Implementing Treaty Education.

Treaty Education is the newest buzzword of Saskatchewan's educational system, and, unfortunately, not enough people are taking it seriously.  As pre-service teachers, we are kind of thrown to the wolves, so to speak.  We are expected to incorporate meaningful treaty education into every lesson plan, yet we are supplied with minimal resources.  All I have ever gotten for resources is the booklet from The Office of the Treaty Commissioner – and, to be completely honest, it isn’t very valuable.  The contents are a nebulous web of important topics, however there is no way to hash these topics into subject areas.  

Seemingly, even though Treaty Education is governmentally mandated, the Treaty outcomes and the curriculum outcomes are like oil and vinegar – they work together in the sense that they make a good salad dressing to pour onto a student’s learning/life experience, but (as it stands now) no matter how hard one tries to stir them, they do not mix.  I could have one of my routines being a quick “Did’ja kno!”  fact about treaty’s up on the board, and it could count that I have integrated treaties into my lesson, but is that beneficial to anyone?  Absolutely not.  Students will not remember it, as it has no meaningful impact, and the teacher will get an unwarranted sense of self-satisfaction.  

If students are coming into our classroom with absolutely zero pre-conceived knowledge of the treaties, weaving in and integrating Treaty Education into our lessons is going to be utterly useless.  This is why I believe a compulsory Treaty Education class in, let’s say, grade 9 would be extremely beneficial.  This class would give students the foundational knowledge that other teachers can then build upon in their own classrooms.  The argument about teachers neglecting to teach treaties in their classroom because “they have all had a class on it already, so what is the point” begins to arise when the thought of a treaty based class comes up.  Personally, I don’t think this argument holds much substance – it is still a mandated part of the education profession, so teaching it is not only still necessary, but expected.  

For my ECS 410 class, we had a guest by the name of Tim Caleval come in from the Ministry of Education, and right at the end of his presentation, he touched upon the Maori people of New Zealand and how the Government of New Zealand worked hard to raise the graduation rates of these Maori people and changed the educational system to benefit them.  I see a great deal of parallels between Saskatchewan and New Zealand – the only difference is the governmental apathy of our province.  

If we work together -- get the resources, get the plans in place, and all have a mutual understanding of Treaty Education -- we can implement a meaningful way of learning with the treaties.  

Grading Behaviour.

In both my ECS 350 and ECS 410 classes, we have recently had discussions and debates on whether or not a student's behaviour should reflect their mark.  This is a really interesting topic that has opened my eyes to a viewpoint that I wouldn't have previously seen. 

During my elementary and high school careers, I was always the "good" student.  I wouldn't come late to class, I would always put a great deal of effort into assignments and hand them in on time, and I was attentive in class.  When classmates wouldn't hand things in on time, it always irked me.  I'm not entirely sure why, but it usually boiled down "if I got it done, why couldn't you".  Which I now realize is a terrible attitude.

Coming from this place, I would think I weigh behaviour quite highly.  Being a courtious student was clearly important to me.  It still is, but in a different way.  I now understand that people are different from me -- different backgrounds, different issues, as so on.

In my 350 class, we had a case study in a math class that had three very different students:

• A student that very rarely showed up and distracted others when he would, but knew what he was doing and gets 90% on every exam.
• A student who showed up every day, was okay at assignments, but did very poorly on tests
• A student who was a single mother, so she is unable to show up every day, went into the class with a grade 3 level of math, but was improving.  She now has a grade 4 math literacy level.

We were asked to discuss who should be passing the class/have the better mark in the class.  It is very strange to think about, as my intuition would say that the latter two students should be rewarded for their hard work, and the first one should be punished for not being a good student.  Now, however, the biggest question needs to be asked: who hit the outcomes of the class?  The first one did, and the other two did not.  According to outcomes, which is what educators want to strive to hit, the first student should pass the class while the other two would fail it.

Now, however, some rational can be had if we look at the Saskatchewan Curriculum's Broad Areas of Learning.  Could this first student be considered a lifelong learner or an engaged citizen?  The attitude he presents would disagree, but these BALs are not the biggest focus in the classrooms today.

My stance on this is still slightly up in the air.  I think that students need to be held accountable for their actions (late assignments, missing classes, etc) because we do want engaged citizens for the future, but people need leeway. 

Cold-calling in Classrooms.

Now that I have had time to stew after watching the videos entitled "The Classroom Experiment," I would like to respond to something that caught my attention.

First thing's first -- I've always been against the technique of "Cold Calling" based entirely on the fact that next to no one knows why they use it.  Students see cold calling as nothing more than a chance to be publicly embarrassed based on their lack of knowledge of a specific question.  These single questions are not indicative of what a student knows of a topic.  More often than not, teacher use cold calling without explaining to students that it isn't meant to be an exercise in embarrassment and shame and that not knowing something is fine, so long as you try and learn from it.

This is something that I think Dylan William did well within the videos.  He had the teachers he was working with explain exactly what I had mentioned to their students, and that made it a bit less bothersome for me.  I also really liked the way they did the cold calling.  Teachers wrote the names of students on wooden sticks and placed them in a jar and pulled them at random.  This was really cool because it removes any notion of "playing favourites" and "picking on students."

I understand that cold calling has a place within a classroom, and it's fantastic to hear from students that may not always volunteer to answer a question, but teacher do need to be weary about how, why, and when they use it.

