Exploring And Thriving In The World Of Education
We were asked to create a Unit plan for our ESST class based on a topic of choice. I chose to create a unit on Grade Three Community Supports. Feel free to take a look at this unit. I plan to continue to develop this unit as time continues, but for now, here is my Unit Plan.
Community Supports Unit Plan – Grade Three
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
Our first evaluation in ESST was focused around a presentation that helped us understand a certain outcome. I wanted to make sure that for future reference that I have all of my classmates presentation topics and ideas to help me when I am developing lessons. The purpose of the blog post is not to dive into the different topics that were explored but instead to have a reference for future to use these ideas. Please feel free to click on any of the links below and explore the different topics that my classmates created small activities on.
| Grade | Outcomes | Link to Handouts |
| 2 | DR2.3 | https://missrohdeblog.wordpress.com/understanding-outcomes-assignment/ |
| 3 | DR3.1 | Teaching the Outcome – Resource Package |
| 3 | DR3.1 | Miss Kohuch’s Blog – Understanding Outcomes Presentation |
| 3 | DR3.1 | Miss Duarte’s Guide to Learning – Understanding Outcomes Presentation |
| 1 | PA1.1 & PA2.2 | Grade One Power and Authority |
| 1 | DR1.3 | Grade One Dynamic Relationships |
| 3 | IN3.3 | Grade Three: Interactions and Interdependence of Nations |
| K | DRK.1, DRK.2, DRK.3 | Kindergarten Dynamic Relationships Outcomes |
| 2 | PA2.1 | Grade Two Power and Authority |
| K | INK.1 | Kindergarten Interaction and Interdependence Outcome |
| 2 | IN2.1 | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jB3DIKQG37kWgc-eoUHFzSGAXw_oKEnRrZ0vKVwdaNY/edit |
Our section evaluation piece was based on the creation of a creative set that would connect to the unit that you would be starting but also would present the information in such a way that would engage the students. These sets included:
Creative sets are a very important part of lesson planning because you need to grab your students interest in a topic before you start teaching the material. This will ensure that they are paying attention, actively engaging and ultimately creating meaning making. In my ECS 3o1 class, we were asked to come up with as many creative sets as we could. Some ideas that came up included:
Creative Sets could be about: Voice, Actions, Interest, Intrigue and Wonder. The set should relate to the end of the lesson. What is it that I want them to know at the end of this lesson.
| Topic | Set Ideas |
| Time |
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| Habitat |
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| Poetry |
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| Bullying |
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Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
On November 23rd, our ESST class was cancelled as there was a LGBTQ community presentation happening. Many of my classmates attended this presentation; however, I did not. Thankfully I have a wonderful classmate who shared her wonderful experience, at the presentation, with me. I cannot directly comment on the presentation because I was not there, but a good reflection of the presentation can be found on Miss Waldbauer’s blog. I think that presentations such as this one, that focuses on inclusion and ensuring that teachers are aware of the important terms and concepts related to the LGBTQ community, is extremely important in order to have a positive and safe classroom experience for all students. Below I wanted to share the presentation handout from the evening.
While this presentation was on, I was at home working on a large unit plan that was due the next day. This unit plan was for my ESCI 310 class. The unit that I developed was Grade Five: Weather. This was a fun unit to prepare and create. I enjoyed exploring for engaging and educational activities that would help my students understand weather better through hands on experiences.
My weather unit can be found below as well as it is included in my Unit and Lesson Planning section of my blog. A full breakdown of my Weather Unit can be found here! I hope that you have a chance to check it out.
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
On October 26th, we had some very special guests come into our classroom and discuss with First Nations content, integration into classrooms and proper protocol. This was an excellent, engaging and intriguing presentation. To start off the evening, we had Allison Kimberly speak to us about stereotypes. This was an interesting experience for myself as I felt awkward to say stereotypes out loud, especially the ones that I do not believe. I thought that Allison’s information was very informative as it opened my eyes to the different stereotypes that are prevalent in many stories, toys and games especially for children. As terrible as the different items in the “poison box” were, I felt that it showed us how there are stereotypes in every aspect of our lives. I really enjoyed the poison box activity also because it sparked meaningful and interesting conversations between myself and my classmates.
After class, I was exploring our ESST class blog and I found a link to Allison’s 
Aboriginal Perspectives Website. This website is a resource focused on providing a well rounded idea of aboriginal perspectives for teachers and students. I really enjoy the different videos that are on this website, as it provides a multimedia way to learn about these perspectives. I think that this is important for educators as it can help develop an stronger understanding for teaching about aboriginal perspectives.
