Welcome to My EDSE 307 Blog

About me

Hello! My name is Amy Jevne. I am in my fourth year of my Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Science combined degree. I am greatly looking forward to beginning my student teaching this semester! I will be teaching junior high math (major) and drama (fun surprise). I decided to do my portfolio for EDSE 307 as a blog because even though it is still just words on a page, it feels more personal.

I absolutely love nature photography, and I like to try to take nice pictures (on my phone) of beautiful things that I see in nature. This is my favourite shot from 2019, taken at Lake Louise in August.

Course Instructor: Miranda Niebergall

Module 2 Response

What does my 21st century classroom look like?

A quote from a review on contemporary paradigms of digital literacy has guided my thoughts. “The illiterate of the 21st century are not those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (Nawaz & Kundi, 2010, p. 20). Critical thinking will guide individuals to unlearn and relearn as necessary, and as such if any of my students leave my class without an increased capacity for critical thought then I have failed to truly educate them. There are multiple branches of literacy that will guide my practice.

Digital literacy is one important branch of general literacy, where students must be competent at using digital technology. In the 21^st century, this is clearly important. It seems to be a common view that technology comes naturally to young people, but there are many aspects that still must be taught, and many skills that need to be practiced in a school setting. Students must know how to operate these technologies, but they also need to know how to interpret and synthesize what they are learning from them. As Pinkard (2013) stated in a video about her Digital Youth Network, literacy is defined by the technology of the time, and literacy now requires the ability to critique media. Domine (2011) argues that building 21^st century teachers requires intentional pedagogy of media literacy education. Media literacy requires the critical habits of weighing evidence and using reason, and empowers students to be creative producers of messages (p. 196).

Another branch of literacy is necessary: environmental literacy. McBride, Brewer, Berkowitz, and Borrie (2013) define that environmental literacy “…comprises an awareness of and concern about the environment and its associated problems, as well as the knowledge, skills, and motivations to work toward solutions of current problems and the prevention of new ones” (p. 3). It is so very important to me that I take every opportunity to teach my students environmental literacy. In my opinion, the Alberta curriculum does not allow for enough of these opportunities. My teaching philosophy holds environmental literacy to the same degree of importance as media literacy. Media literacy and environmental literacy do complement each other in that they require some of the same skills. Environmentally literate students have certainly learned ideas about the state of our planet that are not entirely true, and they will have the capacity to unlearn those ideas and relearn the truth.

The classroom environment will be most suited for learning. No student will feel left out or marginalized. The instructions and assessments will follow a universal design for learning, paying special attention to the guiding principle of flexibility, as identified by King-Sears (2009, p. 199). Students will have some choice in their learning, so as to best accommodate their needs, and they will have choice in assessment that allows them to truly show what they have learned. It will be important for each student to have their own school-supplied laptop that they may take home. There are two reasons: the students will need a computer to do a variety of classroom activities, and it will create equality among the students. Culturally responsive pedagogy and teaching will be essential for creating a harmonious classroom environment, where all students of all cultures will feel valued. The Indigenous students in my class will have a designated space in the school where they may go to interact with Elders, participate in smudging, participate in other community building activities, and socialize (personal communication, January 13, 2020).

The physical elements of my classroom will be designed to help the students feel most open and energized. I have witnessed first-hand the benefits of standing desks when I volunteered in a grade six classroom, and I am certain that there would be older students who could benefit much the same. My class would not be sentient; students can stand as they please, and there would be periodic movement breaks that would help the students’ bodies and brains. Ample natural light and student work displayed proudly would help contribute to a warm and welcoming environment that is their own. My class would also have the opportunity to participate in the school’s greenhouse program, where students learn to garden. Students can learn about the resources and care required to grow our food, and through this opportunity they can learn about how nutritious vegetables are and increase their environmental literacy.

