New BC education plan

I think you should check this out...what are your thoughts? What implications might this have for you as a teacher?

http://www.bcedplan.ca/assets/pdf/bc_edu_plan.pdf

Diet and Learning Disabilities

There is very little talk about this subject and I know we all eat very healthy because we're all so sharp and with it, but the longer this problem goes on with out a concerted effort to address it, the more serious it will become.

For various reasons children are coming to school malnourished. In some cases it's not because they aren't getting enough to eat, but simply because they aren't eating the right foods or enough of them.

This is rapidly becoming a generational issue with kids. I've been doing some light reading (some articles) about food dyes, mercury, and high fructose corn syrup in food and the effects they have on children. While this may seem intuitive (it's bad), it seems most parents and educators are more concerned about the importance of drug and alcohol education we still have a lot of ground to make up with an important building block of education = food.

I used to drive by a local area high school a lot (to and from work) because it was near the highway. I saw a lot of kids, I mean a lot of kids ....rivers of kids, at lunch in particular streaming in and out of the convenience store which is a city block away from the school, within direct sight of the high school.

One day I need a bottle of water so I thought I'd stop in and see what Willy Wonka was peddlin' down at the chocolate factory....

As you can guess, the store didn't have much in the way of actual food. It was packed with processed foods, chips, candy bars, sodas, gum every kind of candy you could dream of.... Worse yet, "Energy Drinks"......Monster Energy, Red Bull etc. etc.

I thought..."oh my goodness"....what happens in that school after lunch?

I think you get the point, that store is a Gold Mine! Ok besides that ....that store is an educators nightmare in the form of King Size Snickers and a Monster Energy Drink. Is it any wonder, kids can't concentrate after they down 500ml of high fructose (diabetes inducing) Monster Energy....or chuck back a few Oh Henry's (they're healthy they've at least have peanuts right?)

How can students pay attention (function) while he/she is peaking then crashing on all that caffeine and sugar? Likely they can't....Social Studies is my teachable and I'm no scientist..so I'll go with intuition....making diet part of your class discussion may be worthwhile...if you want to do a Masters on this you might have some takers...correlations abound....

There are more issues here, like community responsibility (the store)......but I've rambled enough......

Here's a link that links to some other links, and so on and so on and so ....

http://naturalvitalitykids.com/2011/03/the-marketing-of-obesity-to-kids/

Hope you all are having a good night studying out there....beware I heard (CBC) bedbugs are on the move...found in a library in Vancouver... you know it won't be long before they are here too...and just in time for Halloween...SCARY!

Cheating?

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/teachers-square-off-over-second-chances-students-caught-192918678.html#more-id

This morning I was checking my mail, and this was the story that Yahoo had placed on the homepage. I know Roy has mentioned this several times in various classes, but here we actually have written documentation to draw on.

I think this draws on exactly what Allyson has been talking about in class. How do we go about punishing the student vs the behaviour? Will this ultimately have the students stop cheating and actually prepare for a test so that they do not have to write it twice?

Yet, while they are going through this process, they are still impacting "justice" as the article states: "that there will still be consequences for the cheater, ranging from contacting parents to suspension from school"

So which is it? Are we punishing the student or the behaviour? Or both? I will admit, I cheated in my younger years, and in some cases I did have the chance to rewrite...did it stop me from doing it again? Nope. What stopped me from doing it again was an honest interest in learning, and sadly that did not occur until university. When I became interested and engaged in the material, I saw a point to learning and I understood that cheating would not accomplish that.

"The district's new policy goes against the provincial government's policy for the set of public exams administered to graduating high school students. Students caught cheating are not only given an automatic zero but also disqualified from writing other exams." Again, which side are we supposed to take? Is the student allowed to take the provincial exam a second time? And really, since it's PROVINCIAL, it will be the exact test, so another student could give them the answers before they go in to write. Or hell, are we supposed to have the government write up a second form of the test, just for those individuals?

Interesting food for thought. I'm not against the policy persay, but it definatly needs some polishing. I do not enjoy the idea of having to take my time away from the material on hand and creating egaging lesson plans to try and come up with another test for the student who didn't try. I also do not want to let these students fall by the wayside just because I did not take the time to help.

