NOS

What is my view on the nature of science (NOS)?

We discussed the theories that NOS can be “Etched in Stone” or “There is no Truth”.  Both sides have some valid points but I do not think that either one is the definite answer to the question, what is the nature of science?  We as humans are always learning, challenging and experimenting with different ideas and theories.  Many years ago the theory was that the world was flat.  We now know that that is not true because someone challenged the theory and wanted to prove it wrong.  We have chosen that the theory that the world is round is the truth today.  The more our scientists and people in general challenge theories and ideas, the more our beliefs in those theories and ideas are changed.  We do not have all the answers as humans and I do not know if we ever will.  And, do we really want to know all the answers to the worlds questions?  What a boring life we would live if we had answers to every question.  Every time we find the answer to one question it always leads to more questions.  I do not think it will be possible to every answer every question and that is a good thing.  We need questions and we need to find answers and science is one of many avenues to find the answers to our questions.

My view on NOS would have to be that the more we challenge theories and ideas from the past the more we are going to learn.  The theories and ideas from the past are not wrong, but with the information we had at the time, they were the best theories or ideas.  The ideas and theories that we believe in today are what we have to live by right now and someday someone may come up with different theories and we will have to make our choice of which one we feel is the truth for that moment in time.

Darin

Philosophy

Well hear I am.  My self portrait.  I am quite good at drawing myself part by part with my eyes shut.  My eyes are in place, my body, two legs, one foot, one arm, and my hands are connected and where they should be.  I have to say I did a darn good job for not being able to see what I was drawing.  Yes, one foot seems to have fallen off, my one arm is not connected, my hands have six fingers (now I can count to 22), and my nose and mouth are on top of my head, but no buddy is perfect.  We all have defects or things to work on.  If I drew the picture over again I could guarantee that it would not look the same.  I am a changing person.  Everyday I am faced with information that pushes my thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.

We were asked to write a statement about our philosophy of education.  I find this hard to do.  I have not yet figured out what my philosophy of education is.  I have some ideas, but I am questioning those ideas every day with everything I read and experience.  Do people really have a philosophy of education that does not change?  I guess we could have some basic things that we believe and they do not change.  But isn’t the point of studying and learning new stuff to push our thoughts, ideas, or beliefs?  The more I learn, the more I realize I have a lot more to learn.

Darin

Good but Bad Day

I taught a science lesson yesterday about kinetic energy and sound.  I brought combs, a triangle, a vibraslap, and a guitar as my props to help me explain how sound is made from kinetic energy and vibration.  The lesson went well.  I had one issue of management when I handed out the combs before I explained what was to be done, but I survived that and regained control over the class.  My lesson was fun for me and all the students were participating which was a change because I have always had one or two students who I did not seem to reach.  That was the good side of the day.

For the bad part of the day.  A student (aka Bill) was having a bad day.  I started noticing that he was having problems during the morning recess.  He got into an argument with some students and came into class angry.  Mrs. Walker calmed him down and he was able to join in on the class.  Everything seemed to be good until after lunch.  Bill came into the class arguing with two students and Bill ended up knocking one of them to the ground.  Again Mrs. Walker was able to calm him down and he participated in the class.  After the afternoon recess Bill came in fighting with some students and crying.  He sat at his desk with his head down while the rest of the class did their silent reading.  Mrs. Walker, Andrea, and I sat at the table to plan for next week.  Suddenly Bill came running from the back of the room, past us, and punched the student whose desk was only one foot away from Mrs. Walker and us.  Andrea and I sat there thinking what the heck just happened.  Mrs. Walker made sure that the student was okay and took Bill out in the hall to talk.  The rest of the class just started to talk immediately and there was one student who was continually trying to work the class up.  Andrea and I settled the students down and they continued with their reading.  It turned out that the student that got punched had only looked back at Bill; whether he was looking at Bill or looking at his friend that was between the two of them I do not know and I will probably never know.  I still can not believe that Bill would do that so close to us.  I know that he has anger management issues and his first reaction is to always fight, but I had never seen it in the classroom before; we always had to deal with issues from the playground.

