Yearly Archives: 2014

Conversational Competence

literacy, Reflections, schooling, Teacher education, , ,

“Is there any 21st-century skill more important than being able to sustain confident, coherent conversation?”conversation

 As I watched my class struggle, I came to realize that conversational competence might be the single-most overlooked skill we fail to teach students. Kids spend hours each day engaging with ideas and one another through screens—but rarely do they have an opportunity to truly hone their interpersonal communication skills. Admittedly, teenage awkwardness and nerves play a role in difficult conversations. But students’ reliance on screens for communication is detracting—and distracting—from their engagement in real-time talk. (Paul Barnwell, 2014)

The author of this article, teacher Paul Barnwell, worries that without solid conversational skills our students won’t be able to manage important life conversations (e.g., job interviews, discssions with employers about salary negotiations, conversations with their partners, etc.) in their future which rely on them thinking on their feet (without access to Google!).

 MIT professor, Sherry Turkle, spends her time researching people’s relationship with technology. She wrote in the New York Times about the impact of tech-overload: “Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits … we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions. We dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters.”

I couldn’t agree more with Barnwell and Turkle. Teaching our students how communicate to solve problems, deal with emotions, and build meaningful relationships through conversations  is an essential skill which may need to be explicitly taught.

Read the entire article from The Atlantic below:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/my-students-dont-know-how-to-have-a-conversation/360993/

Spoken Word: Life, Literacy and Communications

literacy, Reflections, , , , , ,

I (Yiola)  remember watching the news  in the mid ’80s and listening to the news anchors describe the possibilities and implications of the internet.  I had no idea of the magnitude of change this new form of literacy would bring. Could anyone really imagine the changes we would experience in our daily interactions?  Online communication, information sharing, cellular technology and social media have completely changed the way we operate in the world today.

I came across this interesting link — a spoken word (poem) — about the impact new literacies  has on our lives.

The message I find most powerful is the irony that social media connects us  and yet in some ways we have never been more isolated or at a loss for opportunity… community companionship a sense of inclusion yet when you step away from this device of delusion… you awaken to see a world of confusion… 

From an educator and parents point of view the poem’s message that struck a cord: We’re surrounded by children who since they were born, watched us living like robots and think its the norm.  What is our cultural norm? Compared to pre-online technology are we behaving like robots?

I tend to agree with much of what the poet shares and enjoyed this spoken word. I hope you enjoy it too.

 

 

Cartagena Colombia: Presentations by Clive and Clare

Conferences, education, Teacher education, , , , ,

CartagenaCartagena CountrysideClive and I (Clare) presented at the Unicolombo Universitaria Colombo Internacional in Cartagena (Part of a Ministry of Education initiative). The overall theme of our presentations was the need to offer quality education for all.
Clive’s presentation focused on supporting teacher learning in their on-going learningwhile mine focused on the importance of engaging students by offering a rich literacy program.
About 300 teacher educators and teachers attended our presentations. What a lovely audience! In the Q & A part of the presentation, we had a great interchange about the pressure on the educators to improve scores on PISA.
CCartagena Balconieslick below to see our ppt presentations.

Clive: Priorities in Teacher Education: The 7 Key Elements of Preservice Preparation
Bogota Clive#2
Clare: Literacy Teaching:Engaging All StudentsCrepes and Nutella
Cartagena 2014 CK

Enjoy the photos of this enchanting city which is designated a World Heritage Site.Clive and Clare

 

A Lack of Diversity in Higher Education Leadership

academics, classroom teachers, curriculum; teachers, university, , , , ,

An interesting article was published last week about the lack of    diversity to be found in university leadership. When looking at full-time faculty at universities across the U.S., 79% were white. The lack of diversity was found most among higher ranking faculty (tenure-track; leadership roles; presidents).  For example, “while 44 percent of full-time faculty at degree-granting institutions are women, they hold only 29 percent of tenure-tracked positions at doctoral institutions — even though women outperform men 56 to 40 percent in national research grant awards.”

An excerpt from the article:

Thus, university leadership increasingly reflects neither the student body being led nor the world in which graduates will need to operate, a situation that engenders disadvantages and lost opportunities. Students benefit from having mentors and role models from their own racial, ethnic, or gender group — as do faculty who aspire to leadership positions. Institutional leaders can strongly influence institutional culture; having leaders from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences enriches the intellectual and cultural climate in which students learn. And exposure to and experience working with people from different cultural backgrounds better prepares students for the real-world working environment of their futures.

