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Author: mstorzer

Free Inquiry #3 – James Kendra on Social Studies in the classroom

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On October 18, 2019

In Free Inquiry, Uncategorised

I sat down to watch James Kendra’s Ted Talk  – https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=748&v=yrYGFdzQSmg.

He hit on so many of the points that I have been thinking about in relation to Social Studies teaching.  One of the key reasons that I wanted to look at the use of current events in Social Studies teaching is to explore whether it could be the hook to create relevance for students. I hope to never have to hear the question ‘why do I have learn this’ because it will be so obvious to them the relevance of the material.  The question in my mind is – what makes something relevant to us?

In his talk, Kendra starts to explore some of his answers to this.   He talks about a content-free classroom, but it seems that what he means by that is not so much content-free but rather predetermined-content-free.  He seems to be espousing the idea that by teaching through current events and allowing students to ask questions about events that are relevant to their lives it sparks their passions/interest, and that this in turn leads to better citizens. The questioning that occurs also is bound to lead down the road of history, geography, civics, economics etc. making it easy to cover any pre-determined content that may exist.  He contrasts the approach with the more traditional social studies classroom which not only overall had a major  emphasis on history, but also very often started in the past and too often never made the link to the present.  He speaks about how he thinks students need to be able to understand what is going on now in order to understand what went on in the past.

Given all of this, I’m interested in reading/thinking more and testing a method of Social Studies teaching that looks like:

  • starting in the here and now (i.e. current events)
  • allowing students to ask their own questions (connection to inquiry here) about the current events to get them thinking deeply about what is going on and why.

It seems the recent changes to the curriculum  with a move toward less pre-determined content in the classroom, may create the space and time to do the above.  If what Kendra says is true, teaching through current events and with student-led questioning, may be the way to getting kids inspired and invested in Social Studies.

In my next step in this learning – I plan to take a current event and see if I can identify:

  • what  curriculum big ideas, competencies and content could be covered
  • what kind of strategies I would need to employ to make ‘teaching through current events’ effective.

Ed Tech blog #3 – Video editing

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On October 18, 2019

In Audio Editing, Uncategorised, Video Editing

I loved the class we had on video editing, Audacity, and Screencastify.  Thanks to Rich McCue and the  UVic Digital Scholarship Commons https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/dsc/ – what a great resource they are for our community.  I enjoyed going a little more in-depth on iMovie with this class.  And since that class, I have been making many more with the additional knowledge, including a Thanksgiving video for my friend who lives across the world and who misses autumn in Canada.  The educational applications for all three of the tools that we were introduced to – iMovie, Audacity and Screencastify – seem boundless to me. Especially in this era where essays and tests are no longer at the top of the summative assessment hierarchy, I am looking forward to inviting students to demonstrate their learning through any and all of these methods.

Ed Tech blog #2 – FIPPA

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On October 10, 2019

In Privacy & Safety, Uncategorised

I appreciated the discussion of FIPPA, as I can see the importance of considering how the technology used in classroom activities impacts privacy.  As I interact with many new technology tools over the course of this program, I am experiencing an abstract random nature to my clicking of ‘agree’ and ‘allow’ or ‘next’ after inserting my name or email.   Even when I try to pay attention to what I am giving away, including attempting to read the pages long explanations, I often still don’t really understand the implications of the ‘agree’ and ‘allow’.   In the end, I usually grant access to the various tools to do what they will with my computer and my personal information. I find my decision often goes something like this: if so many people are using this program, how bad can it be that bad?  Given recent  fiascos about how information has been used and abused, I wonder if this will come back to haunt me one day. I say this as a reminder to myself, to try to dig deep with my students on this issue before I ask them to proceed merrily down the tech access path of ‘allow’, ‘agree’ and ‘insert email’.