Gay Bullying and Teen Suicide

http://www.youtube.com/user/MercerReport#p/u/2/Wh1jNAZHKIw

On Tuesday, Rick Mercer (my celebrity crush) did a rant on teen suicide in Canada. He suggested that there isn't enough being done by adults to save these kids who feel that their only escape is to end their lives.

He is specifically talking about Jamie Huebly, who took his own life because he was bullied for being gay. What do you guys think? I'm reading a book about bullying right now, that is a compilation of teen experiences. Over and over again, I read that teachers watch these kids get bullied, teased, beaten, neglected by their peers and say nothing and do nothing. How can this be?? When is it our job to intervene and when is it our job to look the other way and let them fend for themselves? Where do we draw the line? What more can be done within the school to counteract this aggression and discrimination?

RSS?????

How many of you have seen the RSS button and wondered - what is that? It stands for "Really Simple Syndication and it is what is called an "Aggregator" - it manages and organizes collections of web feeds. I came across this amazing paper about it on a twitter link.

http://www.teachinghacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/01/RSS%20Ideas%20for%20Educators111.pdf

Its a good read and well worth your time.

If you want to know more about how you can use RSS in your classrooms...

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/rss/

Tina :)

Teachers using Twitter

I came across this great blog about teachers teaching teachers on twitter. The blog is called "the Learning network"... looks pretty cool. There are some lesson plan links, how to's, Q & A ... and it is all based on the New York Times Content...

The one article regarding twitter and the "twitter chats" can be found here...
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/teachers-teaching-teachers-on-twitter-q-and-a-on-edchats/

Tina :)

Now for the science teachers

I found these sites today today via Twitter with @mrsebiology posts....

DNA Learning Center http://www.dnalc.org/resources/3d/

DNA Profiling activity http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/popups/int_dnaprofiling.html

Interactive DNA http://www.learner.org/interactives/dna/genetics.html

enjoy ...

Tina :)

Cool webiste for history teachers (and art)

Ok.. I found this website http://besthistorysites.net/ that contains annotated links to over 1200 history web sites and k-12 history lesson plans.

So for all you socials and art teachers.. enjoy :)

And now it is snooze time - it is soooo easy to get lost in this electronic world.

Tina :)

More tools to use.. Twitter..

Ok.. more computer geek stuff for everyone...

How many of you are twitterholics? Can you walk and tweet at the same time?

How many of you are thinking.. what the heck is she talking about now?

Twitter, is an online community where you post whatever you want about anything in less than 140 characters per post (tweet). Here are some of the highlights of the program:

• It uses "hashtags" - identified by "#" which are basically categories or metatags to search for like messages.


• Members are identified by "@" before their user names


• links to websites are listed in posts


• pictures can be posted


• It lists the people you follow, and those who follow you

As a teacher there are many ways to use this program:

• to follow other teachers and see what they are doing


• to learn about programs on the internet


• to notify students about blog changes or homework


• to ask other teachers what tools they are using - mark with hashtag and watch the answers come in


• ask other teachers about strategies

Feel free to check it out and follow me and anyone else in my following list. You can find the program at http://www.twitter.com

I am listed under @tinaoke

Some of the people on my list that I would recommend following are:

@courosa - Alex Couros - the keynote speaker from EDSA's conference - professor of info-tech at University of Regina

@gregkulowiec - Gregory Kulowiec - History teacher and Info tech specialist from the states

@mrsebiology - A science teacher from Illinios

You can use this from your smartphones or from the computer - either one is just as effective. I am really new to this as well, but the more I use it, the more I like it.

Tina :)

Partisan message in school textbook

I've attached a news article from Sask. regarding a message printed by the government in Science 9 textbooks.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2011/10/24/sk-textbook-photos-1110.html?cmp=rss

Anyone have any thoughts on this they want to share?

Tina

Watch this:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/17/bc-teacherspeaks.html

What does everyone think of this?

She's probably alone in her feelings right?

This is just an isolated incident right?

She's just made it past the average amount of time for teachers who quit (5 years)........she's only been teaching for 6!

What about her retiring colleague's comments? Yikes....

"Don't worry, kid's sort all that stuff out by the time they get to high school right? So we'll be okay....besides I'll never teach in a school like that"......ya' right!

Maybe I'm a bleeding heart, weak-knee'd, softy - a "lefty-socialist" maybe even.....but that interview kinda' got me in the belly - the way that teacher was trying so hard to smile...just to hold back the tears....