While reading an article entitled "Impact of Cold-Calling on Student Voluntary Participation" by Dallimore, Hertenstein, and Platt they make a very interesting assertion by saying "in classes with high cold-calling, students' comfort participating in class discussions increases, while in classes with low cold-calling, students' comfort participating does not change" (305).  This is supported by their findings presented on page 319, and it makes sense.  If they are (for lack of a better word) forced into talking in front of their peers, then they will grow used to it and participating in discussions will become much more naturally.

All things considered, Dylan William and his classroom experiment has opened my eyes to the validity of cold-calling.  That being said, I likely will not use it all that often, if ever, but if I do, I'd like to go about it the way that William has.


Citation of article used:
Dallimore, E. J., J. H. Hertenstein, and M. B. Platt. "Impact of Cold-Calling on Student Voluntary Participation." Journal of Management Education 37.3 (2013): 305-41. Print.

Our World, Our Ways -- Assessment with an Indigenous perspective

The world of assessment is incredibly vast and the "what ifs" that plague it make unpacking it a difficult task for teachers.  While reading through chapter six of this document, many discussions from both ECS 350 and ECS 410 come to mind, as many of the things touched upon in the document link back. For example, on page 113, this list is provided:

As a result of these circumstances, Aboriginal students may be

penalized by a number of common assessment practices, including:

·        single rather than multiple assessment methods

·        inflexible deadlines (with late

penalties or “0” for incomplete

assignments)

·        time-limited assessments

·        marks awarded for class participation and effort

·        awarding zeros for incomplete or missing assignments

·        failure to match testing to teaching

·        surprising students with pop quizzes

It specifically states this for Aboriginal students (and it makes sense based on the fact that it is a document discussing teaching First Nations, Métis, and Inuit learners), but I feel as though each of these points can/should be applied to all learners.  In fact, save for the parts discussing the specific Indigenous cultural aspects, this could be applied to anyone.

Using multiple assessment methods and tools should become common practice among educators.  In our own careers as students, we have experienced that we learn differently than our classmates, and having the option to express what we have learned in different ways, whether it be oral, visual, musical, etc.

The chapter also brings up some really important sample strategies for teachers to use with their students, but to pull one out that I thought was really important, it suggests that we provide an in-class review.  Now, some people may say “well of course you would provide an in-class review, that’s only natural,” without thinking of the bigger benefits that it actually provides.  You will most certainly have students who have parents/guardians that are more than willing and able to aid in the study process.  However, not all students have these supports at home, so if you are to offer these supports, it really “levels the playing field,” so to speak.  These in-class reviews are also beneficial for every student, as they will begin to understand exactly what the teacher is looking for on the exam.  

 Assessment is still a pool of uncertainty, as we can never be sure if our practices are really benefitting every student in the long run.  Until we find a utopian school with practices in place that aid everyone, we just need to be aware of the potential of our students and continue to adapt our practices.

Learning Journey -- Week Three's Class

During this class, we were lucky enough to have a guest speaker come in and talk about assessment. Laurie Gatzke, if I'm not mistaken, works for Regina Public Schools as the Supervisor of Assessment and Evaluation, giving a great presentation of the evolution of assessment in public schools. She touched upon norm-based assessment, CAT and RAD testing, and rubrics. 

I found it really interesting when we marked those Grade 9 sample RAD tests.  Due to lack of resources, I was with a partner, and her and I were fairly accurate with our marks, which I found neat.  Looking at the example responses, however, made it umpteen times easier to figure out where the student should be placed. 

Once we returned to class, I learned of one heck of a good resource -- the PBIS website.  It offers a fantastic amount of resources, supports, and information to aid with special education.

Learning Journey -- Week Two's Class

As it stands, I very much enjoyed tonight's class.  I'm not really all that good at class discussions, especially when I'm with a group that I don't really know, and even though I wasn't making comments to everyone, I was able to chat a bit with my table group.  There were a few things I wanted to comment on -- mostly based on grading.

Grading:

In class, we had a big discussion on grading and whether or not we should put letter grades or numbers, whether or not we should change the letters that are used, and if we should keep where grades fall a secret.  When it comes to the letter/percentage grades on assignments, it's hard to really make a non-biased statement on them.  That system is what I grew up on, and I was always on "top" of it -- meaning I was a student who received good grades.  Because of that, I see the benefits of this kind of grading, as in, you can see that your work does need improvement, and if you're provided with feedback, you can work on it.  That being said, once you start thinking about how these grades create a hierarchical structure of intelligence and this shoves students into thinking they're not good enough for school and just deflates them.  

If the province adopted a new grading system that hasn't been used before, straying away from percentages, straying away from the A, B, C, ect, I could see the use of quantifiable grading becoming a thing, it just has to be well through out.  

There was also a discussion on not using the Assessment for and Assessment as learning not going towards the final grade of the class.  The dynamic of students not doing work that doesn't go to their grade came up.  My table discussed that if you had a section for classwork or participation, it would encourage students to do their work, but also not evaluate them based on the quality of the work done, simply the completion.

Learning Journey -- Week One's Class

As it stands right now, I'm very excited to jump into the world of assessment.  Within my ELANG 300 class of last semester, we had to make a 50 hour unit plan, and I found that assessment is what I struggled with the most.  I found myself cycling through the exit slips, questions boxes, observations, and discussions quite frequently.  One can only do that for so long before it becomes stale.  I'm mostly interested in how this e-portfolio is going to turn out -- this is one of four portfolios I have to make before the end of the semester, and one of the two that is online.

test1

This is a test.