As a girl, I (Cathy) used to walk to the library regularly. It was a good two mile walk and I usually went alone because no one I knew was as passionate about books as I was. I never minded. I loved the library. It was a treasure chest for me. I find I don’t go very often any more because I can often find what I need on line. But I still like the actual feel of a book. Guess it’s comfort food for the eye and hand. I wonder how many young children actually still go? 
Category Archives: education
Love that Dog: A touching book and useful pedagogical resource
In both my experience teaching pre-service literacy courses and my current research with student teachers I (Lydia) have witnessed the sense of anxiety and discomfort many student teachers voice when they are faced with the prospect of teaching poetry during their practice teaching placements. Often, their associate teachers are themselves not comfortable with poetry and therefore, they have difficulty scaffolding the teaching of poetry or providing supportive resources for student teachers. This awareness has motivated Clare and I to delve into poetry within the first few weeks of the P/J and J/I literacy courses, in an effort to ease some of the initial anxiety student teachers experience in anticipation of teaching poetry. We attempt to provide multiple entry points into the teaching of poetry by presenting student teachers with various forms of poetry, and by highlighting the creative expression and emotive potential offered by this medium. We also provide them with a number of resources and pedagogical strategies they can utilize during their practice teaching placement. I recently picked up a copy of the book Love that Dog by Sharon Creech, which I hope to use in the literacy methods courses this year because the insight provided into how students might feel about reading and writing poetry is useful for both teachers and students. Throughout the book, the main character a young boy named Jack journals back and forth with his teacher Ms. Stretchberry, cleverly expressing his initial resist and eventual connection to poetry. Jack initially pronounces, “I don’t want to because boys don’t write poetry. Girls do”; however, through his ongoing dialogue with his teacher Jack experiments with word choice, sounds, and rhythm as he is engages with various poetic formats. My favorite entry in the book is “November 22.” Hopefully the student teachers in the literacy courses this year will enjoy this touching book as much as I did.
Exploring a Vision of Teaching with Japanese Student Teachers
For many years, I (Clive) have had a connection with Kobe Shinwa Women’s University in Kobe, Japan. https://www.kobe-shinwa.ac.jp
The University has just established an International Education Research Center with a global perspective and I was asked to be a visiting scholar there. On Thursday I returned from a brief visit, having given lectures and engaged in discussions about our SSHRC longitudinal study of teachers and its implications for teacher education.
On Tuesday I conducted two classes with second year students. We discussed the growing sense of expertise among the teachers in our study, their decision-making about which topics to emphasize and how to teach them, their increasing emphasis on integration and individualization, and their search for a degree of work-life balance so they could “survive and thrive” as teachers and be a role model for their students.
Despite the constraints of the national examination system, the student teachers were very interested in these ideas and seemed keen to explore them during their pre-service program and subsequently. They felt there was some room for flexibility within the system and they should begin during their preparation program to figure out how to take advantage of this flexibility as much as possible.
Kobe Shinwa Women’s University has an outstanding reputation for teacher education at the elementary level and a high proportion of their graduates get jobs immediately. This encourages the teacher candidates to think deeply about pedagogy because they have a good chance of having a classroom of their own in the near future.
Because of Mr. Terupt- I was touched
I’ve been striking it lucky with my pick of children’s literature lately. Because of Mr. Terupt is a juvenile fiction novel well worth reading to a junior level class. Also perfect as a sample novel for student teachers experiencing literature circles. This touching story, by Rob Buyea, brings up many discussion points regarding what makes a good teacher, plus many other school issues: diversity, inclusion, forgiveness, and bullying just to name a few. Terrific resource for ‘hot seat’ /role playing explorations. A must read for children’s literature fanatics like me!
Challenges with Travelling Digitally
While packing for a recent trip , I (Cathy) noticed a change in my travel necessities. Here is what was on the top of my list:
Iphone & charger (for photographs, facebook, texting& directions)
Ipad & charger (for Skype, games and bill payments)
Ipod & charger, earphones (for novels and music)
Camera & charger (the Iphone only goes so far!)
Portable battery and cable (what if there is no outlet in the airport???)
As little as one and one half years ago I never would have listed such items. Times have changed. As convenient as these items may be to bring, I discovered a glitch in travelling digitally…5 devices but only one electrical adapter. Which one needs to be charged first? Now I have to prioritize my necessities!
Reflecting on my time at the International Symposium for Digital Technology and Literacy/English Teacher Education
I (Lydia) feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in the symposium last week as many of the issues raised resonated with my current research examining student teachers’ experiences with contemporary literacy teaching and learning. The issues highlighted during the individual presentations and accompanying discussions offered rich insights into the status of teacher educational internationally.
I’d like to share a few of the questions raised during the symposium that remained with me and will continue to inform my research in literacy teacher education: What should a curriculum of contemporary teacher education include? In what ways can a curriculum of teacher education provide the space and quality time necessary for student teachers to truly engage as learners? How does power continue to operate in the curriculum? How do digital tools and social media spaces construct reading and writing? What do these digital spaces permit and what do they restrict? How is knowledge constructed, represented, and distributed within digital spaces? What are the pedagogical consequences as students engage with different modes within digital spaces? These are just a few of the questions I continue to consider upon my return from the symposium. Having the opportunity to consider the complexities and issues relevant to teacher education with international scholars was truly inspiring. I look forward to continuing our rich conversations.