I think about the situation and wonder what could be done?  Why do the situations between Bill and some of the students seem to be building from week to week?  How can the situation be resolved before something even more serious happens?  I am glad that I was in the class to witness the incident because in my personal world stuff like that does not happen.  I do not understand it and I have never experienced it before.  But, now I see it is a reality and I could possibly have to deal with worse.  I have heard time and time again about youth violence but until I experienced a small part of it I never really believed it.  It is something that I am going to have to continue to reflect on because I do not know how best to deal with such a situation.  If it was my own classroom I could possibly have some more answers because I would hope that I would know the students better and know how best to work with them.  But I will not know that until I am in that situation of having my own classroom or working with students more than one day a week.

Darin

Classroom Blogging

My classroom for pre-internship does not use technology at all.  When I asked my co-op if there was a smartboard in the school, she said “What is a smartboard?”.  We have two computers in the classroom, but they have never been used when I am there and do not look like they have been used in between my visits to the classroom.  I do not think the students get to use the computers much at all.  There is a laptop cart but it is on a different floor of the school with no elevator, so the laptops would have to be carried up the stairs one or two at a time, and it is the same with the data projector.

I feel that classroom blogging is something that is important for all students to experience and will have positive impacts on their writing.  I am thinking about approaching my co-op about starting a classroom blog for my three week block in March, but I do not know if there is any point in doing it because I am only there for three weeks.  If I do it and it works well then my co-op may continue with it, but I do not know that she will.  Is there any point in having student blogging for three weeks?  Where would I start if I do decide to start a classroom blog?  Would I need all there parents permission first?  I have so many questions and unknowns I do not know where to begin.

Darin

The Continuation

This week i was able to teach a lesson which was a continuation of what I taught last week.  This gave me perspective of what the students actually remembered from last week.  I was relieved that they seemed to remember the story from last week.  This weeks lesson was also about courage but I explained the reading strategy to predict, pause and check, and connect.  The lesson went well but it seemed to drag.  I was giving the students too much time before I moved on.  After in the post-conference with Mrs. Walker, she said that I did well and she will continue on from where I left off in the unit.  The one thing that she said she will do is model the responses of the predict, pause and check, and connect more so that the students know what is expected of them.  I think that she is right in that case.  Looking back since I was teaching the first lesson in the concept of the reading strategy I should have spent more time focusing of what was expected of the students.  If I had, Mrs. Walker would be able to just continue from where I left off rather than having to reteach something that they should already have learned in my lesson.  If I would have spent more time at the beginning of the lesson explaining to the student what was expected from them in the reading strategy; the lesson probably would have went much smoother now that I look back.  I can not wait for our March block so that I can do a continuation of lessons all the time; I am really not liking this popping in and out on Wednesday.  I just want to be there doing it and experiencing the day to day building from lesson to lesson.

Darin

Lesson Two

Andrea and I walked in to the classroom ready to give this teaching thing another try.  We were prepared, we were fairly confident, and we were ready to have some fun.  Our co-op arrived about five minutes after us and proceeded to tell us that it has not been a good week so far; it was only Wednesday how bad could it be.  The students were not cooperating, they were getting in trouble, doing things they have never done before, and being called to the principle’s office.  It had only been two days.  We continued on with our pre-conferences and were able to get finished before the students arrived in the classroom.  Because we were done our conferences our co-op thought that we would like to go with the students when they went to french class.  We were excited about this.  We could see the students in a different surrounding and see another teacher’s teaching style.  When we got to the french classroom the teacher said that we could not stay.  She did not feel comfortable with us observing the class.  At first it was no big deal to me; I do not liked to be watched and critiqued either so we went back to the classroom and corrected some math assignments.  Some of the questions I had to really think about, but I was able to figure them out so I did not feel too dumb.  Anyway back to the point.  The next day the more I thought about it and talked about it with my colleagues it bothers me that she would not let us observe.  These were our students just as much as they are hers or our co-op’s, why couldn’t we observe how they are reacting in a different environment.  The principle could come in at any point and observe her teaching.  What is the big deal?  She would have had to intern herself when she was a student so she knows where we are coming from and what we are there for.  I just do not understand why we could not observe our students in a different surrounding.

