{"id":956,"date":"2023-04-19T00:51:43","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T07:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/?p=956"},"modified":"2023-04-19T00:51:43","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T07:51:43","slug":"reflection-8-memorizing-city-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/2023\/04\/19\/reflection-8-memorizing-city-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection 8: Memorizing City Signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 9 & 10, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Observations<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t write many notes on March 9 because I taught a lesson that day and it was a shorter day. Because of this, I\u2019m merging the two days into one reflection.<\/p>\n

My mentor teacher told me about master’s programs and how that can raise your pay grade. She advised getting it in something applicable to another high-paying job like counselling, for example. She said this is helpful because it\u2019s more relevant to my life and vocation than some programs, and you might be hired as a school counsellor or something. Also, training in counselling helps you be a better teacher as well because you understand how students\u2019 minds work.<\/p>\n

On the last day before spring break (March 10), we used the bridging techniques mentioned before. They were allowed to play board games and do activities on their iPads. This is something she says she never allows, so the students were quite excited to play Minecraft together.<\/p>\n

I noticed the teacher finds it challenging to keep track of permission slips and the students who are late to turn them in.<\/p>\n

She explained to me some ways to prepare for TOCs and things to know if I want to be a TOC (which I am interested in for a bit). She writes all class procedures and weekly tasks on one sheet right at the beginning of the year so she\u2019s prepared for the TOC if something comes up.<\/p>\n

Today she got me to work with three students in the hall on their math terminology worksheet. It is crossword puzzles, word searches, and similar games to familiarize the class with math terms. One student has a reading disability. He is very smart, but he struggles to read simple words below most kids at his grade level.<\/p>\n

Reflections<\/strong><\/p>\n

I enjoyed these days. It was fun to play games with the students and get to know them a bit on a personal level. They were fairly good at chess because they had to do it for several classes with another teacher. It was fun to have a bit of a challenge but still feel like I could win or almost win. That doesn\u2019t really matter, but I thought it was funny. I\u2019m mediocre at chess so I have to go against younger people to feel competent.<\/p>\n

I found it interesting working with the boy with the reading disability because he managed to solve the crossword puzzle faster than the boys who could read well. He did this by counting the letters of words and seeing which spaces they fit into! This was genius, but it wasn\u2019t helping him understand math–it didn\u2019t meet the goal of the worksheet. He would have gotten all the answers correct with still learning nothing. Because of this, I asked him if I could tell him the words so he understands them and gains what he was meant to gain. We talked about the math terms and how they applied to math work. I found the teacher\u2019s way of strategizing with him interesting. She said she\u2019s talked to his mom and suggested getting him to memorize the meaning of all the significant signs around town visually. That way he can drive and navigate safely when he\u2019s older without having to be able to read. This makes me think about alternative forms of learning when everything else seems to fail. It\u2019s kind of sad because it feels like giving up. But at the same time, teaching him strategies for functioning in the world with minimal reading ability is crucial for him to thrive and use his giftedness. He will continue to try to keep reading, but in the meantime, he needs a mechanism besides reading to support him. I wonder how many similar situations there are in relation to EDUC 303. With many disabilities, the approach can be to try to train the kid to be able to have a skill we think they should have. While this is often good, I wonder what it would look like to form education according to the child\u2019s brain and strengths instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all education. I\u2019ll use ADHD as an example of how this can be applied. A teacher might try and try to get a student with ADHD to be quiet and sit still, but doing so only keeps them from distracting the class. It doesn\u2019t usually support their learning. Unless the material is interesting to them, the student will likely be focusing on masking their restlessness or zoning out so that they aren\u2019t learning from the lecture anyways. A better way to approach this might be by having more hands-on learning, letting students suggest topics so they are relevant and interesting, getting outside, letting antsy students go for a quick walk in the hall, allowing fidget toys, having conversational learning in groups, and breaking content into smaller sections. These tactics work with the student\u2019s needs instead of suppressing and conforming them to what feels normal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 9 & 10, 2023 Observations I didn\u2019t write many notes on March 9 because I taught a lesson that day and it was a shorter day. Because…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1490,"featured_media":958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-educ-303"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1490"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":959,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions\/959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/rileyrae\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}