The excerpt above describes much of what is happening in the K-12 teaching force in North America. Although efforts are being made to diversify the teaching force, white female teachers remain the majority of K-12 teachers.

Read the entire blog here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-ricardo-azziz/back-to-the-future-college-presidents_b_5200573.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ir=Education

“What, exactly, is an Anchor Chart?”

education, , , ,
I (Cathy) remember one of my student teachers asking me this at the beginning of the school year. So we made them in our university class: plastered the walls with chart paper summaries, reminders and tips about many different literacy events and grammars. I suspected my student teachers thought they may be mildly useful. But that attitude changed when they got into their first practicum. The student teachers not only saw their mentor teachers using them, they began to see how their students consistently accessed them. They reported to me after their practicum that anchor charts were practical. Their students used the charts to help them remember things and using them (instead of constantly asking the teacher for the answer) helped the students gain independence as learners.

During the second practicum, much to my delight, the anchor charts started to become somewhat of an art form. Justine, especially, excelled at them. “My anchor charts never looked like this!” her mentor teacher declared. I am not sure how much the students appreciated the visual dynamics, but they certainly used them. I watched them look things up on the walls that surrounded them. Useful? Yes! Visually exciting? Absolutely! How useful and interesting can you make yours?Justine's anchor chartsmore anchor charts

Mental Health Education in Teacher Education

classroom teachers, curriculum; teachers, education, Teacher education, teacher educators, , , , ,

Earlier this week I  (Yiola) participated in a Webinar on the teaching of mental health in teacher education. The webinar was called: Reading, Writing, Resiliency: A Briefing on the State of Teacher Education Toward Positive Mental Health.

This post is connected to Shelley’s recent post on Supporting Student Well-being through Mindfulness Practices as it looks closely at what Teacher Education programs are doing to prepare teachers to teach about Mental Health and Wellness.  It was interesting to read Shelley’s blog and learn about what she does and how mindfulness as a form of mental health practices are developed in her course on Special Education. I would love to hear what other teacher educators and classroom teachers do to promote and teach about well-being.

During the webinar I learned some interesting facts:

– parents are concerned and interested to learn more about in 2 key areas related to mental health education: 1) Abuse and its effects on mental health (bullying, emotional abuse, exclusion);  2) Health (depression, substance abuse)

– after (parents and) doctors, teachers are the next care professionals in line who are expected to address children’s mental health

– There is a gap between the strong perception of teachers responsibilities for addressing issues of mental health and their preparedness to do so

In a study conducted on mental health teaching in teacher education in Canada, over 400 courses in 66 teacher education programs were examined against 4 criteria. The 4 criteria were related to the following: course title, words in the course description, topics in the course outlines, practices and relationships. The findings showed that only 2 of the 400 courses met all 4 criteria for the inclusion of mental health learning; 23 courses met 3 of the 4 criteria, 84 courses met 2 of the criteria and 104 courses met just 1 criteria.   This finding suggests that there is very little by way of teaching mental health issues in teacher education programs.

From the study 5 recommendations were made: 1) all teacher education programs should include at least 1 course that focuses on fostering postive mental health and resiliency; 2) classroom management courses reflect proactive resiliency oriented strategies; 3) in-service opportunities need to be available to practicing classroom teachers; 4) provincial curriculum should identify outcomes for health education; and, 5) mental health and resiliency outcomes should be in grades K-12 curriculum.

The webinar was helpful in outlining where we stand today in teacher education and mental health teaching.  I am very keen on thinking about how to move forward in teacher education programming.  Mental health and resiliency content can and should in included in many courses including but not limited to: all curriculum areas (i.e. literacy, social studies, math, health and physical education); special education, methods (i.e. classroom environment, classroom management, collaborative practices).  There needs to be a shift in foci, moving beyond the traditional Health and Physical Education curriculum (i.e. the Healthy Living strand) into a more comprehensive way of thinking about well-being and resiliency.

 

Reading Circles

education, literacy, Social Justice, , , , , , , ,

Last week CBC news profiled the organization Literature for Life, which offers weekly Reading Circle programs to young mothers in various shelters and community centres across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The Literature for Life website explains that the program is committed to helping young moms in high-needs neighborhoods across the city “develop a practice of reading in order to access opportunities and achieve economic stability”. The moms participating in the Reading Circles meet weekly, along with a program facilitator, to engage in discussions and writing activities about books that are relevant to their lives. The program also hopes that participating moms will share their enthusiasm for reading with their children. To date, approximately “2,200 moms have participated in the Reading Circles and more than 20,000 books have been distributed” (http://www.literatureforlife.org).

