5015Q: Teaching, Learning & Development
Week 1
Planning for the Upcoming School Year
Week 2
Considering Child and Adolescent Development
Week 8
Socio-Cultural Considerations and Culturally Responsive Teaching
Week 6
How Your Students Learn
Week 4
Establishing a Positive Learning Environment
Week 3
Cognitive, Behavioural, Social and Constructivist Approaches to Learning
Week 9: End of School Year
What is the Value of Standardized Testing?
Week 7
Individual Differences - Intellectual Abilities and Challenges, and Including Students with Exceptionalities
Week 5
Making Instruction Decisions and Letting Students Hack Their Lesson Plan
Big Idea 2 Positivity
Big Idea 3 Development #
Big Idea 1
Teachers are students too
Big Idea 1
Students are encouraged to take on a more active role in their learning and their acquisition of knowledge
Children are not passive, empty vessels; it is not the teacher's sole responsibility to "fill them up with knowledge"
Constructivism and the Student-Centered Approach to learning #
Students constantly construct their own knowledge
Children are encouraged to formulate their own understandings
Learning becomes more meaningful when students assume an active role in their learning
Seth Godin: Stop Stealing Dreams!
When kids are sent to the "factory" known as school, they see it as work and want to do less of it
School should be a fun, engaging, and motivating place where students want to be #
Often, teachers simply ask students to "collect the dots" by regurgitating information #
You cannot except children to "connect the dots" by having them read from a textbook
Schools are often portrayed as assembly lines that simply feed information to children
Concepts to consider:
Open book all the time; anything that is worth memorizing can be researched online
Teacher = Coach
Encourage life-long learning #
A truly professional teacher is also a reflective practitioner
It is important for teachers to analyze and reflect on their teaching practices in order to become more effective educators
It is important that teachers remain open-minded & flexible, because teaching is neither stagnant, nor a permanent way of being
Classrooms are diverse and every student is unique
It is important to provide variety in the classroom to reach every student
Teachers learn just as much from their students as their students learn from them
Adora Svitak : What Adults Can Learn from Kids
#
Children's creativity, imaginations and utopia-like thinking push boundaries
Learning should be reciprocal
However all too often, adults underestimate children's abilities, and consequently lower their expectations of children
This can no longer happen!
Adults should maintain higher expectations of children to encourage learning and foster their developmental growth
Teachers have a responsibility to learn about their students and get to know them individually to build relationships and create an engaging and meaningful classroom environment #
Teachers must strive to develop a growth mindset among their students
Students learn to respond to challenges in positive ways, and recognize that their abilities can improve. They also engage deeply in tasks, thereby increasing brain activity and forming new neural connections to generate meaningful understandings #
It is crucial for teachers to praise the process and to not always focus on incorrect answers
Praise the students' efforts, problem-solving strategies, and their focus on the task at hand, and encourage self-reflection to build resiliency #
This includes altering and/or changing students' mindsets to build confidence and persistence
Physical Development is genetically predetermined and proceeds mostly unabated
Cognitive Development includes humans' innate curiosity, and their deep and contant desire to understand their environment to survive #
Humans have an innate drive to organize and adjust information to make sense of the environment
Social Development is largely rooted in Vygotsky's concept of the Zone of Proximal Development
Children are given tasks slightly beyond their skill set, so that the only way they can complete the task is with assistance from a More Knowledgable Other
Social interactions create cognitive structures and support learning #
Scaffolding = active instructional support
Development is an orderly and gradual process with periods of rapid and slow growth, and quantitative and qualitative changes
Genetics set developmental potential
The environment determines if genetic potentials/predispositions are realized
Big Idea 1 Cognitivism
Big Idea 2 Behavioursim #
Big Idea 3 Constructivism
The mind is like a computer, or an information processor with a hard drive
The brain is constantly combining, arranging and rearranging what it knows #
The brain is a naturally effective learning machine
Based on Piaget's work & findings
Educators are encouraged to take on the role of an observer while students construct their own knowledge
Teachers have a responsibility to encourage autonomy and children's own acquisition of knowledge #
The brain has a desire to achieve a state of mental equilibrium via accommodating and adapting new information
The process of going from a state of disequilibrium to equilibrium is the mark of learning and intelligence
Learning is the result of experience
Tabula Rase = blank slate
Learning is influenced by who we are, what we know, what we have experienced and our expectations
People learn by watching what happens with others
Learners are active in constructing their own knowledge and generating understanding
Big Idea 1 Motivation #
Big Idea 2
DCM and Classroom Management #
Tony Wagner: Collaboration is far more important than competition 