Students will be given projects and assignments that allow them to exercise and demonstrate their media literacy. It is evident from Pinkard’s (2013) video that when her students were at the Digital Youth Network’s after school space, and given the opportunity to create and explore with digital technology, that they came alive. Even students that were quiet during the school day were animated and engaged, and they learned and grew greatly through the experience. Students in my classroom would be given the opportunity to work on creative projects that hold personal interest to them. They will be able to work individually and in groups to further foster community.

An ideal learning activity in my future science class that encompasses all of these ideas would require students to evaluate the merit of science claims in a popular news article. The students would need to investigate the claims made in the article, practicing media literacy, and learning environmental literacy along the way. An activity like this, especially if repeated throughout the term on a variety of topics would give students the skills to unlearn and relearn as necessary in their lives outside of school.

Some elements of this ideal classroom are possible in our current paradigm and legislation, and some are not. While I may not be able to take my students to the school garden, and they may not all have their own personal computer or some of the expensive programs they may like to use, the loss of these tools would not prevent media or environmental literacy from being learned and practiced. The spirit of these literacies is critical thinking, which is something that can be accomplished in any setting, with enough determination.

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References

Domine, V. (2011). Building 21st-century teachers: An intentional pedagogy of media literacy education. Action in Teacher Education, 33, 194-205.

King-Sears, M. (2009). Universal design for learning: Technology and pedagogy. Learning Disability Quarterly, 32(4), 199-201.

McBride, B. B., Brewer, C. A., Berkowitz, . R., & Borrie W. T. (2013). Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, ecoliteracy: What do we mean and how did we get here? Ecosphere, 4(5): 67.

Nawaz, A., & Kundi, G. M. (2010). Digital literacy: An analysis of the contemporary paradigms. Journal of Science and Technology Education Research, 1(2), 19-29.

Pinkard, N. [Edutopia]. 2013, February 6. Nichole Pinkard on Digital Literacy (Big Thinkers Series) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/Aya43MnWTxQ

Module 3 Response

Time to stop and think

Marshall McLuhan (1967) has been attributed with may thought provoking quotes, one of which being that “[ours] is a brand-new world of all-at-onceness.” This quote is found in The Medium is the Massage, and while this book was published over fifty years ago, the quote holds true today. The internet as we know it could certainly not have been imagined in 1967, and it greatly magnifies McLuhan’s initial meaning. The internet has made it possible for humans to access information about anything in an instant. This has a major impact on our society as a whole, and on the education of our society. Easy access to information is provided by the internet, but the skills to properly interpret the information is not. Educators must focus on students’ ability to interpret what they read so that the students may create the correct meaning. Educators need to help students slow down and think.

It may seem that in today’s world, we do not need to teach facts. What is the point of spending time learning what different types of trees look like, or what dates wars started on, when we could Google it? I believe that the younger students are, the more important it is for facts to be taught. In a video on the philosophy of language and meaning, Hank Green (2016) describes the ways words carry meaning through reference and sense. It takes time for children to develop the sense needed to comprehend texts containing new words. Textbooks, and other learning resources that are written for a targeted age level or specific curriculum, are designed to be at an appropriate reading level for their audience. In science in particular, some scholarly articles are nearly impossible to understand with no background in the particular field. There are too many words that carry no meaning outside the scientific community. These concepts could be described to the general public, but it would require a great deal of attention to the level of language used. Young students in school would require the same type of specialized texts to be able to learn from and understand what they are reading.

It is not only the need to make certain that students are capable of comprehending what they read, but the need to make sure that they construct the appropriate meaning from it. Learning and understanding a simple fact is easy enough to do, but the connections between facts, and the meaning that they carry for our lives is not always as easy to find. I have found that in some of my university math courses, when I do not get enough instruction on a fact, and in particular not enough contextualization, that I have trouble extending the meaning to other applications. If that is difficult to do in university, where only the students who did well in grade school are present, then the young students who struggle already would have no hope if Google was their teacher, only giving them the facts.