The next portion of our presentation was focused around the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and how this is a problem that is impacting our world today. Although the government does not seem to think that this is an important topic, I think that it is because it shows of Indigenous Women are viewed as less than other women in the world. For my future students sake, I want to ensure that this issue is talked about and that all of my students feel valued and represented in our classroom. I think that our society will never changed unless we as educators ensure that these issue are discussed and that students formulate their own understandings and opinions. We must educate our students to see the potential and equality in everyone no matter their gender, race, religion or cultural belief system. I found this portion of the presentation very significant for my future teaching.
When it comes to practicality, the last portion of the presentation provided me with extremely important information for my future classroom. Vic Starr presented on cultural protocol. When we tool Treaty Training, I always wondered about the process to create a tobacco pouch or gather tobacco to give to an elder upon their entrance to your classroom. This presentation helped me realize that there is not correct way to gather the tobacco, but the most important part is to present it to the elder in a kind and respectful way. In my future teaching, I want to make sure that I use professional development pieces such as this presentation to help myself understand other worldviews and traditions with an open mind. When we got to make tobacco pouches, I was very excited because I felt that I was gaining knowledge that I could directly see how it would benefit me in the future. As a university student, moments of clarity such as that one are extremely important.
From this presentation, I am taking away a stronger understanding of my role in incorporating First Nations and Metis content in my everyday lessons.
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
This semester of ESST 310 has provided me with a wealth of new knowledge about teaching social studies. Starting off the semester, I was not sure with what it would be like to teach social studies. I really enjoyed that this class was focused on the different areas of social studies. I found that it was particularly important that we talked about Power & Authority as I did not truly understand what this topic was about besides discussing government. We explored multiple resources throughout the semester that helped me develop a better understanding of power and authority as well as other social studies topics. This blog post will dive into a two of the resources that we explored in class and explain their importance for myself as a future teacher.
Worldview. I appreciated this resource as it recognizes the different First Nations and it ensures that any discrepancies between the different groups are displayed. This shows readers that not all First Nations groups are the same. I think that this resource is extremely important as it provides teachers with an understanding of some of the beliefs and systems of First Nations people. One strong section that stood out to me in this reading revolves around the Tipi Teachings (Office of the Treaty Commissionaire, 2008, pg. 37). I appreciated this because I knew that each of the 15 poles in a tipi had a meaning, but I did not know what those meaning were. In a future classroom, I would love to chat with my students about the different meanings of the poles and then bring in an elder or professional to fully explain the placements of the poles as well as show my students how a tipi is assembled. I think that this would be a very worth wild and knowledge building opportunity for my students.Office of the Treaty Commissionaire. (2008). Treaty Essential Learnings: We Are All Treaty People. Library and Archives Canada Cataloging: Montreal.
Brayboy, B. & Maughan, E. (2009). Indigenous Knowledges and the Story of the Bean. Harvard Education Publishing Group: Cambridge, MA.
These two resources have helped me gain an understanding into the importance of incorporating indigenous ways of knowing in my everyday teaching. I feel that it is important not only to incorporate indigenous ways of knowing, but also to think about the other demographics that represent my students and insure that each child in my classroom feels represented in the classroom culture as well as in the classroom activities and literature. I know that creating a multicultural classroom will be difficult, but it is worth wild and meaningful for my students development.
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
I was exploring some tasks for grade four students to do in a mathematics class, when I game across this wonderful resource made by the Horizon School Division in Saskatchewan. This resource is a collection of mathematics games and activities that are categorized under the different grade four mathematics outcomes for Saskatchewan. This is a wonderful resource as it allows teachers to find fun and engaging activities that fit into the curriculum. I plan to use this list of activities during my pre-internship as sponge activities in the classroom. I strongly encourage other teachers to explore and use this resource in Saskatchewan.
Grade 4 Websites Based on Saskatchewan Curriculum (2007)
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog.
We were asked in class to evaluate a number of resources that had to do with Power and Authority. Below you will find a break down of each resource with what it is, good and bad features and if I would use it in the future!
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
Blogging is something that has become a prominent part of my life within the past 5 years. When I was in high school, I had a personal blog that I was obsessed with updating. During my later years of school, I reduced the number of posted that I put up and eventually deleted all of the content and shut down the site. When I was in my first year of University, I created a blog website for you Duct Tape business where I put up photos and promotions. This website is currently under construction again as all of my content was deleted in a file transfer, but hopefully it will be up again soon. The website is called rightofftheroll.com. Feel free to check it out.
