Body measurements in the garden

Starting to play with linear measurement, angles and similar triangles in the garden, without measuring tapes or metre sticks!  Now how would you introduce ideas about area in and with the garden? How about volume? More on angles of rotation? There's plenty of room to develop this! 

Details on your Inquiry 1 project!

For Inquiry 1, you will be starting your exploration of your chosen inquiry topic. The first part of this project will be done in this course:

• your annotated bibliography/ mini literature review,
• connections with the real world of teaching and learning (conversations with students, teachers, parents, administrators, curriculum designers, professors, community members,...; observations of teaching and learning in and out of schools)
• bringing together your initial ideas
• presenting these ideas to classmates (including a short participatory activity)
  
  
  

1) Annotated bibliography: Due Thurs. Nov. 23 on your blogs. Should include:

• at least 8 items (if you are working individually), or at least 12 items (if you are working in a pair) or 16 items (if working in a group of 3).
• at least half of those items should be scholarly articles (research and possibly practitioner articles)
• at least a few other items that are not scholarly articles (TED talks, other videos, websites, books, blogs, etc.)

The annotations should be 1-2 sentences per item that explain why you selected this item and how it informed your learning about your topic.

2) 8-10 slides: Due the day before you do your presentations -- to be posted on your blogs.

These slides should offer information, images and directions for your class presentation and should encapsulate the learning and resources used for your Inquiry 1 project.

You can use Prezi, Powerpoint, Keynote, Google Slides or any format that you like that we can all read.

You should use these slides to communicate your inquiry methods and findings to the class in your presentation. They may also help with your interactive activity for the class. We will talk more and post requirements for your presentation separately.

3) A reflective blog post on your Inquiry 1 project: Due within a week of your presentation on your blog.

Each person involved in the Inquiry project should post a personal reflection on the process and learning that came of your Inquiry 1 project. What did you learn, and how? What would you like to carry on with into your Inquiry 2 project? Has this first part of the work led you in new and unexpected directions, or did things turn out as you had expected? Where does your interest and curiosity lead you from here?

Hope you have fun, follow your curiosity, and inquire broadly and deeply!

Starting to think about our Inquiry 1 project topics for Oct 16/17

 It's time to begin thinking about our Inquiry projects -- especially as you may want to begin work on them through your short practicum and beyond, at your practicum school.

In the next few classes we will work on:

•identifying your areas of intense interest and curiosity

•beginning to define your inquiry question -- something you care deeply about!

•finding concepts or themes underlying your inquiry question

•giving attention to how and why we do a 'literature review'

•getting started on the lit review.

We will use the following template to guide this initial work. Please complete sections 1 and 2 and post to your blog by Wednesday October 16 at  9 pm, along with a paragraph describing your connections and motivations for your interest in this topic area!

Controversial conversations: Alfie Kohn on the problems with praise and grades & Jo Boaler on student inquiry

  

A 48:00 minute talk at OISE at the University of Toronto by Stanford mathematics education professor Jo
Boaler. (Watch from 2:34 to 27:00). For those in the EDCP 342 class, you will have read about the so-called California Math Wars. Jo Boaler is the one who was subjected to severe threats to herself and her family, simply because her work supports exploratory student learning as a way of teaching mathematics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OgKnrPNZiI


Alfie Kohn interview with Amy Jo Kim on Why Co-operation Beats Competition in Games, Education and Parenting (2023, 27:00)

and an earlier video of Alfie Kohn on the problems with GPAs and the current promotion of STEM (2016, 15:42)

Check list: What should be on your blog by October 4 (today)

Hello everyone! I will be sending out marks and comments on your blog posts very soon, and wanted to clarify what needs to be posted on your blog to date.

In case you are missing any posts, please catch them up by October 19th at the latest! After that, we will 'close the book' on the September and October blog posts, and carry on with the new work once you return from your practicum.

If any of your blog posts gets a mark of 1 or 1.5, that means that there is something you have left out, not addressed, or not dealt with in sufficient depth. Please add an **EDIT: ...  and revise any posts that fall into this category, also by October 19th at the latest!

Remember -- your assignments (including your blog) need to be up-to-date and done to a high standard to pass your courses, and your long practicum depends on you having passed all your courses to date.

Here's the list of blog posts that you should have completed so far for our Inquiry 1 EDUC 450 class:

1. Sept 5 exit slip -- Frank McCourt
2. Sept 12 entrance slip -- On becoming a reflective teacher (reading)
3. Sept 12 exit slip -- drawing to learn (& reflections any other class activities)
4. Sept 19 entrance slip -- garden-based learning article (reading)
5. Sept 19 exit slip -- colours, sundial, awareness of sky and seasons
6. Sept 26 entrance slip -- Sharon Kallis article (reading)
7. Sept 26 exit slip -- making rope and braid with foraged plant materials 
8. Oct 3 entrance slip -- Robin Wall Kimmerer on language (reading)
9. (upcoming: Oct 3 exit slip -- poetry, language, cultural dichotomies)
10. (upcoming: Oct 10 entrance slip -- the effects of marking on math and physics classes (reading))

I'm really enjoying reading your thoughts, ideas, connections and extensions to these readings and activities!

Some easy-to-access poetic forms & mathematical poetry

Here is the blackboard with notes on the poetic forms we tried out today:

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And here is the "function" poem by Canadian poet Don McKay that we read:

Blackboards from today’s discussion on language, colonialism and dominant culture dichotomies

 

Entrance slip reading for our October 10 class: what are the effects of marking, grading and ranking?

 An article on the effects of marking and grading practices in a secondary physics classroom:

•  Inquiry into assessment and evaluation of learning in a physics classroom

• (A supplementary article in case you are interested:  Jo Boaler article on marks in math class (from Time Magazine))

And some questions to prompt your reflections:

1) What are your "student bird" and "teacher bird" thoughts about assigning percentages or letter grades in the assessment of student work? What do the grades indicate? How are they arrived at? Whose purposes do they serve? What are positive and negative aspects to giving grades? to be assigned grades by an instructor?

More from Robin Wall Kimmerer: Gathering Moss

 This whole book, a popular account of the botany and development of mosses from Kimmerer’s scholarship, is interesting and well worth reading. We will focus on a short introductory chapter, The Standing Stones, to think together about language, experience, science and wonder. How do these fit together (or not), in the context of Indigenizing and decolonizing curriculum?

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ao6dkA6N8axivE_1PhoYG-ZhmzRbJwZ0/view?usp=drivesdk