced.

The focus of the information was how to connect with excluded youth.  He suggested things like the jigsaw method, walk abouts and flexible groupings.  These methods force students to interact with each other.  It also gives you the opportunity to talk and connect with your students one on one.  Making connection with your students, he stressed, is essential.  You can become a role model to others if you take the opportunity to connect with excluded youth.

I was hoping to learn more about how to directly get students in the "majority" to accept others.  This we did not get much counselling on. Brock said  he wished he could give us the answer to this but as far as he knew there wasn't one yet.  If we knew how to get the "majority" to accept the "minority" then we would not have this issue in the first place.  The best thing he suggested you can do is be a role model to others.

Either way the session was amazing.  It gave me some things to ponder and some hope that we as teachers can make a difference in our society if we make inclusion a priority in our classrooms

Thanks Brock

Before Social Inclusion

This morning I have a PD about social inclusion but I thought I would give my thought before and after and see how my opinions have changed.

Social inclusion is one of those things I feel I will struggle with as a teacher.  Being that I come from the majority I have never experienced social exclusion. This, along with the aspect that I do not find myself racist, may make it hard for me to pick up on exclusive behaviours/feelings that others may be expressing.  I know that racism and prejudice happen regularly in my community so I understand it is a problem and needs to be fixed.

I am hoping in this PD today to talk about how teachers can help to break the barriers and be an instrument for change in our communities.  By touching on how to notice exclusive behaviour and what to do when it happens, will give me more confidence when put in one of these situations.  My feeling is that he will have some very straight forward talks about social inclusion, give example of how he has address the situations and remark on the successfulness of them.  

There is a lot to be learned and my ears will be open and I look forward to sharing the information with you after. 

How to navigate Education and still come out feeling like you?

I am not sure if it is just me but I feel that in education we are bombarded about what we, as newly arriving teacher(NATs), are suppose to be. Some professors will tell us we need to be strict with our students while another will say it is important to be flexible. There does seem to be some themes, like use DI, but for the most part I feel that a lot of what we are told from one person is contradicted by the next person.  So this begs the question, who are we as NATs suppose to be?
I am obviously no expert in this area but I am going to share with you my opinion anyway(this is my blog, so I think that gives me the right).  I think we need to be who we are comfortable with being.  Our professors, I feel, share with us their opinion on what the "perfect" teacher is. This is often based on their personality and on how they taught when they were in schools.  Like most people they think their way of teaching is the best and that the best teachers are just like them.  I am not saying that my professors were are not excellent teachers but I do believe that the idea of perfection is different for everyone.  Also I think we need to consider that not all people can teach using the same teaching style.  Different personalities and philosophies definitely play a role.    This mean we NATs need to take what we like or feel we can accomplish productively from what our professors are telling us and put that towards our philosophy and teaching style.  For example, not all of us can be an aggressive teacher, and not all of us can be that warm inviting teacher but we can all fit in between that spectrum somewhere.
How do you decide who you are going to be as a NAT?  Well I think it all starts by taking a long hard look at your personality and your reasons for becoming a teacher.  Then I think you need to be open minded about what you are hearing from your professors.  I recommend making a list of what they say is important and their ideas.  Later on this list will provide you with ideas and thoughts that you can consider when evaluating who you are going to be as a NAT. Keep in mind, no idea is a bad idea, but some ideas may not be for you.  Then some day when you are ready, write down, take a long walk, or just lay on a beach somewhere and think critically about your philosophy of teaching.  Question things like what your classroom will look like and how you plan to make it that way.  Also ask yourself, besides curriculum outcomes, what do you want students to take away from your class.  I could probably go on for pages about questions to ask yourself but I think you get the idea.
When you have decided on who you want to be, remember that just because you choose that philosophy today does not mean that it can't change it, and trust me, change it you will.
Good luck on your journey fellow NATs, I look forward to meeting you on the other side.