Week #1 – January 6th, 2022
Complete the “L” from our KWL based on today’s class and the assigned readings.
Reflect on your learnings and any aspects that you found particularly intriguing or puzzling.
“L” – What did I learn about assessment from the two assigned articles for this week?
I found it somewhat comforting jumping back into learning after the holiday break by re-reading the OECD’s Practitioner’s Guide “The Nature of Learning Using Research to Inspire Practice” (2010). It was also interesting to read it through a slightly more experienced lens. I found I was able to absorb the information at a new level. I really connected with the statement on page 4 that states: “Like emotion, the presence of positive motivation towards a learning task markedly increases the likelihood that students will engage in learning.” I believe that I have intuitively always understood the interconnectedness between motivation and relationships; as written in my EDUC 393 Pedagogical Philosophy Statement, “Relationships are one of the foundations of my personal teaching pedagogy. I have witnessed both the impacts of positive and negative relationships on the ability of a student to learn.” However, I am now gaining the academic language to discuss this pedagogical approach within the teaching community. Hopefully, this will allow me the confidence to approach others if they are negatively impacting my students’ motivation again in the future
The biggest takeaway that I learned from the assigned readings was how to answer a middle/high school student’s age-old question:” Why are we learning this?” I found the answer in the OCED Practitioner’s Guide section titled, Self-directed, lifelong learning on pages 8 and 9. I’ve always stumbled by giving answers like, “because you need to” or “let’s just get through this today – one step at a time.” But now have a much better response, and I tested it out on my teenage son. It is a combination of my finally being able to understand the shift to BC Core Competencies and how it is impossible to know what the future will look like. Students need to be prepared to work in jobs and industries that may not exist today. They need to build skills to use technologies that have not been invented yet and face whatever challenges the future holds. A few months ago, I caught a CBC Radio program while driving discussing climate change. The presenter talked about the nearness of world-altering environmental events in the upcoming 30 years and how hard it will be for educators not to terrify students. I wish I had noticed the name or date so I could listen to it again, but all in all, the memory of the radio program just adds to the fact that the content is secondary to the learning experience. The core skill of competencies that students are building will be the most important for success in an unknown future.
I suppose I could say that I am slowly learning to appreciate BC’s Redesigned Curriculum’s move to a competency-based model and that formative assessment and the shift to a proficiency scale lends itself nicely to that model as well.