Month: February 2021

This week in class we were visited by guest speaker Trevor MacKenzie. We started out by looking at the following diagram and talking about the types of student inquiry.

https://www.trevormackenzie.com/exclusive-sketchnotes

I really like this visualization of student inquiry. In fact, that semester in my seminar for my Wednesday school visits, the teachers that lead the seminar showed us this diagram when we were doing our own free inquiry projects. By scaffolding the types of student inquiry and relating them to a swimming lesson in a pool, these concepts become clear to teachers, students, and parents alike. I think that I will definitely put this or something like this up in my future classroom so that I can create a shared understanding of these concepts.

https://www.trevormackenzie.com/exclusive-sketchnotes

Moreover, we explored 10 reasons to use Inquiry-Based learning. I think that this graphic depicts some compelling arguments as to why Inquiry-Based learning should be incorporated into the modern classroom. Reading this list, I certainly want my classroom environment to be composed of all of these things. We were asked to read this list and decide what we are lacking. Now, because I haven’t had much teaching experience yet, I had a little bit of a hard time answering this question. Most of what I think is my teaching style is completely hypothetical and I am not sure what will be my strengths and weaknesses until I can put my teaching into practice. With that said, I picked number 6, “make research meaningful and develop strong research skills”, as something that I want to develop. I am confident in my own researching skills, however, I am not too experienced in adapting my skills to more child-friendly tools. I hope to explore this concept with my Ed Tech inquiry this semester and transform this uncertainty into an asset in my future classroom.

Photo by Szabo Viktor on Unsplash

This week we welcomed guest speaker Jesse Miller into our classroom. With his presentation, he brought a very interesting conversation about social media and how it relates to education.

Our discussion began by talking about the role of social media in the classroom. When it comes to integrating social media into the classroom as tools for projects, I think that it’s unnecessary and avoidable. There are plenty of technological tools that could easily replace social media’s potential role in the classroom that are much less risky and reliable for students to use. With that said, I’m not saying social media doesn’t belong in the classroom as a very important topic of conversation. I would say that my generation is very unique in its ability to have grown up at the same time that the internet has. Personally, I remember Instagram coming out just around as I was old enough to use it and using first-generation iPod touch’s to text with my friends on Kik instant messenger towards the end of elementary school. I never really had the problem of social media negatively influencing my life when I was too young because generally, the technology just didn’t exist yet. With that said, I cannot say the same for future generations. I know that social media use is going to be a pressing topic in the young lives of my future students and something that will be frequently discussed with their parents. Though I don’t think I will necessarily integrate social media use in my classroom, I will frequently have discussions about it. I think that it is necessary to talk about the dangers and benefits of social media and how to use it in a healthy way.