Reading Circles2

Raising the risk threshold

academics, education, Teacher education, teacher educators, , , , , , , , ,

I (Clare) found this amazing website, The Research Whisperer, and their blog today is so relevant and wise.
Clare

Tseen Khoo's avatarThe Research Whisperer

Sumo! (Photo by Tim Ellis: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_ Sumo! (Photo by Tim Ellis: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_ellis)

When you get rejected from a journal or conference, or your grant doesn’t get up, do you retreat to your cave?

Do you have a bit of a tantrum and declare ‘What’s the POINT?’ to innocent passers-by?

I’ve done my fair share of this, and it’s all perfectly normal and healthy for a time. But you have to eventually leave the cave and stop yelling at passersby.

I was talking to a colleague about academic resilience recently – the ability to ‘bounce back’ after papers are heavily criticised or rejected, grants not awarded, or promotions not given.

I’ve seen people respond so differently to these events, though they all start with the same fallen expression.

Some take the entire process as an indictment on their work and position within the field, swear off wasting their time with it all, and disengage.

Others revisit the critique and feedback…

View original post 744 more words

Guest Blog: Shelley Murphy

Conferences, education, Reflections, team members, , , , ,

Supporting Student Well-Being through Mindfulness Practices
Shelly MurphyLast week I (Shelley Murphy) had the opportunity to hear Finnish educator and scholar Pasi Sahlberg speak about the quality of Finland’s education system. One of the many things that stood out to me as particularly memorable was Finland’s teachers’ primary focus on supporting student well-being. It got me thinking about the newly published Ontario Ministry of Education document Achieving Excellence: A Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/excellent.html. Its focus is on the skills, knowledge, and characteristics learners need for success and well-being and a plan of action for promoting these. I am excited to know that the ministry has recognized the fundamental importance of student well-being and has included it as one of its four core priorities here in Ontario.
One way to promote student well-being and resilience is through mindfulness awareness practices. Mindfulness practice, which has most recently been taught and practiced within the context of medicine, has been increasingly attracting attention in the field of education. When I was an elementary teacher, I used mindfulness practices to help students learn to be more self-aware, less reactive, and to meet each moment with greater attention and presence. As a teacher educator, I now introduce my preservice students to mindfulness awareness practices within my Special-Education courses. There is increasingly convincing data showing that regular mindfulness practices strengthen the areas of the brain that control attention, executive functioning, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility. A myriad of groups and organizations are surfacing to promote mindfulness in our schools for these very reasons (e.g. Discover Mindfulness in Ontario http://discovermindfulness.ca/ ; Mindful Schools in California http://www.mindfulschools.org/ ). Considering the importance of supporting the mental health, resilience, and overall well-being of both school aged students and our preservice teachers, I think mindfulness awareness practices and their applications within educational settings are worth taking a closer look at!

Assignments: Bane of Student Teachers and Professors

assessment, education, Teacher education, teacher educators, testing, university, , ,

checkmark imagesI (Clare) was in my department yesterday and ran into a number of colleagues. Most were bemoaning their heavy marking load. This is the end of the semester and most seemed snowed under with the grading papers. A few weeks ago I observed a number of student teachers submitting their assignments. They too looked tired and were complaining about their assignments and workload. Yes assignments are work. Yes as instructors we need to grade student work. But there is something wrong with this picture. Many of the student teachers do not find their assignments useful (as a few commented – “they are just make- work projects”) and faculty spend huge amounts of time marking projects their student teachers found wanting. We definitely need to have assignments but I think it is time to discuss what are useful assignments for student teachers. The corollary issue is how can marking assignment be useful for faculty?
A number of years ago when I was Director of the Elementary Preservice program at OISE we created a survey about assignments which we distributed to around 600 student teachers. The results were surprising: they did not like having to self-assess, they disliked group projects, and they would rather have fewer, more in-depth assignments, than many little ones. (Most criticized were submitting long lesson plans with reflections. Many admitted they simply made up the reflections.) What was not surprising is they valued assignments where they had choice in both the topic and the format. If we (faculty and student teachers) are going to spend significant time on assignments then let’s use our time more fruitfully and productively. We cannot do away with assignments but I think we can reconceptualize them to be more useful for everyone involved.