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These are the 4 essential pieces to my teaching philosophy puzzle
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Skill-Based Learning

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Courageous Learning
Environment

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Experiential

Learning

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Assessment Philosophy

Skill-Based Learning

I believe one of the most important aspects of secondary education is preparing students for life after high school through scaffolding skill development throughout the semester or year in a multitude of areas such as personal, interpersonal, and academic

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Personal:

  • Confidence and self esteem (journalling, pushing beyond personal comfort zones, affirmations)

  • Encouraging passions and interests (clubs, sports, hobbies)

  • Goal Setting (short term and long term), working towards goals, and recovering from goal setbacks

  • Resilience and Growth Mindsets (teaching students to learn and grow from mistakes, learning is an ongoing process, dedication > talent, getting out of their comfort zone, modelling all of these myself for my students and actively making these part of lesson activities and projects)

  • Organization (having an organized binder and organized google drive, keeping track of notes and assignments, creating drafts for projects)

  • Proactivity (teaching students how to be prepared for class, prepare for tests or assessments in advance, coming to class on time, taking responsibility for actions, foreseeing obstacles or challenges and adjusting before they happen, asking for extensions and coming up with a plan to achieve assignments by a certain date rather than handing assignments in late, modelling these things for my students myself in my own job)

  • Self Management (managing time, emotions, reactions, choices)

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​Interpersonal:

  • Collaboration and Teamwork (group projects with individual assessment, co-operative learning in lesson activities and labs)

  • Leadership (role delegation in group projects, have students take turns in different roles)

  • ​Conflict Resolution (have students create a conflict-contract for big group assignments where they agree on a course of action to take before coming to the teacher if conflict arises)

  • Communication (teaching respectful communication in conflict, in collaboration, between teacher-student communication, and what respectful debate looks and sounds like)

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​Academic/Professional:

  • ​Critical Thinking (having students back up answers with WHY rather than just the answer to questions, reflect on content in the class, relating class material to real world events and technology, teaching students how to recognize factual sources of information, teaching media literacy in every subject)

  • Inquiry (encouraging students to ask questions and ask why things happen or why things work and teaching students how to pursuit answers, scaffolding inquiry lab skills throughout the semester so that by the end, they are doing the labs all on their own and even designing them)

  • Responding to feedback​ (having micro-meetings with students about their strengths and areas where they could improve in the future, then guiding the student through coming with a plan to improve in the future)​​

Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning is the process of learning by doing followed by reflection and connecting to real world events or experiences. This allows for students to understand the WHY and HOW of what they're learning so that they can develop an intrinsic motivation and appreciation for their learning. 

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Here is how I will engage students in Experiential Learning in my future classrooms:

  • Labs

  • Dissections

  • Activities ​

  • Growing plants in the classroom to document and study cells

  • Inquiry Learning, Projects, and Labs

  • Field Trips

  • Simulations

Courageous Learning Environment

As all educators do, I want my classroom to be a space for students to feel respected and safe. One way in which I want to push this even further is to create a courageous classroom, where students can make mistakes and be uncomfortable and push themselves past their comfort zone so that they can be their most successful selves both in and out of my classroom.

 

I will work towards this with my students by:

  • teaching students to create short term and long term goals as well as how to work towards these goals

  • modeling making mistakes myself and learning from mistakes for my students

  • encouraging healthy and respectful debate in class

  • always allowing for creative opportunities within assessments

  • encouraging collaboration with all students and planning for co-operative learning experiences

Student-Centered Learning / Assessment

“What happens when students own their learning? They find their voice” -John Spencer, 2024

Assessment is ....

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My Assessment Philosophy is as follows:

  • I believe in student choice

  • I believe in timely, detailed feedback

  • I believe in meaningful assessment

  • I believe in formative assessment as practice

  • I believe in assessment AS learning

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My Assessment Philosophy in the classroom will look like this:

  • My students will have choice in how they are assessed (whether that be more traditional methods or more creative options

  • I will teach students how to monitor and track their own learning

  • I will have students be involved in their assessments through self assessments/ reflections

  • I will teach students how to take their learning further than the classroom

  • I will give feedback to students in a timely manner

  • My feedback will build students up and challenge them for future assignments​

  • I will identify areas for further instruction through formative assessments

  • I will differentiate my formative assessments to increase student engagement and tailor practice to student needs

  • I will use a “before, during, and after method” to identify prior knowledge, practice the information while learning, and correct any misunderstandings before moving on