After recess Adrea taught her math lesson and it went excellent.  I am so happy for her that she had such a great lesson and the students were engaged and she managed the classroom so well.  After lunch it was my turn to teach my social lesson.  I had an introductory lesson on the Interior Plains region of Canada; tough to make that exciting.  I knew right from the start that things were not going to go very well.  The students came back in after lunch and were just crazy with energy and my lesson was going to be kind of dull and boring.  I tried my hardest to figure out how to make the lesson exciting but without the oportunity to use some technology I could not figure out how.  I taught my lesson and made some minor changes to the original plan but there was no hope.  The students just did not want to learn what I was trying to teach them.  I had two students that would not be quiet and knew all the answers to my questions, three students that were not wanting to talk at all, and one student that did not want anything to do with the lesson no matter how much I tried to reach him.  I felt like a failure once the lesson was done.  It really upset me.  Once our co-op and Andrea post-conferenced with me and I looked at the students sheets I felt better about the lesson.  I did not fail I just did the best I could with what I had to work with.  After the afternoon recess I had the opportunity to work with the one boy who wanted nothing to do with my lesson one on one.  He did not do anything on his sheet so we went out in the hall to work on it together.  I was able to teach him and he listened and understood.  We talked and I think that we connected a bit.  We then went to phys ed and I was joining in with the movement lesson that our co-op was teaching.  I was doing one of the movements wrong.  Out of the blue, he ran over beside me and showed me how to do it and took off again.  The time in the hall and him coming over to help me made up for how I felt after my lesson.  I know I connected a bit with him and now I hope I can continue that connection.

Darin

Actually Teaching

Today we were able to teach our first lesson to actual students.  I was nervous about how things would go.  Could I actually plan a lesson that would engage the students?  Could I teach without feeling uncomfortable about being watched and critiqued?  Could I actually teach and have good classroom management?  Some questions that I worried about, but in reality I was worrying because of the unknown.  Unknowns always worry me.  To top it all off my EPS lab instructor decided to come to our class on our first day of teaching.  That just added to the nervousness.

Andrea taught first and it went well for her.  She taught the grade fours (the big group).  She did have some minor issues but nothing that we did not already think of in advance.  We will keep trying to figure things out for her; and we will.

After recess it was my turn.  I was teaching the grade fives so I had the small group.  I taught recognizing one million in math.  It went great.  My set worked awesome.  My development went good.  My question sheet was beyond them, but with not having experience with the students it was not too bad.  My closure again went great.  I was actually able to engage the students!  They were excited about the lesson!  It is hard to explain but a couple of the students were crawling out of their seats to ask questions and give answers.  I could not be happier for how it went.  I am relieved that it went well.  Once I started teaching I did not even notice my instructor, my co-op teacher, or Andrea taking notes on me.  I just taught.  I did not even have to check my notes very much.  When I did check my notes at the end I was surprised that I did not miss anything I wanted to cover.  I did have one student who was not engaged like the rest of the students so I will have to pay closer attention to him next time.  I am thankful that my lesson went well because it will make the next lesson that much easier.

Darin

Day One

This semester has been crazy busy.  Our professors warned us that we would not have time for anything in our pre-intern year but I do not think any of us thought we would be this busy.  I am surviving though, and I am having a good time doing it.  This past Wednesday was our first day in our grade 4/5 split classroom.  What a day!  It started with the excited but nervous feeling and ended so quickly that I felt like it had barely started.

My partner for my pre-internship is Andrea.  Andrea is legally blind.  She is considered low vision, so she is not completely blind.  She can see shapes that are within two or three feet of her, but can not see any detail or colour.  Before school started our co-op teacher told us that when she talk to the students the day before she told them their class was specially selected to help Andrea become a teacher.  The students seemed to take the responsibility of being specially selected very seriously.  They were all great with Andrea and wanted to know everything about her and her blindness.

