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Major Reflection 3 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Reading Connections: From my major reflection 2 and week 6 class discussion, according to (Billings, 1995), “If school is about preparing students for active citizenship, what better citizenship tool than the ability to critically analyze the society?” (p. 162). I think this reading goes hand-in-hand with the topic of anti-oppressive practices for our last major reflection and my teaching implication below.
  - - - Teaching Implications: Create UDL classrooms so that learning is tailored to fit all students' needs, interests, strengths, and learning styles, without having to "dumb down" learning.
        
        Teaching Implications: Emphasize inclusive education during open house nights via slideshow presentation so that parents can be informed about the equal learning opportunities that their child receives. But, only do this if you are actually implementing inclusive teaching practices in the classroom; don't just do it for tokenism!
  - - - Wonderings: Why can’t the government get rid of the EQAO? It is very overwhelming and intimidating for students, and when they feel anxious during the testing, they are not able to think properly, and in turn, this contributes to the low provincial scores.
      - Wonderings: I feel like letter grades convey and emphasize various levels of intelligence—“A” is associated with “higher intelligence”, “B” symbolizes “average”, “C” is interpreted as “below average”, and “D” correlating with “dumbness”. Are there any positive grading systems that educators can use and implement so that students can remain confident and maintain a positive self-esteem?
      - Wonderings: How would we measure student success and learning, and if students are moving smoothly along the academic path, if we got rid of standard testing completely? (Kumashiro, 2014).
        
        New Learning: As educators, we need to think about the following questions: What are we striving towards in the first place? What goals are we looking for? Measuring, for what? Learning, for what? (Kumashiro, 2014).
        
        New Learning: Anti-Oppressive teaching does not mean that everyone is engaged, well-behaved, and everything and everyone is inclusive and supportive. Anti-Oppressive teaching only happens through the context and only when you are working through challenges (Kumashiro, 2014).
        
        Reading Connections: Teacher preparation shouldn’t just be about skills, curriculum (e.g. numeracy and literacy). Teaching is a process that is embedded in something bigger. Education is a part of larger social movements; our work is to be a part of community and public conversations. We need to speak individually and collectively—at school board meetings, legislatures, the press and media. Teaching is also outside of the school setting (Kumashiro, 2014).
        
        New Learning: Think about how you can engage parents and think about how you can re-frame your working relationship with parents instead of focusing on how you perceive their child at school. Get on board with their vision, not your vision (Kumashiro, 2014).
        
        Teaching Implications: Use parent-teacher night and/or parent-teacher conferences to learn and understand the parents' perspective and take on their child because they are the experts of their own child.
        
        Wonderings: What if education was about preparing people for making a positive impact in the world? (Kumashiro, 2014). Then, the goal of assessment would be different compared to the traditional assessment goal of people (students) meeting curriculum expectations.
  - - - 1.) Create a Container: Brave Spaces that allows students to feel free in honestly sharing their thoughts and ideas, and understanding the importance of listening deeply and openly to their peers. In this space, every student is respected and encouraged to be themselves. Respectful disagreements are also taught and implemented (Block, 2015).
      - 2.) Embrace Marginalized Voices: Pay attention to power, rank, and mainstream of groups. Create opportunities for marginalized students to speak and contribute, through careful and thoughtfully designed activities. Example "Are there any other opinions on this?" (Block, 2015)
      - 3) Allow Everyone To Be Heard: Build meaningful relationships with students, structure learning strategically that fosters student engagement such as small and large group discussions, activities that get students up and moving and talking to one another, and doing journals and written reflections (Block, 2015).
      - 4.) Frame The Learning: Start the day off with students responding to a question/article/video/quote/song via journal-writing, and use that as a reference point for your discussion. Units that you teach should be guided by essential questions and use Backwards Planning to ensure that various pieces are smoothly lead to the large project and goal (Block, 2015).
      - 5.) Find Mentors, Models, and Support: Listen to, learn from, and share with others, such as your colleagues. Networking is key! (Black, 2015).
- - - - Wonderings: If the Learning Skills is designed to be assessed based on educators’ perceptions of students’ capability, competency, and learning, wouldn’t that be an inaccurate form of evaluation because biases and judgements can skew and affect results?
        
        For example, what if an educator did not like a specific student because this student was viewed as “difficult”, “defiant”, and “bad”. The educator would perceive that student from a deficit lens and that could cloud the way they see the student’s true abilities and competency.
        
        Wonderings: Isn’t there a more authentic and valid way of evaluating Learning Skills other than using your own judgement and perception?
        
