My Learning Profile

This past class we had the privilege of speaking with Jeff Hopkins, the founder and principal at Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation. It was really interesting to listen to him share about his background and experience creating the school. I was not very familiar with this type of school, but after his discussion with our class, I was blown away. One of the things that resonated with me was when he spoke about making the students aware that they are members of society at whatever age they are. In my experience as a student it felt as though we had to wait until we graduated before we were allowed to interact within society or explore our role as citizens. Jeff told us about several of the Inquiry projects that are being run by his students, such as the online art collective, web forums, store fronts, etc. It was incredible to hear about the passions of these students, and the support they receive from this school and its teachers. 

My teachable subject area is Physical Health and Education (PHE) , and I spoke with Jeff about how PSII meets the curriculum and provides their students with opportunities for PHE. Although this school seems to have a strong focus on Inquiry relating to the other subject areas (math, science, social studies, art, etc.),  they have a very interesting approach to PHE. He explained that rather than having the students in a typical PHE class, they each create their own PHE plans that are geared towards their personal interests and goals they’ve set for themselves. He said that this personal program that students create places a lot of responsibility on the students to learn different ways to be active and what their preferred type of physical activities are, which is very important for ensuring participation in physical activity later in life. A lot of people struggle to be active once they enter the working world for multiple reasons, including not knowing what or how to be active in a way that makes sense and feels fulfilling for them.

In middle school I remember using PowerPoint frequently for class projects, while in high school my teachers’ stressed to us that PowerPoint was a non-effective resource and boring resource. A few years later during my undergraduate degree, I became familiar with using Google Slides and was reintroduced to Powerpoint- pretty much every instructor I had was using slide decks to deliver their lectures. Flashing forward to this degree, we are being taught how to meaningfully use technologies and resources, like PowerPoint, to support and improve our pedagogy.

This Friday our class took some time to explore and create content using Microsoft PowerPoint. We first discussed the benefits of using visual aids and imagery to learn. Several points were brought up about personalization, diversifying our methods of delivery, and supporting our learners needs in creative ways. What stuck out to me, was the concept of helping our students “see the unseeable”. The example used in class was explaining a bicycle pump, and what images were more effective to use than others. Rather than using a basic image of a bicycle pump, we can select images that support the learning process, and allows students to see processes broken down. This meaningful use of visual aids helps to add a layer to the learning process and gives students a deeper understanding of content.

For the remainder of the class we were given time to explore and create content on PowerPoint. I learned about image editing, including how to add artistic effects, crop images, remove image backgrounds, layer images, and combine shapes, pictures and screenshots. I have attached a short video below of a screen recording that shows the different edits I made on a bee graphic I found on Pinterest. Enjoy!

Our class this past week was an incredible way to finish off my week. We began the class discussing several opportunities that audio and video technology affords schools, as well as some of the ways in which this technology can support our pedagogy.

In my experience playing basketball video technology was a tool used to teach me about proper shooting techniques and skill execution, learning offensive or defensive systems, scouting opponents, and better my understanding of the game. The main video resources my coaches and I used were Coach’s Eye and Synergy. In my undergraduate degree I took several courses learning about the mechanics of movement and teaching fundamental movement skills. I believe that in the world of sports and physical and health education there are some excellent opportunities to implement audio and video technology to improve learning. Specifically, the ability to review, rewatch, slow down and repeat video content is so beneficial for learners, especially the ability to do it on demand.

For the second part of the class we were very lucky to be joined by Rich McCue, who manages the Digital Scholarship Commons in the University of Victoria Libraries. He spoke to us for a while about his background and what the DSC was, but my favorite part was when he shared his tutorials with us. I am very familiar with iMovie and have used it on several occasions including making video content for coaching basketball, to create a fun travel video from my trips to San Diego, and to make birthday videos for my family members during the pandemic when we weren’t allowed to see each other. There were a few activities that I was able to bypass because I knew the fundamentals of iMovie. However, I completed the slow-motion activity and the green screen activity. It was really cool to discover these new features and to be able to add them to my toolbox for use on my future video projects.

