Vision and Pedagogy:
In this section we will try to outline some of our fundamental beliefs about our teaching practices and how it plays out in our teaching practices.
Creating a Community of Learners
We believe that for authentic learning to happen, students need to feel respected, accepted, and valued as members of a learning community. We believe that when students feel a part of a learning community they are:
In our classroom building a community of learners is intentional and cultivated through:
- More willing to take risks as learners
- Work efficently/productively in small groups
- See themselves as able learners
In our classroom building a community of learners is intentional and cultivated through:
- Building relationships with students: This includes investing time at beginning of the year to get to know individual students and their learning needs and connecting/establishing relationships with parents/caregivers.Throughout the year/on an ongoing basis this includes investing conferencing time to listen to students reflections on individual learning progress/concerns they might have in regards to group.
- Focus on Equity: Equity does not mean equal. To us it means ensuring that our lessons allow for all students to participate/feel included. For students with learning challenges it means seeking out ways in which to assist them in being successful.
Using Technology to Enhance Student Learning
One of our focuses in our teaching practices revolve around effective ways in which to incorporate technology into our lessons to enhance student learning. Unlike our experiences as learners, the generations of students we teach/will teach, are emersed in a digital society. Understanding how to use technology to enhance learning, and how to transfer understanding from one form of technology to the next is a skill we strive to teach and allow our students to experience.
This is done through:
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Reflective and Research Based Approaches to Teaching:
As graduate students, we have come to see the value in research based appraoches to teaching and learning.
As teachers this means:
As teachers this means:
- Keeping up with current research as it applies to various areas of learning.
- Investing time in professional development
- Continually reflecting on teaching practices
- Being flexible and open to change
Approaches to Curriculum: Cultivating Critical Thinkers/Learners
As students of a digital generation, access to information is immeasurable. The challenge for our student then becomes not how we can discover answers but how can we think critically about the answers we have found. As teachers to this generation, our aim is to embed critical thinking into the teaching of our subject matter while providing our students with the intellectual tools they need so that they not only understand what they are learning about but are able to formulate their own thoughtful conclusions using these ideas.