My Classroom
Eco-Philosophy

With a health major and a biology minor, I believe it is important to incorporate environmental education into my classroom. Therefore, it is important to me that I help students connect different science and health topics to the world we live in and the importance of taking care of that world.​

If I have the opportunity to teach Biology 30, I see several areas of cross curricular education with environmental science and environmental stewardship. One way in which I am particularly excited about is through a combination of in-class gardening and cell theory:

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  • At the start of the semester, the teacher and students will plant peas and document its growth. Throughout the semester, they will learn about cells, photosynthesis, parts of a plant and how the earth and the structures of the plant work together to grow the pea seeds into a mature, vegetable-bearing plant. At the end of the semester, the students will harvest the peas from the plant, make slides from the peas and examine the pea cells under a microscope.

  •  They will be able to connect this activity to Biology 30 outcomes; BI30-OL1, BI30-OL2, and BI30-GB1 and Environmental Science outcome ES20-TE2.

  • Through this activity, I can lead the students into a discussion about how we can thank the earth for letting them grow and harvest the peas from the soil. This is a great activity to teach students about Nêhiyawak concepts and teaching such as Pimâcihowin (Practicing reciprocity through a balance of giving and taking from the land). 

Truth and Reconciliation

“Reconciliation in the context of education begins with the basic courtesy of acknowledging the peoples upon whose land we learn. The respect will grow from there” (Charlene Bearhead, 2016).

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By taking the initiative to acknowledge my privilege and uphold the utmost respect towards Indigenous cultures and Peoples, whose land I live and teach on, I can begin my journey towards reconciliation and decolonize my thinking and future classrooms.

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This is my aesthetic representation of my journey toward reconciliation. I chose to depict koi fish swimming upstream to represent the courage and resilience of Indigenous Peoples. The lilypads represent moments and places of learning for me, and the colours of the koi fish represent those found in the circle of courage. I chose to depict a river scene for several reasons. One is the cultural and biological importance of water for Indigenous Peoples, and the other is to represent the crucial injustice that is the lack of access to clean water in many First Nations reserves in Canada. 

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My Treaty Philosophy

My Treaty pedagogy is rooted in Tâpwêwin (truth-telling), Kihci-asotamâtowin (living treaties as sacred undertakings, as sacred promises to one another), and Wâhkôhtowin (the laws of relationships).

A big part of my adoption of Treaty pedagogy is working on decolonizing my classroom through more holistic, hands-on activities, changing the way I assess learning to focus less on the end product and more on the journey of learning as well as working to analyze and break down systems of power with students.

Another way in which treaty influences my pedagogy is Miyo-wîcêhtowin, the act of working and learning together and from one another.  A quote that represents this for me is from Dwayne Donald. He says “These (treaty) teachings place emphasis on learning from each other in balanced ways and sharing the wisdom that comes from working together in the spirit of good relations” (Donald, 2013). So to me, this means a lot of group work, or sharing their learning with one another. 

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For myself as an educator, Treaty pedagogy means committing to continuous learning and reflecting on my biases and privilege throughout my career. It also means accepting that I am going to make mistakes sometimes when teaching treaty education but it is better to try and to mess up, apologize, and correct than to do nothing at all out of fear of doing it wrong. Treaties are a dialogue and in the classroom, it is the teacher’s responsibility to facilitate that dialogue. 

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To engage my students with Treaty Teachings, I hope to teach through Treaties and base every unit and lesson through specific Treaty Teachings. For example, in a unit about Aquatic systems, I can use the Treaty Teaching of Wâhkôhtowin (the laws of relationships) to teach about the relationship between different parts of aquatic ecosystems and how they rely on each other. I could also teach about non-human kinship to our environment through Wâhkôhtowin (the laws of relationships) and reciprocity. In the section of this unit about biotic and abiotic parts of aquatic ecosystems, I can teach about how many Indigenous cultures understand many abiotic components as living. I use the word “understand” intentionally instead of “view” to honour and respect Indigenous knowledge. The language we use needs to be intentional towards working towards truth and reconciliation and being honest in our treaty pedagogy. 

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Overall, my main goal as an environmental science teacher is to teach through Treaties and through Two- Eyed Seeing and focus on the relationships between everything in science and teach science from multiple worldviews and understandings, and look to Indigenous environmental stewardship and knowledge to guide my teaching and help my students make sense of the world we live in.

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