There is no competitive advantage to knowing more than your peers, because anything worth knowing can be researched online
We no longer live in a "knowledge economy"
Regurgitating or memorizing facts as an indicator of knowledge has become obsolete because of the Internet
In the classroom, tasks must be innovative, interesting, and cognitively demanding
If students are motivated to learn and succeed, they will continue to acquire new skills and knowledge that will be used throughout their lives #
The classroom environment must be comfortable and flexible to support a variety of learning activities, student needs, and student engagement
Develop caring and supportive relationships with students to promote self-regulation and positivity
Organize instruction to optimize student access to learning
Use appropriate interventions
Respond supportively according to the students' needs
Students' fundamental needs: sense of belonging, autonomy, ownership, responsibility, sense of success, and competency #
Each student is unique with their own set of strengths and weaknesses #
"Average" destroys talent
Because the majority of learning environments and classrooms are designed according to the average, they cannot nurture every individual success
Use differentiated learning strategies #
Self-regulated learning builds resiliency
Tasks should be complex
Students should be encouraged to make decisions and monitor their own progress
Big Idea 2
Differentiated Instruction
Big Idea 3
Universal Instructional Design
Teachers should be supportive in letting students guide their own learning and encouraging problem-solving #
Learners are active participants in seeking meaning and understanding
Social negotiation #
Self-determination #
Students learn via dialogue and collaboration
Learning includes: developing skills, critical thinking, solving problems and acknowledging multiple viewpoints and opinions
Provide content in a variety of ways
Multiple representations of content
Teachers must create more equitable classroom environments that are accessible to all and reach every student's needs
Teachers must be flexible in their approaches to teaching and learning
If students are able to access information in a variety of formats, this increases the likelihood of meaningful understanding
Multiple methods of presentation, expression and engagement
Big Idea 2
Understanding By Design
Big Idea 3
How People Learn (HPL) Framework
Instruction reflects what is going to be assessed at the end of a unit/term #
Teachers determine assessments ahead of specific content
Teachers must know where they want to take their students and chart their instructional map accordingly
Consider assessment questions first
Goal: by the end of the unit, students will be able to succeed at the assessment, because instruction of course material purposefully reflects the final assessment
Teachers are better able to determine unit content when they plan assessments first
Understanding by Design is a rich, practical framework for curriculum, assessment design and teaching #
Goal: Teach and assess for understanding and transfer of knowledge #
The intent is for students to understand the larger, more transferable ideas
Teachers do not just test facts and basic skills #
Plan backwards #
This helps teachers to focus on the big ideas and the overall learning goals, so that each individual lesson plan reflects curriculum expectations #
Knowledge Centered: teachers help students build a bridge between prior knowledge and new topics to foster understanding, encourage discovery, and apply concepts to new situations #
Big Idea 1 Creativity
Big Idea 2 Intelligence
Big Idea 3 Students with Exceptionalities and Inclusion
Creativity is as important as literacy, and educators should treat it with the same status #
Children have incredible capacities for innovation, but adults have a habit of diminishing them #
Children are educated out of their creativity, because the education system has long ruled that making mistakes is the worst thing a child can do #
Intelligence = the ability to learn from experience, adapt to one's environment, and use knowledge to solve problems
Individuals can be intelligent in many different ways #
Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligence suggests that there are 8 separate intelligence structures, and that everyone has a varying level of ability within each type of intelligence
Linguistic, Logical, Spatial, Musical, Kinaesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalistic
Gardner's theory is embraced by teachers in education, because they know that every student thinks and learns differently
Thus, different ways of teaching are needed
Goal: encourage teaching for depth of understanding, and not breadth of coverage (Quality vs. Quantity)
High-Indicdence exceptionalities = mild disabilities that include learning disabilities, behavioural disorders, giftedness and intellectual disabilities
Low-Incidence exceptionalities = moderate to severe disabilities that include serious health impairments and multiple disabilities (Ex. Autism)
Instructional approaches must respond to the needs of the group and be tailored for individuals #
Course material should be made accessible to all students by including multiple representations of course content
Inclusive schools are characterized by teachers who treat each student as a unique individual and assist students with diverse learning needs
Values diversity, multiculturalism, social justice and belonging
Students with exceptionalities in inclusive settings perform better on academic measures and measures of social competence
Education for All promotes the inclusion of students with exceptionalities to have access to teaching practices in regular classrooms