Students ability to think critically is a skill that requires practice. I find great importance in teachers taking the time to encourage students to think critically, try new things, and make mistakes. It will be an essential component of my practice to analyze, as a class, articles found online. This is a key component of media literacy, and it is ever important in our increasingly instantaneous world. Students may have a difficult time interpreting sources that they read on the web in their after school lives. There are a variety of language barriers, such as unfamiliar vocabulary and the possibility of subtle biases. These difficulties are amplified in English language learners. It is the teacher’s role to help the students navigate through the language difficulties so the students may learn to do this independently.

Students being forced to take time to analyze what they read, check sources, and come to their own conclusion effectively helps to filter out some of the “all-at-onceness” McLuhan eludes to. It is incredibly easy to feel overwhelmed by the results of a Google search, not knowing what to read first and not knowing what websites are reliable. Taking the time to interpret what is read helps to ease this overwhelming feeling, because it forces students to work through one task at a time. A certain appreciation for the work that goes into these sources is also required to develop meaning from them. I intend to show my students the difference in the validity of the claims on a webpage when there are grammatical errors and no sources, versus a page that has been properly edited and cited.

It is impossible to remove the instantaneousness of our world from school environments, and it is seemingly futile to try. But it is not futile to teach students to stop, analyze, and appreciate the instant information before them. This is how media literacy and informed citizens are created. To ignore this fact about our world, which certainly predates the internet, would be a disservice to our students, and our society as a whole.

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References

Green, H. [CrashCourse]. 2016, August 29. Language & Meaning: Crash Course Philosophy #26 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/zmwgmt7wcv8

McLuhan, M., Fiore, Q., & Agel, J. (1967). The medium is the massage. New York: Bantam Books.

Assignment 2 – Video

Here is my video for Assignment 2. The topic is Math 7, Statistics and Probability, probability relating to two independent events. The two strategies used in this video are a think-aloud and a graphic organizer.

Module 4 Response

Reading Comprehension in the Math Classroom

My major subject area is mathematics, which is something that, prior to taking this course, I never associated with reading comprehension. However, upon thinking back to all of the times throughout my own schooling where I simply read the textbook and understood the math, I have realized that I took my aptitude for reading for granted. To read a math textbook and understand the math is an act that requires a great deal of reading comprehension skills, especially if there are language barriers already existing for a student. And while I would never structure my math classes in a way that students are reading from the textbook all of the time, textbooks are a great resource and it would be a disservice to my students to not be taught how to use them properly.

Math textbooks contain a variety of texts, but what I am most interested in with regards to reading comprehension is the worked through examples. For any given concept a textbook will usually show at least a few examples in different contexts, with the solutions explained. Usually there will be an opportunity for the student to read the example first so that they may attempt it themselves, and then they could read the solution once they are done. The solution will be given in a step by step manner, containing all details and no shortcuts. Not all students would simply be able to read those and know the math.

The first reading comprehension strategy I would teach my students to use when reading through worked solutions of math problems is a KWL chart. These are useful for all subject areas (Connecticut State Department of Education, USA, 2007) and would generally be a good strategy for my students to learn. In particular, I would want the students to think about what they know about the problem before they read the solution. They could write down how they think the problem should be solved, and what math concepts are involved in the “know” column. In the “want to know” column they could write down what the questions and confusions they have about the problem. They could then read through the solution, reading for answers to their questions, and confirmation about what they knew. They may find that they had some misconceptions going into the reading, and seeing them written down and then challenged would be very helpful in correcting those misconceptions. As described by Moore (n.d.) students need to know the purpose of their reading, and the KWL sets up a clear purpose for their reading before they begin.