        Experience: This was strongly true when I received “Needs Improvement” every time under the “Homework” category. The only reason I never did my homework throughout elementary and high school was because my parents were rarely home (they worked 3 jobs just to keep food on our table), and my grandparents had very little English skills. So, how would I need improvement if I didn’t have support systems in place? This comes down to the evaluation of how educators perceive students’ learning and skills. I was perceived as a student who wasn’t interested in homework or “lazy” when really I wasn’t getting any help with my homework at home and no adult guidance/support.
        
        Wonderings: In the article, it states, “if a teacher interprets a student as rarely taking responsibility or struggles to manage his or her own behaviour, he or she may receive a “Satisfactory” or “Needs Improvement” in the area of “Responsibility” (Parekh, Brown, & Zheng, 2018, p. 4), so would you evaluate and give that result (of "S" or "N") based on what you see in your classroom or take into consideration of other factors such as home life and circumstances, family dynamics, opportunities to develop skills such as self-regulation and taking responsibilities at home, and resource availability?
        
        Wonderings: Can we co-evaluate the Learning Skills evaluation with our students? For example, can we ask them for their input on what grade they believe they should receive for each domain and then use that feedback to help us judge the final grade when we enter it in the report card system?
        
        Teaching Implications: If possible, I can meet with students individually and ask them what they believe they should receive for each of the six domains of Learning Skills, and their rationale for that grade. I think this would also be a fair opportunity for every student to be successful and take ownership for their learning, especially "marginalized" students.
        
        New Learning: Learning Skills is based on your perception on how students are doing in each of the six domains.
        
        New Learning: The Learning Skills evaluation is does not reflect students’ understanding of curriculum, rather it is based on educators’ perceptions and judgements.
        
        Teaching Implications: I can use various tools to help me engage in an authentic evaluation of Learning Skills and help me determine if students were able to comprehend learning content and meet curriculum expectations (e.g. the Big Ideas), such as through exit tickets, KWL charts,3 Stars and 1 Wish, low-stake polls and quizzes, think-square-share, mind-map, concept map, Sketch notes, and journal entries.
        
        New Learning: Educators’ perceptions on students’ learning and success in Learning Skills have a great impact on student access to post-secondary education opportunities. This is crucial to know because it questions which doors will open for who, and equity—students from marginalized communities.
        
        Teaching Implications: The most important factor in evaluating Learning Skills is that educators remain equitable and take into consideration of students’ demographics and identity. Students of colour should be evaluated as equally and fairly as students of non-colour.
        
        Teaching Implications: As an educator, I must become aware of my own biases, judgements, and preconceptions before I begin evaluating Learning Skills as it can have an impact on my perception of students’ learning.
        
        Teaching Implications: Get to know your students and their home life and/or circumstances. This will allow you to think about about how you can support them and provide them with adequate resources. For example, if a student is unable to have the time to complete their homework/assignment at home, allow them to work on it at school. To make this inclusive (and not single the student out), schedule a "work block" in the day for everyone.
        
        Previous Learning (and unlearning): Learning Skills is based on students' overall averages on tests and assignments.
        
        Previous Learning: Learning Skills is only important from kindergarten to grade eight.
- - - - Experiences: I remember on one occasion, my grade 8 math teacher assigned 10 algebra questions from the textbook, and when I was doing question 6, she told me "it's okay Navjot, you only have to do up to question 5 because you're on an IEP. Only the rest of the class has to do all of the 10 questions". This really restricted me to discovering and learning how competent I was in algebra because I loved algebra and it was an area of math that I was strong in. I feel like the IEP is like a kindergarten playpen; only some students can play inside the fence and the rest can play outside in the open.
  - - - Reading Connections: Streaming may take place in Grade 9, however, it starts much earlier than that, by the opportunities that are provided to students or the learning designations or labels (such as those on an IEP) applied to them that channels them into a specific educational pathways (James, 2020).
- - - - New Learning: If you are teaching the class about anti-Black racism, you may have good intentions as to educating and informing your students, however, to most of your Black students, they may perceive it as being singled out in a way and/or having to reflect on their own personal experiences which can open up trauma and pain. (Just how you would do activities involving Rap and Hip-Hop just because majority of your class consists of Black students).
        
        Teaching Implications: Collaborate with your students and ask them for their input on what should be learned and discussed in the classroom, and if anti-Black racism is a topic that will be discussed, it is best to talk about ALL minority groups so that way nobody has to feel singled out or feel that specific topics are being addressed because they “have to be”.