Teachers must put children in situations where they can fail, because this will build resiliency and help to foster learning #
Todd Rose: The Myth of Average 
Jay McTighe
Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Big Idea 1
The Danger of a Single Story
Big Idea 2
Culturally Responsive Practices in the Classroom #
Big Idea 3 Socio-Economic Status
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
It is important to listen to all stories #
A single story that is told repeatedly shows a people as one thing
A single story diminishes an individual's experiences and undermines their dignity
A single story perpetuates stereotypes (Ex. Western literature often portrays Africa as a negative place that is defined by sickness, disease, poverty and suffering)
Teachers must encourage students to see the world through multiple cultural lenses
By changing our cultural lens, we can change the way our brain perceives behaviours and celebrate individuality
All children are different, but all children can learn! #
Each child has different strengths, weaknesses and abilities
Teachers must be able to meet the various needs of culturally diverse learners
A culturally responsive practice includes broad cultural knowledge and an instructional base that continues to evolve, grown and change #
Teachers must know how to inquire about students' backgrounds in order to establish links across cultures
It is crucial to establish respect and equity, and reduce prejudice
Academic achievement increases when teachers use knowledge about their students' social and cultural backgrounds
Emphasize cooperation and collaborative learning
Teachers must understand the various social and cultural values, beliefs, norms and expectations that accompany children to school every day
Social-identity factors can emanate from race, gender, SES, and culture, and thus influence how students learn, how much they learn and how well they learn
Diversity must be valued, and no specific culture should be seen as dominant or superior
Indicates a person's social class, based on education, occupation and income
SES has the greatest impact on scholastic achievement
The higher an individual's SES, the greater likelihood of higher academic achievement
Children from low SES backgrounds are at increased risk of developmental delays, economic hardship, and experiencing authoritarian parenting
Children from low SES backgrounds are also at risk of poorer physical, social, emotional development and intellectual capacities
When I was in my first year of my Undergraduate Program at the University of Waterloo, I remember that my German Professor frequently applied the Student-Centered Approach to learning. Recognizing that it was an introductory course to the German language, she wanted the students to feel comfortable. Not only did she take the time to get to know the students by assigning a project to create and present a family tree, but she also encouraged us to determine the grammar rules and German language structures independently, emphasizing speaking, group work, and collaboration.
Having a twin brother has been an incredible experience, especially growing up with someone always by my side! Interestingly though, I remember that I matured physically and developed cognitive and social abilities at a faster rate than he did. I remember that adults always thought that I was 2-3 years older than him, simply because of our difference in size and ability. As a future teacher, I recognize that it is extremely important to keep in mind that every child is unique and develops differently; and as such, has their own individual set of skills, strengths and weaknesses.
The debate between nature vs. nurture continues to be a prominent point of discussion. As a future teacher, I believe that it is especially important to consider the "nurture" side of the argument. The fact that teachers are responsible for establishing positive relationships with their students and building a flexible and comfortable learning environment is crucial to children's development. Ultimately, how a teacher interacts with their students, and their classroom behaviours and expectations will impact students' learning and their social and cognitive development. Teachers must not underestimate their role in nurturing their students' minds and development.
As an Anglophone, I entered the mandatory Grade 9 French class thinking that I was simply there to receive a credit, and that I would never take another French course again. However, my French teacher inspired, motivated and encouraged me to continue to study the language. While there were many times I thought about quitting, she continued to support me, and never stopped believing in me. By establishing a supportive relationship and a sense of belonging, her class was a place where I genuinely wanted to be. Because of her, I continued to pursue French throughout High School, and eventually majored in French studies for my Undergraduate program at the University of Waterloo.
Reflecting on my own educational experiences, the majority of the classroom settings were very traditional; student desks were arranged in rows, and the teacher spent most time lecturing in front of the class at the chalkboard. Today, it is important to remember that every child learns differently. As a future teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure that each student achieves their own success, tailoring instruction and representation of course material to fit individual needs and support students' acquisition of knowledge and understanding by arranging for multiple means of expression and engagement.