Rich also provided us with several resources that could be of use to us, or to our future students. The resource I downloaded, Storyboarder, is an awesome tool that can be used to draw and design storyboards right on your device (plust it’s free!). I haven’t gotten around to using it and learning all of its tricks, but I fiddled around a little bit during our class.

I feel like this class was extremely useful for us as future teachers, and I look forward to exploring the resources and additional tutorials that the DSC has available to expand my skills for audio and visual technology.

For today’s class we had a wonderful presentation and discussion about privacy, safety and online citizenship with guest speaker, Jesse Miller. Some of the topics he covered included: digital identity, digital literacy, network citizenship, privacy and consent, technologies role in education, and several more.

I really enjoyed Jesse’s presentation to our class because he covered concepts that were extremely applicable and relevant to us as future educators. A topic that specifically resonated with me was the idea of digital footprints, and the content that would come up if someone was to Google my name. While completing my undergraduate program I also played varsity basketball, and within my role of a student-athlete we were tasked with being positive representatives online. This meant being aware of our audiences as well as posting and supporting content that was appropriate and respectful. Now, as I work towards becoming a teacher, these same principles will apply, and at a greater intensity. When Jesse highlighted that our future students and students parents’ would most likely look us up online, it made me grateful for the online awareness that’s been instilled in me as a student-athlete. I never want to be in a situation where my values, character or ability to teach comes in to question because of inappropriate online content that I’m associated with.

As per our To-Do list, I took some time today to explore my digital footprint online to see what I could find. I was happy and relieved to see that most of the content was related to MRU basketball, and my social media accounts are all respectful and appropriate (there are just a few goofy photos of me here and there, but I think that makes me relatable as a teacher…?). It was also interesting to explore Google Images because I came across pictures of my friends and family even if I wasn’t in the photo. There were even a few basketball websites that had my roster information and statistics that I had never seen before that appear to be European Women’s Basketball websites. I find the internet very intimidating for this reason because while I think I have control over the content I am posting, there can be a lot of information out there that gets created and shared that we don’t know about. Overall, Jesse was a great resource for our class and I really appreciated his presentation.

Last week our class was tasked with watching the film Most Likely to Succeed. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and found that it really made me rethink my own perspective on the education system, the education I received, and the type of education experience I want to provide to my future students.

The film addresses the many shortcomings of the traditional education system in North America, specifically the United States. It examines the structure of the traditional model, the traditional role and dynamics within a classroom. It also highlights the inescapable reality that technology is taking over and many traditional careers will be replaced within the next 20 years, leaving generations of 21st century graduates at risk for unemployment. This concept was terrifying to me because it made me think of my parents, friends and family and how their jobs could be at risk in the coming years. Who’s to say that we won’t have robot teachers one day and all of us will be out of a job?!

The film also documents the experience of students at High Tech High, a school in the United States that is founded on providing students with a personalized, authentic, imaginative and collaborative educational experience. We get to watch as groups of 9th grade students complete year-long projects and see their progress as they collaborate with their peers to produce meaningful, innovative and ambitious projects. It was incredible to watch this film and learn about High Tech High because I had no idea that there were schools that are like this. Based on my own experience in the public school system, at a fairly new and progressive school, I figured that most other schools were similar and mirrored my school’s and teacher’s approaches to pedagogy.

It was incredible to watch these students collaborate and learn in a student-led approach, with their teachers as facilitators and guides, rather than in the traditional teacher role. As stated in the film, this education model promotes critical thinking, developing soft skills (collaboration, confidence, leadership, self-efficacy, etc.), which I think are so important for kids to develop early on. I really enjoyed this documentary and it has made me question my beliefs about the role of a teacher, what types of learning environments should we be creating, what a well-rounded education looks like, and so much more.