International Symposium on Literacy/English Teacher Education: A Focus on Digital Technology
With the symposium a few days behind us, I (Pooja) have had some time to reflect on what was discussed in London, England. Clare wrote a reflection post on day one of the symposium (https://literacyteaching.net/2014/06/06/symposium-day-1-reflections/), so I want to reflect a bit on day two. Day two started off with mini-presentations which asked presenters to focus on a central question: What is happening with digital technology in your context?
Shawn Bullock, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University, raised some interesting issues related to digital technology and education:
- Technological Determinism: A theory which asserts we need to stay current with technology to stay relevant in society; technology determines cultural values and society’s structures
- Digital Publics: The theory that the nature of public space has changed significantly over the past years. The nature of public space has gone from persistent to replicable to searchable in the past few decades:
o Persistent- recording (video, audio) events changed the nature of public space;
o Replicable- recordings became replicable;
o Searchable- today we can search for any recording
(danah boyd)
Understanding how the nature of public space has drastically changed over the years, Shawn posed an important question to the group: What is the role of education in theorizing privacy in the digital age?
As the symposium was coming to a close, we were guided to reflect on the past two days. Many people realized that the rapid increase of standardization and data driven initiatives was happening across all contexts. However, many individuals commented that the conversations over the past two days were “energizing.” Being in conversation about big issues across international contexts made many teacher educators realize they were not alone. In fact, many commented they wanted to keep up the momentum by further collaborating and “making some noise” in teacher education.
Once again, we’d like to thank TUG Agency for so graciously hosting us. TUG provided a vibrant and exciting atmosphere for our symposium to take place. Check out their website at: http://www.tugagency.com
Thank you!!!
Learning and Handwriting and the 21st Century
I (Yiola) have shared a number of posts that consider the changes and loss of all that 21st century literacies bring. I have shared media clips and links to spoken word poetry on the demise of social media.
It’s funny because I myself am an avid user of new literacies; most digital, critical, social… you name it, I engage with it. Yet, I strongly feel a sense of loss in communication, social consideration, and a certain kind of creativity and thinking. Then, I came across this article:
An interesting article that reports handwriting — traditional handwriting – has benefits far surpassing penmanship. I am interested in the art of handwriting… its skill building potential… its power to foster literacy, communication and creative thinking. I am inspired. For developing my children’s language and literacy I will use iPad Apps for building phonemic awareness but I will also continue to encourage and be excited about handwriting well into their young adult years and I will encourage my student teachers to do the same. What do you think?
Open Street Maps: Taking Action and Focusing on Multiple Perspectives
Nora Young, the host of CBC Radio’s Spark, was the keynote speaker of a conference I (Pooja) attended yesterday. She spoke about data science as a growing field of study, in fact, many universities have created departments of data science. With the growth, Nora noted, comes a need for what she called critical data literacy. She illustrated the need for critical data literacy with an example of mapping technology. Google maps have quickly become the go-to application for finding directions and/or locating businesses on a map. However, being critically data literate, guides us to question like: who gets to decide what appears on a map? The answer is most often large multi-million dollar enterprises like Google.
To disrupt google’s monopoly of the growing online map industry, initiatives like Open Street Maps have been created. In January of 2014, The Guardian commented on the need for applications like Open Street Map. They likened it to “a wiki-like map that anyone in the world can edit. If a store is missing from the map, it can be added in by a store owner or even a customer. In terms of display… each person or company who creates a map is free to render it how they like..” (Wroclawski, 2014) A site, which allows community members to add and edit a map of a community to which they belong, is powerful because it positions community members as experts.
I am looking forward to bringing this mapping technology into my classroom. I hope my students can create maps of their neighbourhoods.
A snapshot of a map made by community members:
Read more about Open Street Map:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/14/why-the-world-needs openstreetmap
Full Day Kindergarten in Full Swing
Tis the season for parents with children turning 4 years old to become acquainted with formal schooling and the Full Day Kindergarten (FDK) expectations. Ontario, Canada has implemented full day Kindergarten for all students across the province. I (Yiola) am experiencing first-hand the excitement and apprehension of sending my child, a darling, vulnerable, sensitive, sweet girl (Sylvia Clare), to school for 6.5 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Jumping online, I have read reviews — some for and some against — FDK and many focusing on children’s language and literacy development. See below for some examples:
Full-day kindergarten children score highest in vocabulary, self-regulation
As a parent, my worry is not so much if my Sylvia Clare’s academic achievement will be more or less. As a parent, my worries are related to her well-being. Will she be happy? Will she love herself even more? Will she make friends and learn how to work/play with others well? Will she come home each day and share stories of interesting things she did and learned. I most certainly want to her read and write, but in good time. I feel there is no rush and I want a pressure-free learning environment for her.
In a recent article http://www.mykawartha.com/news-story/4397024-why-full-day-kindergarten-has-better-prepared-our-kids-for-grade-1/, educational consultant Joan Ruf comments:
“One of the wonderfully positive things about full-day kindergarten is the appreciation of the whole child,” she said, explaining the program is successfully marrying the concepts of academic and emotional growth. “So it’s not just about reading and math. It’s about how are they doing. What are they doing for themselves.” This statement gives me some comfort.
Schools in Ontario are now inviting parents to attend FDK information sessions in order to prepare ‘us’ for the year ahead. I will be writing about my experiences going through this process and journaling Sylvia Clare’s experiences as she begins FDK in September.
As a professor of education, through the researching and teaching and writing and sharing, what lies at the centre of my work are the children and their development as happy, healthy, thoughtful, literate human beings.
The issues surrounding FDK: its purpose, process, and outcomes are vast. With a political election looming the topic of FDK is front and centre and how it will be managed and maintained is up in the air.
Literacy Teaching and Teacher Education 