In light of the current teachers job action it's probably just propaganda stunt ....so we can all go back to sleep again.....right?

Ok.....352, 787, 432, and 406 (exam) assignments all due this week....and I have to go wash Joe's face and help him brush his teeth before daycare...so I'll have to cut it off here.....

Seee you ion class

hmmmmmmm?

EDSA Conference: Sexual Health

After today I've decided that it is a real shame that the education program at Uvic does not give pre-service teachers any instructional time devoted to teaching sexual health. After attending Kerri Isham's workshop on teaching sexual health, I believe we are really doing the students in this province a disservice by not focussing more time and attention to this topic. However, it appears that things might not be as bad as they were when we were students. I was please to learn that the schools have done away with CAPP and replaced it with Planning 10. I have heard Planning 10 be referred to since starting the PDP program, but never really knew what it was all about. I found out today that it covers career planning, financial planning and sexual health. It is mandatory for grade 10 students. I also get the impression that most teachers aren't too enthusiastic about having to teach Planning 10.

Isham defended her beliefs (and her professional life's work) by explaining that students need sexual education that is pleasure focussed rather than risk focussed, otherwise they won't pay attention to what you are trying to teach them and they will be less likely to adopt safe sexual practices. When you consider that half of a school's population is sexually active by the age of 17, I'd say that providing them with sexual health information in a way that they will respond to is pretty critical!! Students need to be exposed to both the benefits and the risks of engaging in sexual activity. Since the majority of them are going to do it anyways, we need to stop trying to scare them out of doing it by talking only about STI's and pregnancy.

Isham also spoke about how Planning 10 deals with topics such as sexual orientation and diversities. I think that this class provides a great transition into some of the topics that would be covered in Social Justice 12.

If you are at all interested in Isham's educational philosophies and/or projects surrounding sexual health education, check out her website: www.powerupworkshops.ca

And just a quick aside- I was speaking to an old friend from high school today who has just started her 8 week practicum for the PDP program. Her teachables are English and Social Studies, but she has been given Planning 10 as one of her classes during her practicum. You've been warned!!

More cool tools to use

Ok.. New tool for the week - electronic flashcards. These are found at Quizlet and can be downloaded onto most smartphones (yes even androids). If you pop into the help section and do a search on flashcard applications... you will find a list of apps for the smartphones.

How can you use this tool?

As a teacher, you can put together flashcards for your students (form a group)... you can have them put together own cards.

As a student, well.. it would be easier to show you... If you go under the group PDPP-UVic - password is "pdpp".. you will find the start of flashcards for our ED-D 406 midterm (Adolescence) this Friday. Feel free to add more flashcards - either a new set, or if you want to change the ones that are there.

Have fun :)

Weekend Conference

Hi guys! I attended the conference that Edsa was holding this weekend. The keynote speaker was awesome! Look him up on Google and YouTube. His name is Dr. Alec Couros, from Saskatchewan. His talk was on social and open network learning and we as teachers need to use all the social networks and media that is out there like Twitter, blogging, Wordpress, Kidblog etc. in order to be effective teachers. Amazing speaker! Here is a link to one of his videos:< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOlzOy-tmFU>

So, my view on open network learning is that it can have negative consequences as well. For example, (this is an extreme case) a teacher in the united states was fired because there was a picture of her drinking on facebook. I understand rules and regulations are probably different in Canada and even in BC, but I feel it’s hard to monitor yourself on the internet, and even more so if a third party has posted inappropriate pictures of you that you may not even be aware of. But I see Dr. Couros’s point of view of how using this media can be such a great tool towards education and learning. I understand balance, private settings and caution are important things to remember, but I feel it still can backfire. One of the students during the workshop mentioned that BCTIF is very against in using social network media (such as Twitter etc) in classroom learning. The BCTIF member that visited their class had said that it’s best to completely stay away from it so you don’t land yourself in trouble. Some students mentioned having two different accounts, one for work and one for personal.

