During this class we went over some heavy and controversial topics! Growing up, I was told to never talk about Sex, Religion, or Politics. When topics like these are brought up, I tend to be taken out of my comfort zone. I feel like these are conversations that we should be having. The more we talk about them, the more we will be able to address one another with respect and understanding. I love to talk about my opinions and to address my ignorance on the topics I do not know anything or very little about. Part of becoming an Educator and even looking at myself as a human being going through life, being uncomfortable and breaking down your walls is an important part of self growth. Going forward, I feel like, by taking these steps, I am doing my best to be constantly learning and being able to provide a knowledgeable, safe, and inclusive classroom. When we are uncomfortable with what we do not know or understand, how do we change that? We learn. We need to open our minds and hearts to other perspectives, other facts, and do our best to learn in an unbiased way- this way we can teach in an unbiased way. For my symbol for this blog, I have chosen an Earth surrounded by diversity: diverse knowledge, cultures, colours, understandings, and perspective. In order for us to properly feel the past class, we need to understand that we are just one person with our own thoughts, backgrounds, and education. We all make up with the planet and in order to go further, we need to come together.
We went over a What Is Culture activity in class where we had to talk about and discuss what makes up culture. There were times when the whole class was on the same page, then when we were 50/50 split. This led to very interesting conversations that we came to learn that, these conversations were had by those in the Province. It is hard to have those conversations, yet impactful- we should be encouraged to be having these conversations and learning about these very topics. * see the document below *
Going forward, we participated in a Poll Guru (which is one of my favourite activities in the class). The first Poll Guru was based on how we are doing and how we feel about our assignments with assessing. This further touches on the symbol of all of us being our own individual selves, with our own thoughts and interpretations.
We also went through the 15 Fixes. The fixes of distortion, for low quality evidence, for bad grade calculations, and to fix support learning * see document below *. These were insightful to read through and work through with my peers. We sorted the items around in the ways that we believed were the most useful to not as useful as fixes. This pushed for conversation between those in my group to discuss how we believe each fix is useful in a classroom. This again proves the importance of my symbol for this blog being about the individuality around the world.
We went over something that I had never heard of before which is the PISA- Programme for International Student Assessment and the PCAP- Pan-Canadian Assessment Program. This is based on assessing students and comparing them in the subjects of: Reading, Science, and Mathematics. This is about all of the individual learners across the Earth, who learn differently across the globe.
These are areas that we should be acknowledging and analyzing as educators who assess and teach. In order for us to take the next steps, we have to have difficult conversations and be willing to stretch and evolve our own knowledge in the process.
Thank you for Reading!
Best, Baylee