Back to blogging, I started blogging when I was a young teenager and therefore it was not difficult when I was asked to develop a professional blog in my ESCI 302 class in the Winter 2015 semester. This was an interesting experience for me as I had to think about the difference between a business blog, personal blog and a professional educator blog. I really enjoyed creating this blog and it came in handy when I was asked to have a blog in this fall 2015 semester for my ESST class. In the section below I have created a collection of useful tool and resources as well as how to’s on creating a blog. Enjoy!
These are four resources that are out there that can help you start a successful blog. I know that is also a great tool for live tutorials on blog creations. If you or someone you know is interested in starting a blog, I recommend that you use or share the above resources to help get the best head start with blogging!
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
After exploring the power and authority article that I found in regards to democracy and Building Future Voters I looked into what my classmates explored for their articles. I looked at a few different resources from my classmates and I found two that I want to add to My Toolkit for teaching. Miss Larson found an article about creating a classroom environment that encouraged students to find their individual power in the classroom and use it to engage in the activities and learning that was occurring. One thing in this article presented to me that I really liked was the idea of providing students with the opportunity to create their own guidelines in the classroom. By allowing students to create their own guidelines for behaviors in the classroom we as educators are empowering students to take responsibility for their actions and be able to hold them accountable for what they do. A key point for my future self as an educator is the next 9 steps in creating a shared vision of what the classroom should look like. This is directly from chapter four of the Classroom of Choice book by Jonathan C. Erwin.
Steps to Developing A Shared Vision of Your Classroom Environment with your Students
This template of creating a vision of your classroom with your students allows students to clearly understand how they should behave or act in the classroom. While I was reading Miss Larson’s blog post and article about this topic, I started to think about a video by Harry Wong that was shown to all 3rd year Elementary Education students in the TPC on Wednesday, September 23rd. A short clip that can be found here, is a small segment on the large 55 minute video created as a resource around classroom management and strategies for teachers. The Power in the Classroom article that Miss Larson found mirrored many of the times that Harry Wong mentioned in this video. Something that stood out to me between the two is that if you give students the opportunity to make decisions that affect them and help clarify your instructions and intentions, students will achieve and be successful in school. No child is able to be successful if they feel their opinions do not matter or if they do not understand what they are being asked to do. I plan to look back at the Power in the Classroom article and the Harry Wong book, “First Days of School” as I continue in my teaching.
The second article that I wanted to add to my teaching toolbox was read by Miss Russell and it focuses on the balance between being a strict teacher and being a flexible teacher. The article entitled Classroom Management: Finding the Balance Between Too Rigid and Too Flexible. In this article, the author, Maryellen Weimer discusses whether it is better to be a rigid and strict teacher or a flexible teacher. While I was reading this article, I started to make connections to student-led teaching and my concerns related to it. I find that I am worried that I will give my students to much freedom and therefore I will end up with a classroom management issue. I started thinking about how I could ensure that I was able to be a fun, engaging and enthusiastic teacher while still keeping students learning on track. I realized that Maryellen Weimer’s article reminded me of the one I read by Jonathan C. Erwin about Power in the Classroom.
The following quote was a segment of the Weimer article that stood out to me as it made rigid teaching seem so awkward for me.
If all potential challenges to authority are headed off at the pass, then the teacher can devote full attention to the content, and isn’t that where the teacher’s expertise really shines? And so the classroom becomes a place that showcases teaching more than learning?
What I take away from this quote is that if we only focus on keeping students in their desks and avoiding classroom disruptions then all teachers have to focus on is the content. If teacher only focus on the content then the most important part of teaching is left out and that is the experience of the students. We do not want to have an environment where students get hurt, feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, but we want life to happen in our classroom so that we can use it to teach our students not only about the content but also about the interpersonal skills that are need to survive in our social world. I loved reading this article as it made me think about where do I stand and how do I think about power in my classroom.
Here is my conclusion, these two articles made me think about the power that we as teachers have to decide what our authority is in the classroom and how we will use our power to encourage our students to find the power they each hold within. I look forward to referring back to these articles as I grow and develop my teaching philosophy and practice.
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog.
The world of outcomes and indicators can get very complex and confusing. In my Educational Social Studies 310 class during the fall of 2015, we were asked to take a strand of the Social Studies curriculum and decide on a outcome to deconstruct for a presentation. My group of Miss Berner and Miss Waldbauer and I decided to look at the grade three social studies strand called Interactions and Interdependence of Nations. We chose the outcome IN 3.3: Illustrate examples of interdependence of communities. We created a lesson plant that we would use with a grade three classroom as well as an adapted version of that lesson to keep our fellow Elementary Education colleagues engaged in our 20 minute presentation of the outcome. The resource package below contains our lesson plan as well as resources that can help educators develop their own activities for the Interactions and Interdependence of Nations strand in grade three social studies.