For times when I want to use a textbook example in front of the class, I would model a think-aloud to help the students’ comprehension. I would work through the problem on the board step-by-step, and in the same manner that is shown in the textbook, and would clearly and slowly explain every part of my thinking as I go. I would ask questions, giving plenty of wait time, as I go about what is happening and why. I would show them how to find the answers to questions that come up while the problem is being solved. This would show them how they could fill in some of the gaps in the printed solution – as these texts often do not fully go into the “why” of the steps. I would then group the students into partners, and have them write out an entire think-aloud script for a separate problem. This would force them to really think about the math that is happening, recall what they already know and find out what they do not.

As a post-reading activity, I would ask the students to make a flow chart graphic organizer to fully explain the entire process of what happened. This would require the students to go back over what they read, and restate each part of the process in their own words. It would require them to analyze how each one event leads to the next. According to the Connecticut State Department of Education, USA (2007), graphic organizers make it easier for students to remember concepts (p. 62). These would help students to remember the flow of problem solving processes in math.

Reading comprehension skills are important in learning math for all, but especially important for English language learners. As outlined by Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera (2006), teachers use a lot of highly academic words when teaching math, and math really is not a “universal language” (p. 34). Math may use symbols that are universal, but it is taught with words that are not. So when students are tasked with reading math texts, it requires a great deal of reading comprehension to make sense of the text. Comprehension activities are not just beneficial for English language learners, however. Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera (2006) pointed out that many learners at a lower reading level have difficulty with math as well (p. 35).

Solving math word problems, which are incredibly common, also requires a great deal of reading comprehension skills. A study from the Netherlands found that a greater emphasis should be placed on reading comprehension when teaching word problem solving (Boonen, de Koning, Jolles, & van der Schoot, 2016). Bearing this in mind, I could use the strategies I have outlined here in word problem solving as well. The KWL chart would be useful to break down the information presented in the problem, the think aloud would give students useful examples of how to deal with all of this information, and the flow chart graphic organizers could be used to model the flow of events in the problem. These strategies all turn a written paragraph into something that shows all of the same information, but in a way that is easier to digest. Both because it is broken down in a systematic way, and because the students did the work to get it there.

In my practice I will certainly explore plenty of additional reading comprehension activities. If students who struggle with reading are not properly taught, they may never reach their full potential in math. It is my hope as a teacher to pass along my love of math, and reading comprehension strategies will certainly help me in doing that.

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References

Boonen, A. J. H., de Koning, B. B., Jolles, J., & van der Schoot, M. (2016). Word problem solving in contemporary math education: A plea for reading comprehension skills training. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00191

Connecticut State Department of Education, USA. (2007). Section 7: Instructional strategies that facilitate learning across the curriculum. In Beyond the Blueprint: Literacy in Grades 4-12 and across Content-Areas, p. 49-77. Retrieved from: https://www.wcupa.edu/education-socialwork/assessmentAccreditation/documents/Instructional_Strategies.pdf

Francis, D. J., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academic interventions. Center on Instruction. Retrieved from https://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf

Moore, D.W. (n.d.) Reading Comprehension Strategies. National Geographic Learning/Cengage. Retrieved from http://ngl.cengage.com/assets/downloads/inside_pro0000000029/am_moore_bld_read_pwr_seb21_0411a.pdf

Module 6 Response

Was high school like Easy A?

Reflecting on my own not too long ago teen experiences, especially through the lens of popular movies and TV shows, leaves a lot of unanswered questions. As I am getting ready to step into the shoes of a secondary teacher I wonder how skewed my perception of what it is like to be in high school has become. I, for the most part, had a fairly quiet three years – but I am well aware that many did not. I didn’t step on any toes, didn’t get into any trouble, and did not have a social life anything like the ones portrayed in popular teen movies or shows. I had my comfortable place amongst the band geeks and I liked my life.

