Amadeus' EDUC 450B Blog

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Armbruster, P., Patel, M., Johnson, E., & Weiss, M. (2009). Active learning and student-centered pedagogy improve student attitudes and performance in introductory biology. CBE-Life Sciences Education , 8 (3), 203-213. This article describes a case study on the reorganization of a first-year university biology class. The three main points they have done include teaching specific contents with broader conceptual themes, incorporating active and problem-based learning, and making the environment more student-centered. The result of increased student interest and performance is relevant to our promotion of scientific thinking. Bell, R. L., & Trundle, K. C. (2008). The use of a computer simulation to promote scientific conceptions of moon phases. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 45 (3), 346-372. doi:10.1002/tea.20227 Common misconception on how moon phases work is common, and all 50 pre-service teachers in this study held such misconceptio...

Annotated Bibliography Abeysekera, L., & Dawson, P. (2015). Motivation and cognitive load in the flipped classroom: definition, rationale and a call for research. Higher Education Research & Development , 34 (1), 1-14. Flipped classrooms allow students to do the preparatory work ahead of the class, easing the cognitive load via a self-paced study process. Thus, it might decrease the homework load significantly since most of the work will be done in class. Bembenutty, Héfer, and Marie C. White."Academic performance and satisfaction with homework completion among college students. Learning and Individual Differences 24 (2013): 83-88. Homework and self-regulation increase the academic success of students, thereby increasing their motivation to do the homework. Calderwood, C., Ackerman, P. L., & Conklin, E. M. (2014). What else do college students “do” while studying? An investigation of multitasking. Computers & Education , 75 , 19-29. ...

Bodily experiences can be described as physical and visual learning that can consolidate knowledge in a way that typical classroom learning sometimes cannot do. In my opinion, bodily experiences are very useful as a learning tool in the classroom, however I don't feel that it should be the main, or the only way to learn. My philosophy for teaching at the moment involves teaching with several different techniques: oral, visual, physical, etc. I believe that in doing this, a greater range of learners needs will be met since everyone learns better through different techniques. Therefore, bodily experience will definitely be useful to me. Furthermore, as a hockey coach it is easy to see that physical learning has a huge impact on children's learning and consolidation. You can't learn to play hockey from watching a hockey game, you actually have to physically play it to learn it. In the same way, you can't fully learn in school until you put the concepts into practice. When ...

I still feel that my ideas are relevant to me for my inquiry project (http://amadeuseduc450b.blogspot.ca/2017/09/entrance-slip-inquiry-topic.html). However, there are some new ideas that have grasped my interest, especially after today's class on "are marks accurate?" Marks have been a form of assessment for longer than I can remember and I don't think answering the question "are marks accurate" is black/white. However, I do feel that I stand more on the side of yes, they are accurate. This brings up the topic of assessments: what are the best ways for biology to be assessed (multiple choice, short answer, essay, presentations, etc)? Is there a best way? How can we prevent students from learning to take tests and get them to learn for their own knowledge? I believe this comes down to objectives that differ. Students often want to learn so that they can get good grades, while teachers often teach so that they can educate students. These objectives are subtl...

I liked this reading (http://einsights.ogpr.educ.ubc.ca/v14n01/articles/sarte/index.html) because it is highly relevant to me right now. I was in my first ever classroom observation session yesterday and students in Science 10 were learning about gene alleles and traits. Briefly, this has to do with how certain alleles are dominant over other alleles: if B=brown fur, b=black fur, then BB= brown animal, Bb= brown animal, bb= black animal. When I asked one of the students if she understood this concept she said "Yes, when the letters are both uppercase it's homozygous and when they aren't it's heterozygous." I took a step back and asked the student "Yeah, but do you understand where in the body these 'uppercase' and 'lowercase' letters come into play? Like how are these pairs of letters even relevant to our bodies?" She had no answer for me. Now this is just one student, but I feel like she represents more students in the lack of conceptual...

The media plays a role in almost everything that goes on in the world, and for this reason I believe it is important for us to consider its role in the classroom, especially as a prospective teacher. I personally feel that the media plays its biggest role by instilling a certain attitude around schools, classrooms, and most importantly students, all prior to them even entering the classroom. They are given preconceptions about "coping with back to school stress" instead of being "excited to go back to school" just as an example. Furthermore, certain subjects are deemed to be "better for males or females" than others. The list goes on about some of the ways the media influences student's feelings towards school but I believe the media has the potential to generate joy and enthusiasm about school just as easily. The benefits of this would be that students will want to come to school and enjoy their time in whichever subjects they wish to take. As a teach...

Today we visited the UBC Orchard Garden and my experience, as a prospective teacher was one much different than I have had before. This time around, I took in the garden as a place of learning. It was a place where I could engage my senses and gain a sense of wonder for the space I was in. Susan did an excellent job of allowing us to show our wonder via the drawing activity we did. We were asked to draw man-made and natural things we saw but I found myself spending all 30 minutes drawing a pumpkin and a bit of its background. One thing I learned from this activity was that when drawing man-made objects there is often a start, and a stop. Contrastingly when I was drawing this pumpkin I saw the stem attached to another plant and the plant attached to the ground and the ground holding other pumpkins and insects on the leaves and on and on and on…What I took away from this is that natural objects are continuous, and are all interconnected. This struck a bell for teaching in...

This paper was interesting to me because I felt it was very relevant to what we are learning, as teacher candidates, in several of our classes. The idea of place-based learning is one that intrigued me not as a "eureka!" idea but more like an idea that made me think. How can place-based learning apply to subjects across the board? It is more obvious in some subjects than others. In Amy Cutter-Mackenzie's article about multicultural school gardens she provides thoughts on children's gardening and how this can transcend language and cultural differences. I feel that learning in gardens or any outdoor space can totally enhance the learning experience. When you are outside your senses are all engages. Your sight, hearing, smell, touch, and even taste are all different compared to when you are inside a typical classroom for every single one of your classes. I believe that when you are engaged, you begin to question. When you begin to question, you are at the heart of inq...

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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