Amadeus' EDUC 450B Blog

The concept of praise is very interesting to me for the following reasons. When praise is given, students may begin to seek the praise instead of the actual activity that the student is being praised for. However if praise is not given, then students may begin to lose sight of even doing the activity needed to be done. Social (verbal) praise, in my opinion, will promote more positive vibes whereas other types of praise (e.g. physical rewards like a piece of candy) could distract the student from the importance of the actual activity. The concept of blame is a negative one in my opinion. A better look on the situation is whereby someone should take responsibility, or ownership of the problem. Blame versus ownership is an important distinction that can cause one to dwell on the problem (blame) as opposed to trying to fix it for the future (ownership). In terms of mindset and student engagement I believe it is important to foster a positive environment in the classroom where students ...

Quote 1: "To receive recognition literally means to be known. Someone who recognizes me thereby acknowledges my existence, my very being. This is not the same as fleetingly noticing people who one passes in a busy street." In terms of 'tact in teaching', this quote makes a lot of sense. The importance here is that in order for tact to exist in teaching, the teacher must recognize that the student really does exist and that they are a being that has feeling, learns, and teaches others too. This, as opposed to how a teacher could look at a student as 'fleeting' from class to class, and year to year. Quote 2: "A reflective relation takes into consideration the critical, perspectival, and cultural nature of scientific theories, as well as the implications of the psychological (cognitive) and the social (ideological) genesis of knowledge for the living reality of pedagogical relations." In terms of 'tact in teaching', this quote provide...

Flipped classrooms have been a topic of debate in education of late. It has its advantages which include more teacher-to-student time in practical applications of topics including math. Students will watch videos on lecture content at home while problem solving in class with the aid of teachers and peers. The disadvantages include the increased screen-time in the era of technology, and also the fact that making sure these students actually watch the videos is very difficult. My stance on flipped classrooms is that facets of this should be used in schools. In this, I mean that videos are a great method to assist learning and increase class time for teacher-student interaction and problem solving. Furthermore, I believe some subjects would be better off without much use of the flipped classroom style at all such as English where a lot of the learning already occurs in class through discussion. Overall, I hope to see some aspects of the flipped classroom style introduced into classes, b...

Even though this article was written in an older time and place, it does speak to me. Several concepts mentioned in this article relate to my life and views as a teacher candidate. For instance, the attitudes that the article describes as open mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness are all attitudes that I feel are necessary to be a successful educator. Together, the article says that these attitudes encompass a reflective teacher and I agree with the idea that teachers should begin to adopt these attitudes in an effort to improve inquiry and learning in their classrooms. Parts of this article, however, seem dated such as Phillip Jackson's belief that teachers would not be able to function at all in classrooms if they spent more time reflecting about the purposes and consequences of their work. I believe this thinking it dated because we now know that reflection is an important aspect to consider when promoting inquiry in classrooms. This article helps me develop idea...

This class we watched two videos about an Irish man in the mid 1900s who discovered himself in becoming an 'ordinary' teacher. My thoughts on teacher inquiry jive well with those of Frank's in that both of us feel like we should side with the students. We should be constantly learning from them as they are learning from us. This was best described when he said "if you're teaching and not learning, you're not teaching." This concept relates to how the new BC curriculum for Science is changing to be more conceptual and less of a teacher-feed-student facts type of environment. Learning conceptual knowledge involves an active classroom environment in which students and teachers are actively enriching the topic of discussion. On the flip side,  it is extremely difficult to find the fine line of being a professional while siding with the students. Frank admits to telling students crimes that he had committed however I doubt this would be acceptable in today...

As a prospective Science/Biology teacher, there are several areas of education that intrigue me and may serve as a topic for my Inquiry 1 & 2 project: I am interested in how to balance different types of learning within my biology classroom. It is well known that learning occurs at different levels with different methods depending on the student. For instance some students may learn better visually, others may learn better with concrete text. Finding the balance for classroom activities including a variety of learning techniques is something I wish to inquire about. Furthermore, the levels of teaching with different techniques may change from class to class, based on the diversity of learners in the class. The incorporation of SEL learning into my biology classroom is an area of education that interests and challenges me. Social emotional learning is something that should be recognized and acknowledged in each classroom. One cannot efficiently learn when they are in...

In a segment of today's class we explored "six controversial statements about (mathematics) education." My group specifically investigated the statement "you cannot learn from your mistakes." My take on this statement is that I very much disagree with it. I believe that making mistakes is one of the most valuable and enriching ways to learn. Psychological neuroscience has shown us that when we do something correctly (or rewardingly) our brain fires stronger and faster neural signals for doing this action; conversely when we do something the wrong our brain keeps memory of the way these neural signals were fired, and remembers not to do it again. Memory, therefore, is one of the strongest reasons I believe that you can  and should  learn from your mistakes. Although my group and I unanimously disagreed with the statement, we attempted to find reasoning backing the statement. I thought that making mistakes again and again may wear on the confidence of the stu...

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