While I was in high school, I certainly did not feel that Easy A (dir. Will Gluck, 2010) was an accurate representation of what it is like. But while I was in high school I was watching this film only on the surface level. The crazy plot lines and perfect romantic gesture at the end, where everything magically works out perfectly do not scream “realistic.” When I watch it now, I recognize that reflects a very universal need to be noticed and illustrates the harmful effects rumours and gossip can have. The actions taken by the protagonist, Olive, are a somewhat hyperbolized attempt at dealing with this – seeing as she takes the matter into her own hands in a way that the average high school student would not – but the feelings underpinning those actions are not hyperbolized at all. Olive’s struggles with finding a place and a voice, and in dealing with negative impacts of rumours and gossip are reflective of a true high school experience. Viewing this film for its more sophisticated content will help inform my practice as a high school teacher one day.

Olive’s story begins with a white lie, something that everyone certainly has done, but it begins to spiral out of her control when she decides to embrace the new image that her lie accidentally creates. In her English class, she is reading The Scarlett Letter (Hawthorne, 1850), and her life begins to parallel the book, where she is othered because of her purported sexual activities. The fact that this film is a modern day adaptation of a novel from 1850 truly goes to show how universal its themes are. Olive and Hester’s experiences of social exclusion are certainly more unique in nature, but not terribly unlike the exclusion I know to happen in high school.

Social exclusion can be very damaging, because it may not always be as overt as traditional bullying or rumour spreading, and as a result it may not always be addressed as it should be. A study on the effects of social exclusion in adolescent girls showed that those who were socially excluded reported significantly lower self-esteem levels than the girls that had not been socially excluded (Stanley & Arora, 1998, p. 97). The study also found that only a small minority of the girls thought of social exclusion as bullying (p. 97). The social exclusion that Olive experiences in the film is a big part of what made this film relatable, because it is so common.

The harmful effects of social exclusion, and other forms of indirect bullying are explored in an Italian study. The study finds that experiencing indirect bullying between the ages of 11 and 15 is a significant predictor of anxiety, depression, and withdrawn behaviours (Baldry, 2004). Indirect bullying is something that teachers may not always notice. In the film, Olive’s indirect bullying does not seem to affect her mental health too badly, but it does take a toll on her and she eventually breaks down. Bearing this in mind, when I see these symptoms in my students I will take action to find out if indirect bullying is a cause.

As commonly found in high school as indirect bullying is the search for a voice and an identity. Olive is very public in her identity searching in some aspects, but private in others. When she realizes that the image she has adopted is not who she wants to be, she does some searching. Some very wise words are spoken by Todd that help Olive realize the rumours are not working in her favour: “Notoriety, for whatever reason, never seems to benefit the noted, only the ‘notees’” (dir. Will Gluck, 2010, 1:15:40). In her search for a place and voice, she substitutes becoming popular – and not in a great way – for truly doing and being who she wants. All high school aged students are searching for who they are. I experienced that many times throughout high school, and I expect that my students will be as well.

The lesson this film taught me, that I will offer to students should they want it, is that it is not in anyone’s favour to be popular simply for the sake of being popular. And, if the wrong routes are taken to get there it could have some serious consequences. Of course, in the film, everything is cleverly wrapped up, lesson learned, and order restored. That is where it differs from the reality of high school. High school as I remember it is likely not the same as high school now, and my experience will not be completely representative of any of my students’ experiences. As a teacher I will simply do my best to help teens navigate this tumultuous time where concern over appearances it at the forefront of their minds and sneaky bullying can have an immense toll on their well-being and self-esteem.

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References

Baldry, A. C. (2004). The impact of direct and indirect bullying on the mental and physical health of Italian youngsters. Aggressive Behaviour, 30(5), 343-355. Retrieved from https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1002/ab.20043

Gluck, W. (Director). (2010). Easy A [film]. Olive Bridge Entertainment.

Hawthorne, N. (1850). The Scarlett Letter. Ticknor, Reed & Fields.

Stanley, L & Arora, T. C. M. J. (1998). Social Exclusion amongst adolescent girls: Their self‐esteem and coping strategies. Educational Psychology in Practice, 14(2), 94-100. Retrieved from https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1080/0266736980140204

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