Free Inquiry blog #2 – Current Events in the Classroom – some observations so far

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On October 10, 2019

In Free Inquiry

I have started to take notes on how teachers in the classroom are using current events.  So far, these have looked like:

  • Use of the stories of fires it the Amazon rainforest as a launching point for the reading and answering of questions on an article that discussed the issues of resources in the Amazon.  The teacher also took the opportunity to introduce some terms from physical geography, like basin.
  • Looking at Bill 21 in Quebec which bans religious symbols for public sector workers.  The students were asked to listen a podcast as well as to review a Global News article on the issue.  Using this current event, the teacher was able to get at what are the legal issues of the case?  What is the Bill about?  What is the media saying about it?  what are some outstanding questions that the students would like better answered?  What are some questions for class discussion?  In addition, constitutional issues were raised as part of this current event. The teacher indicated that by being exposed to constitutional issues now through a current event, it will assist when they look at constitutional issues in a more linear fashion later on.  This made me think of a colleague who had been mentioning that they were learning about a mentor’s theory of teaching practice called EDO – explore, discuss, observe (I think that is what it stands for).  The idea behind it is that it is better to get the kids to explore, discuss and then teach about a subject rather than the reverse (which is usually more traditional).  This method was explained in the context of science, but I am intrigued by its potential merit for social studies.
  • The final example that I saw recently was the use of the federal election and the planning of an all-candidates debate and student vote to explore questions and information like historical voting patterns in Victoria, who should be able to participate in debates and why? How do people vote usually, i.e. for the candidate? or for the party?

Of all the examples that I have seen so far, the class that was most engaged was the one discussing the federal election. I wonder if this is because there was a real decision at stake for the class, i.e. who would they be inviting to participate in their all-candidates meeting being organized at their school.  This made me think, maybe using current events in a classroom to help with relevance and engagement is a good start, but maybe even more compelling is activities that have real implications for them.

Free Inquiry blog #1 – Current Events in the Classroom

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On September 30, 2019

In Free Inquiry

Thanks to the introduction to Trello, I am rolling with my free inquiry – Current events in the Social Studies. So far I have identified the following questions that I want to explore:

-How could I use current events as the anchor for teaching all aspects of the social studies curriculum in the classroom?

-Will using current events help make the curriculum relevant for students?

-How have experts (i.e. current best practices) thought about using current events in the classroom?

-How are the teachers at the school where I am observing using current events in the classroom?

Here are a few resources I think I am going to want to check out for this project:

https://www.facinghistory.org

https://www.21socialstudies.com/blog/teaching-history-through-current-events-every-day-can-be-a-current-events-day

https://www.backstoryradio.org

http://www.choices.edu/resources/current.php

 

Ed Tech blog #1 – Most Likely To Succeed film

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On September 29, 2019

In Learning Design

I really enjoyed watching the film, Most Likely to Succeed.   It explores an age-old question related to education:  what is society trying to achieve with education, and given that, how should time be spent in schools?  I think the filmmakers present a compelling argument for the idea that things have changed and the pedagogy should reflect that new reality.  Their model for school change is also a compelling one, as their methods seemed to maximize student involvement, empowerment and interest, and minimize the disinterest that is observed all too many times in classrooms.  Their model appears to focus, simplistically put, on pursuing depth rather than breadth in relation to content. While they espoused the benefits of this and explore some of the potential concerns, I remain undecided over this issue.  Is there a body of content knowledge that we should collectively know?  And if so, who decides what that is? How can the inherent biases in those decisions be addressed?  Given the new directions of the BC curriculum with a focus on big ideas and competencies, it seems the writers of this curriculum may have also been wrestling with many of these issues.

QGIS in the Classroom – Tech Inquiry

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On September 26, 2019

In Communication, EdTech Inquiry

I am intrigued by the possibilities of using and teaching students to use QGIS, an open-source Geographic Information Systems software.   GIS software is capable of capturing, storing, manipulating, analyzing, managing, and presenting geographic data.  It is a tool used in many different sectors and careers.

Some of the questions I have about QGIS and its applications in the classroom are:

About the software

-What is it?

-How do you use the technology?

-Who uses it? -how many fields are using it?

-Why do people use it? For what purposes?

-Are their educational materials available about how to use QGIS in the classroom?

In the classroom

-What can be taught about it is the classroom?

-How would you use it to teach in the classroom, e.g. project based learning with community partners?

-Who is using it in the classroom?

-How are they using it?

-What are some of the barriers to using? 

Resources I’d like to check out:

http://nativemaps.org/?tag=bioregional-mapping

https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/dsc/workshops/creative-commons-licensed-workshop-curriculum/ 

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