The second workshop I went to was on Interactive Tecnologies for Teaching and Learing by Dr. Valerie Irvine. She mentioned super-intendant Chris Kennedy is highly keen and for open network learning and recommended looking him up on Twitter. She also brought up another interesting point that instead of completely banning technology, cellphones, Ipads etc, the schools and the teachers need to bring it in their classrooms so they can learn how to be responsibly while using this technology. She said that we need to change, adapt and incorporate technology into our classroom learning. Can’t remember the names of the schools…but she mentioned BC schools are using IPADs and Smart-boards in their classroom learning. Even kindergarten kids are using IPADs!!! The cost of Smart board technology is roughly $2000 and IPADs she said approximately $900. How does the school district and school board fund this?? I asked if the parents are paying extra and she said no. It’s being funded by the school district/board. She was saying education in the 21^st century is becoming very modernized and we as teachers need to use technology into our classroom learning.

Cheers,

Ravinder

(There is still another workshop on different topics tomorrow, you can get the tickets at the David Lam auditorium. You get to pick the morning and afternoon workshop. More information on the topics is posted on Edsa website. It starts at 9am and finishes around 4pm).

Horizons: Canada Moves West

Hello to all of my seminar classmates. Here is my thought of the hour, amidst all the jumbled thoughts in my brain. Have you really looked at your textbooks? Not the University texts: I mean the ones we all used in high school.

While preparing for my socials 11 examination, I read through the provincial textbook, and even showed it off to a few of you. I'm pretty sure some of you recognized it. What I found disconcerting however, was the lack of information. In some cases, an entire event was referred to in one sentence. That's less than 50 words! And, sometimes, the information was so biased that I tossed the textbook aside and researched online until I was sure that I had found correct information.

The entire process was very frustrating, and I kept thinking, did I really believe all of this in high school? Was I that naive?


After the exam, I sort of forgot all about it, until my socials curriculum prof gave the class an excerpt of the first two pages of the grad ten socials textbook. The first sentence:

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, 

Canada was not the developed, prosperous country 

it would eventually become.

Obviously, any sort of development by First Nations don't count. And it gets worse from there: misleading information about Canada's involvement in the American Civil War, the terrible injustice to only whites....

Which brings me to the back to my question:

How will you address the issue of bad textbooks, which either have too broad of a depth of knowledge, or inaccurate information?

 

By the way, this accidentally went onto the wrong blog... which means I had to repost. Sorry about that.

RSA Animates: What Motivates Business and What Can We Learn From This as Educators?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=relmfu

This video outlines different motivational strategies in the workplace and how different methods of freedom can allow for better motivation and creativity for the employees and therefore rewards for the employer.

While there is plenty that i could latch on to and bring forward by comparing it to education and how we are currently being encouraged to motivate students (feel free to comment in the comments) I found myself looking back to discussions of alternative schools; can we take these alternative ideas and make them work for conventional schools? would alternative thinking in moderation help or hinder our current educational system? What would more self direction mean for our schools?

According to this video "there are 3 factors lead to better performance: autonomy, mastery and purpose." In regards to autonomy: the video argues that "management is great if you want compliance;" the company Atlassian gives their employees one day of self directed study that is very similar to the layout in many of our self directed schools. Employees are left to their work with free range under the agreement that in 24 hours they will show their employers what types of ideas, decisions, and work they have achieved.

Now I am not saying that alternative schools are right for everyone; in fact, I would argue against that; however, by integrating a small portion of self directed study into our curriculum every week could we encourage further student exploration into our units and topics that are being discussed and explored on other days? like it has been observed in these companies, can we make our schools more inspiring places to work/learn? Could we achieve less "crappy products" or "lame services" by allowing the students to take these ideas and merge them with thoughts, learning processes and topics that they may be more passionate about?

This would be a very difficult project to take on as for the first little bit it would have to be heavily encouraged that work was actually being done. But after students get into the flow of things and realise what is expected of them would this not be a better way of learning what students know rather than forcing them to spew out what the teacher wants them to know?

Test

Tools to use

Last year in one of my classes I was introduced to a great online movie maker - Xtranormal. They boast that anyone who can type can make a video.. and believe me it really is that easy (my example).

Teaching in BC / A Political Backgrounder

I know, I know, here I go again with the Tyee!

But seriously ladies, and Ben. If you read the CBC or other mainstream media on the ongoing teacher's job action you are being seriously misinformed. It's not necessarily what they say in particular, but more importantly what they don't say. Please (me collegial - duty to implore you) try and read these articles. I used to be a romantic idealist, now I'm a cynical realist. More preachy stuff - it's not just about your job and your salary - what about those darn kids...and why the heck (keeping it professional) are we not discussing these issues here at the teacher factory - UVic?