By the time morning recess came we were both at ease and enjoying ourselves.  By lunch time Andrea had all the student’s names memorized and where their desks were in the classroom.  I did not.  Some times she just amazes me.  With the help of one of the students (with her laughing at me a lot) I had the student names down by afternoon recess.  We helped around the class for the rest of the day and before we knew it the day was over.

Andrea and I have talked with each other, with professors, and with our co-op about how Andrea is going to be able to teach and manage a classroom.  We never have a clear cut answer.  We always end up saying we’ll figure something out.  After the first day I have no question that we will figure it out and Andrea will become a teacher and will end up teaching in a classroom of her own.

What a day though, I can only hope that the rest of our days in the classroom will be as much fun.  They should be even better because next week we actually get to start teaching lessons; not just observing.

Darin

I had to share

Hello again,

It has been quite a while since I posted anything, but it has been a crazy summer. I have done lots of camping with my kids. Other vacation time with the whole family. I have spent many hours on the water in my Kayak and my canoe. On top of that renovations and yard work. I have not had much time for computer stuff other than checking my email. I am looking forward to school starting again so that I can return to a sum what regular schedule again. I hope that everyone has had a good summer. I now should have some time to catch up on my reading of blogs, checking out new web sites and hopefully write some blog posts.

What sparked me to write a post today was a video my wife showed me. Twin Baby Moose just had to shared. I hope you enjoy it.

Darin

Where I have been and where I am going.

Well over the last month I have been debating on where I would like this blog to go now that I am finished my ECMP 355 class. I still do not know, but I figured I would just start writing again and see what happens.

I am taking a spring class right now and it is keeping me busy. I am taking educational administration (EADM 310). My class is two nights a week for three hours. We have had a couple of guest speakers who have been quite interesting. First there was a lawyer from the Sask Learning telling us some basic things we as new teachers needed to know about kinds contracts, what teachers responsibilities are, and how not to have her learn what our names are because then we are in big trouble. The second speaker was with the Regina Separate School Board talking about school budgets. He talked about all the different levels within the school system and how the different budgets were figured out and how much money each level was spending. Part of his talk was about salaries of teachers and what we can expect to be paid when we start to teach. Of course it was salaries which brought about the most questions for him. Overall the class is interesting but a lot of time reading. I am sure glad I am taking it by itself rather that with four other classes.

What is new is my life? I bought my first sea kayak. I had never been is a sea kayak before and the first time I got into it I almost ended up swimming in Wascana Lake. I definitely did not want that to happen because the ice had only been off the lake for a couple of days. Once I had gotten safely into the kayak I felt quite comfortable. The next day I was online to find the proper way to get into a sea kayak. From that point on getting in and out has been a smooth process. My family and I went to Calgary and Banff National Park for the Victoria Day long weekend. We had a good time visiting my brother and sister-in-law, shopping to save the tax, and exploring the mountains. For me the most fun was our day in Banff. We went to Sulpher Mountain and road the gondola, explored the town, and found the hard path to view Bow Falls. I sure love the mountains there is so much to do and the scenery is incredible.

What are my plans for the rest of the summer? I am hoping to spend as much time as I can in my kayak, in my canoe, on my bike, out camping, and of course spending as much time as possible with my family before my pre-intern year begins. I am both looking forward to and dreading the next year of school. The last year has been hard on my family and it looks like the next year is not going to be any better. I am taking a week-long training course at the beginning of July for Scouts. Briana is coming along with me to the training which is a Seonee Scout Camp. The have a program for the kids of people taking training the kids get to spend their days having fun while the adult spend our days studying. It should be a lot of fun for us both. My other plans for the summer are to go to Edmonton. Briana, Garrick, and I are going to leave for Edmonton with the camper. We will spend a couple of days at Dillberry Provincial Park, and then continue on to Edmonton where Michelle will be flying in to join us. We are going to spend five days outside of Edmonton visiting friends on their farm and then make our way back home.

Well that is all I have to say for now. My goal is to post something at least every two weeks. Maybe by the end of the summer I will have an idea of where I want to go with this blog.

Darin