I believe that the Understanding by Design framework marks a significant shift in the teaching mentality. During Elementary School, my teachers would all too often focus on smaller concepts, often testing objective facts, instead of encouraging students to think about greater concepts to generate more significant understanding. I personally believe that teachers must be mindful that testing of facts does not necessarily equate to knowledge acquisition. Today, teachers have a responsibility to encourage students to think for themselves, and formulate their own meaningful understandings, which can be achieved via: creating flexible, positive learning environments, extensive planning, providing rich opportunities to learn in a variety of ways, and focusing on the big ideas in the curriculum.
I've always enjoyed taking Multiple Intelligence tests, because I am better able to understand how I think and how I approach the completion of tasks. Specifically, my strongest intelligence structure is Intrapersonal Intelligence, followed by Verbal and Visual Intelligence. I find this very fitting, as I always study by speaking out loud and visualizing written text on a page, and then repeating the process untilI have grasped a concept. However, I recognize that as a future teacher, it is important to give students choice in their learning and assessment, so that they are better able to demonstrate their understanding.
While volunteering at my High School last year, I realized the more students with exceptionalities and IEPs were enrolled in regular-streamed classes. Overall, I believe that including students with exceptionalities is beneficial, as it creates a more positive and accepting classroom environment, while simultaneously encouraging students to look out for one another and contribute to each other's learning. As an aside, reflecting upon my Elementary years from Kindergarten to Grade 5 allow me as a teacher candidate to see the value and merit of going to school with a child who had Down Syndrome. The inclusivity of our classroom allowed for a unique learning experience, not only for this child, but for others like myself.
My High School experience was very different from most. Located in an upper-middle class suburb, the demographics differed greatly in comparison to other High Schools in the region. Minorities were very visible,simply because there were so few attending. Reflecting on my experience, I now understand how important it is for me as a future teacher to encourage diversity and establish respect and fairness in the classroom. School must be a place where children want to be, and part of that is respecting and promoting cultural differences.
Big Idea 2 Arguments in support of Standardized Testing
Big Idea 1 Standardized Testing
Administered to conduct analyses of student abilities and set performance standards
Tests contain the same questions for all students; tests are administered under the same conditions for all students within a specific time frame; and tests are scored in a systematic manner
Criterion-Referenced: A student's test score is determined by comparing their performance to established criteria
Norm-Referenced: A student's score is determined by comparing their performance to that of other students
Standardized tests help to determine whether or not children have required the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes as mandated by the curriculum
Standardized tests help to determine the overall effectiveness of the education system
Standardized tests hold teachers accountable for student learning #
Interestingly, the original purpose of administering standardized tests was to assess the effectiveness of teacher instruction, not the students' academic progress
Standardized Tests ensure that school systems are executing their educative responsibilities
Standardized tests are stressful, for both the students and the teachers
Belief: the test content does not reflect curriculum expectations
Standardized tests are biased
Standardized tests are time-consuming and do not enhance learning in a meaningful way #
Teachers spend more time teaching to the test instead of focussing on curriculum expectations
Test questions are not derived from the same curricular objectives as the courses that instructors are teaching
Growing up, I always dreaded EQAO Testing for math and literacy, no matter if I was in Grade 3 or Grade 10. I remember feeling very stressed before writing these tests, as I felt that there was a lot of pressure to succeed and achieve above-average marks. While I personally do not agree with issuing Standardized Tests, I recognize that they will continue to remain prominent within the Ontario Education System. Thus, as a future educator, it is important that I convey positive attitudes towards Standardized Testing and present it as an educational challenge, rather than a burden. Ultimately, this will help to keep students calm and at ease, so they are more prepared to write the tests and answer the questions to the best of their ability.
A conditioned stimulus elicits a conditioned response
Operant Conditioning: Humans learn appropriate behaviour as a result of consequences and/or antecedents
Problem-solving and critical thinking are much more important
No student fits the average profile
It is important to reach every single students' abilities and talents to increase their school performance and expand their talent
Children learn to be scared of being wrong or making mistakes
Society needs to radically rethink its view on intelligence
Unfortunately, the single story often becomes the only story
