In this lovely week, our students enjoyed Tony’s classes. WHY? Because Tony made it a lovely place to learn. HOW? In order to answer this question, I have to go back and inquiry Tony’s classes and teaching practices. I hope I can recognize not only Tony’s magic tricks but also his intentions behind. If I don’t write it down, the ideas may disappear and never come up to my mind again. So the FRIST goal of this post is a reflection and a record for myself.
It is a challenging job to decode a teacher’s class, especially Tony’s complicated, multicultural and bilingual class in with many educational goals, skills and strategies were embedded. Fortunately, Tony provided some clues. The clues were written on the whiteboard or explicitly said by Tony.
Monday 16th Nov, Hot Water Welcome
After we got in the door of Scarf building, we saw a welcome poster for our ECNU students in the corridor. It is not big, but well printed and mounted with a frame. The next day, It was put on the wall of our classroom. There were two hot water containers prepared for us. So nice! [MAKING THE PLACE]
The thing we did in the morning was self-introduction. Tony provided some useful scaffoldings, a map of China, pins with student names and numbers, umbrellas and format of introduction. When TAs and faculties came, they introduced themselves too.[CONNECTING THE PEOPLE]
In the afternoon, students went to corridor to look around their own pictures printed by Tony. The pictures were chosen by students. They stand for students’ image of teaching or learning and also have special meaning for themselves. After they got back, they share a picture and the reasons why they choose it to share. Tony would welcome other students to make comments too. Then the picture owner reveal its meaning or story. [ENGAGING THE STUDENTS]
Tuesday 17th Nov, Placed Based Learning
Natalie introduced the place at different levels, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Turtle island, the Indigenous. Place based learning aim to make this change from I AM NO WHERE to I AM NOW HERE. Place represents layers of stories and it can included ecological education, bioregional education, critical pedagogy, experiential education, indigenous ways of knowing and being. Place based learning connects people and their places. It disrupts the idea of a one size fits all curriculum. Place is not about where we lived, buy rather about how we live where we live. Wisdom also sits in places. So our learning should not take place without a place.[PRESENT THE CONCEPTION]
Place based learning should answer three questions:
WHAT IS WHERE
WHY IS IT THERE
WHY SHOULD I CARE
Students explored the place around Scarf building in UBC. They must interview someone about the place and sit down some where in the building silently for 5 minutes to feel the place. Every group of 4 people needed to take 3 pictures and answer the three questions.[EXPLORE AND SHARE]
They explored many places excitedly and discovered many culture differences. The pictures were printed out and put on the wall to share. In this activity, pictures provided many learning opportunities:
the pictures show interesting information and details
the pictures generate questions
the pictures have stories
Natalie remind the students:
Place making=build and construct while,
place maker=every body make a part.
Teachers are place maker.
Forget place we forget how to make place.
I think this [place based learning] was carefully selected for our students, because it help them to explore UBC, practice oral English and think about connections between people and places.
Wednesday 19th Nov, School Visit
let the children to be children
I wrote a post about Norma Rose Point School.
How Learning theories are different and alike?[fill tables]
Thursday 19th Nov, Skits
Task: In your group, you are to perform a short skit that illustrates an “image of schooling” drawn from your experience as either a primary, secondary, or post-secondary school student. The performance lasts 2 or 3 minutes.[ROLE PLAY]
How we can divide the groups?[TEACHER QUESTION]
Students’ answers: by group numbers,by tables, by a game, pick card, color of clothes, by students’ abilities and so on.
How much time do we need to prepare this skit?
Students’ answers: 20 minutes; 30 minutes; 25 minutes.
Teacher: OK we choose the middle.
[Democratic the Classroom]
Teacher decides the activity but let students decide the time to prepare. To do so, students can have some ownership.
Go to the corridor and divide groups by taking off a shoe.[MAKE IT ANOTHER WAY]
The only limit is your imagination.
Friday 20th NOV, TPI
[check in]
Use check in to borrow students’ ideas and questions as learning needs and learning opportunities.
[music as alarm]
When it is time for rest, turn on the music. When class begin, turn it off and student aware of that without a pain.
Group dividing strategies:
[Number the table and symbol the students]
Let students pull out the table number[Democratic the Classroom] and teacher draw the symbol like a game. This strategy can engage more students. Don’t’ put back the table number if you don’t want one table answer twice.
[verbal curing]
LET students know the signal 30 seconds ahead before you give the signal.
Other cures:
verbal cure
eye contact
visual sight
audio sound
Teaching Perspectives Inventory
Students already took the survey and sent them to Tony. Tony print them out and sent it back to students. Then Tony began to count the heads who were dominant in one perspective and write the results on board. Then he let one student read the text about one perspective and then everyone try to summary the paragraph by keywords or phrase.
Here is the result:
TRANSMISSION 1
accuracy Anthony content knowledge
APPRENTICESHIP 7
skill norm practice
DEVELOPMENTAL 4
learner reasoning and thinking,make sense of something
NURTURING 23
safety heart support
SOCIAL REFORM 3
change collective, deconstruction, who why interests
Tony let student write on a note what impress them most these days. Then let them post it up on the wall near their pictures.[MAKE A PLACE FOR STUDENTS to share]
Let us get back to the question that I asked. My best answer for now is that Tony made good social and emotional connections with our students by making a place where they feel good by his hands, heart and minds. It was not tricks at all!