Interactions and Interdependence of Nations Grade Three Resource Package
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog!
During our class on Monday, September 28th we explored Power and Authority in the classroom. This class involved teaching strategies such as technology, teacher led learning, student led learning, lecture, group work and a small chunk of flipped classroom teaching. Something new that I learned from this class was the website called RubiStar. This website helps with the development of rubrics for any class or activity. I will be adding this website to my teaching tool kit as I know that I will be making a great amount of rubrics in the future.
This class structure disrupted the classic Teacher-led classroom. In many classes, especially traditional classrooms, the teacher is viewed as the keeper of knowledge and the students are viewed as the learners. In this classroom, we the students were able to take charge of our own learning and we made decisions that affected the class’s path. By allowing the students to decide what criteria our Understanding Outcome Presentations should be marked on allowed us to be more engaged with the learning and assessment process of the assignment. By allowing students to decide what they will be assessed on, provides the students with an opportunity to see the value of their work process and have a better understanding of the assignment or activity.
When we were asked to break into groups for our resource activity, each member of the group was able to take charge at one point and present their ideas. This meant that there was not just one leader in the group, but each member had a chance to voice their opinion and make decisions for the group. In a traditional University class, we would not have had a chance to make decisions about what we were being accessed on or what was the focus of our assignment. By shifting the power structure from teacher to student created engagement and enthusiasm towards the content and development of presentation assessment. I know that I appreciated having the power to decide what my work was going to be assessed on as this allowed me to understand the upcoming assignment and also allowed me to feel a sense of belonging in the classroom. I look forward to experiencing this change in dynamics in our Educational Social Studies 310 classroom this fall.
Until next time, thank you for reading my blog.
Photo Credit: Www.audio-luci-store.it via Creative Commons/Flickr
The article that I chose to look in regards to Power and Authority in the classroom is not an article at all. The resource package that I looked at is called Building Future Voters and it is intended for grade six students. This resource is focuses on engaging students in elections, democracy and voting so that they will be engaged citizens that will vote.
Let’s quickly look at the context of voting in Canada. In the 2011 Federal election, only 61.1% of eligible Canadians came out to vote according to the Elections Canada Website. There was a large gap between which age groups came out to vote. Only 38.8% of Canadians ages 18-24 came out to vote while 75.1% citizens ages 65-74 came out to vote. This is a sign that the younger generation does not see the importance in voting like the older generation does. One way that we can change this as educators is to have lessons and units that engage students in democratic processes so that they see the importance of their one vote. By providing educators with resources such as this resource package, that I will elaborate on later, will help create engaged young citizens of today’s youth.
What is in this resource package you may ask. Well let us take a look. This resource was made in Alberta by Government officials and teachers in various schools in the year 2008. As this resource talks about encouraging students to be active voters, it’s goal is to encourage students to get involved in democratic processes, see the value of democracy and when they are of age, be active and engaged citizens in voting. Even though this is an Albertan resource, it is still relevant to Saskatchewan students as we still talk about being involved in democratic actions and government elections. Although this resource was made for grade six students in Alberta, it can be transferred to grade 5 social studies in Saskatchewan. The outcome that fits the best with this resource package is PA 5.2: Explain the purposes and functions of governance structures in Canada, including First Nations systems and those patterned on the Westminster parliamentary system.
One thing that I really like about this resource is that it lays out the sequence of learning about democracy on pages 9 and 10 of the document. This is helpful if you are a Saskatchewan teacher or from another province and want to adapt this unit to your classroom. These learning sequences give you an idea of where to go in your teaching so that students end the unit understanding that democracy is important and that being involved in democracy is important as a Canadian. This resource provides a structure for inquiry with students as well as what is the purpose of each step of the inquiry process and why is it important. The vocabulary and assessment tools built into this document is very helpful and beneficial for teachers who are evaluating and wanting to use this resource.
The Building Future Voters resource also provides educators with lesson ideas, rubrics and differentiation tools to help students understand and become engaged in the material. This resource is an excellent tool for educators who are looking to find a starting point and framework for a unit around democracy in the classroom and the country.
This is a document that I will be adding to my toolbox to help me if I am ever in the position of teaching grade five students about Power and Authority in my future.
Until next time, thank you for reading!
Jenna deBoth - Blog 