Again I must apologize for the preaching about teaching (like that?), but I'm feeling a bit radical after my morning lemon ginger tea, and 352 readings.

If they won't broach it here I guess we can always get into at Ben's kegger on Sunday....I'll be making a presentation there - hopefully I can use it for my e-portfolio?

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/10/06/BC-Education-Feuds/

Read it, learn it, live it!

Why do we have seasons?

Misconceptions

http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=9 

(Scroll to the bottom of the page then click the tiny VOD button to watch)

In our science curriculum course this morning a very interesting topic was addressed: students’ misconceptions. We watched the video “A Private Universe” which showed some alarming results on students’ misconceptions in science. When 23 Harvard graduates were asked why is it that we get seasons, only 21 answered correctly and one of the guy’s degrees was in planetary motion. The video then went on ask grade 9 students the same question which no one could answer correctly. The fact that scientific literacy can be almost non-existent in our society is really concerning. However the part of the video I found most interesting was the challenge the teacher faced trying to correct these students’ incorrect pre-conceived notions.

The teacher of the class had assumed that her students had already learned about the subject and was astonished to hear some of their answers. Even after the lesson was revisited, with the teacher explaining and using a visual demo one of the students still wasn’t clear. Moreover she tried to incorporate her new learning with her existing incorrect notions.

This is a prime example of how previous knowledge may not always be where we expect or would like it to be when starting a lesson. This video just made me think how challenging this obstacle may be to overcome. How can you start the lesson at a point where everyone understands and no one is left out? How do you have time to cover material from previous grades and still get through your own? How after explaining it multiple times and using multiple methods does a student still stick to their pre-conceived notions?

There appear to be enough common misconceptions in science that there are endless books and websites addressing the matter. Where is this problem stemming from and what can we do to correct it or minimize its impact so that the whole class reaches an understanding?  Our instructor, Todd, provided us in class with this website, http://homepage.mac.com/vtalsma/misconcept.html, which lists many of the science misconceptions we can expect in our class. I think being prepared for some of these misconceived notions to arise in the classroom will help but what else can we do?

And for those of you who were wondering, or haven’t googled it yet, the seasons are due to the tilt of our earth as we orbit the sun and how direct or indirect the sun’s rays are. It is NOT because we rotate in an ellipse (really almost a circle) and the temperature depends on how far we are from the sun.

See you tomorrow!

Students Needs

In my defence I don’t really know how to blog, but here it goes…

I found this interesting little tidbit of news and it piqued my interest as opposed to doing my actual assignment.

This woman took her son out of school because he was not getting the support he needed in the classroom. She does not want to return him to school until it is resolved. It all stems from the fact that the child’s educational assistant works with 4 children this year instead of the previous two.

31 educational assistants got cut this year because that was the projected need. My question is where the heck did all the students that need these educational assistants go over the course of 2 months? How did the Nanaimo school district come to this figure?

I have got to give props to the mom for not wanting her son in the school, but at the same time is no school better than school with little support?

If I was the teacher in that class and knew the situation I think that I would be so frustrated because you see a child who has made so much progress with an aid in the past and now with no aid the child is quickly becoming more and more agitated.

I don’t know what I would do in that situation, on one hand I would want to help the student to deal with what is going on, but I know that I can’t do that in a classroom of 30 or more kids.

With cuts to schools of support staff where does that leave us teachers? Are we responsible for picking up the slack and working the job of 2 or even 3 people?

I know we all want to see every student succeed, but what can we do without short changing some students somewhere?

Personally it is very overwhelming thought. I would never want to see a student being pulled out of my class due to the fact that he cannot succeed. I would want to do everything in my power to help him, but what would that look like? What are the limitations I am subjected to?

After being an aid myself, I know how much of an impact that the one on one with a student can have especially a student with autism if you take away that routine that comfort all heck can break loose.

Since each student is allocated a certain amount of funding depending on needs why hasn’t the district gotten enough funding from the government to meet the needs of all the students in the district that need assistance? Has all that money been allocated somewhere else?

I don’t know much about politics or government so I am not sure how it all works, but something seems amiss here. Thoughts?

P.S. Trying to post was so frustrating, it would not let my copy, or post when I had re-typed it out, so I hope this works.

Censorship