Exit Slip: October 21

 Today's discussion about gender in mathematics and physics is something very near and dear to my heart. As a woman and an ethnic minority, being in engineering, let alone specializing in the mining industry, marginalization is something that I am always aware of. After my first week in Materials Engineering, it definitely dawned on me that I was one of 4 girls in my class of 40 - and of those 4 girls, I was one of 2 that regularly came to class. I actually consider myself very lucky, because I was raised in a home where my mom had the higher education, more advanced degree, and more high-level corporate job. She had a sense of assertiveness at home that I was raised in and I think was quite intensely transferred to my siblings and I. I even see it in the types of partners and relationships that we tend to pick. 

I think it's interesting for me to see this prejudice looking back on my more recent experiences, since it was not something that I think I've noticed completely. I also thinks this reiterates how much this bias is systemically engrained, since I can't even recall where I've had to go through this. My examples are not about some intense personal confrontation, but more about the general breakthrough of having women representation in my degree. From not having female bathrooms on every floor of our building, to having been on specific hiring committees tasked with finding women professors, to not having female role models in my field. It is definitely subtle but the lack of female presence definitely ended up being a factor for why I chose not to pursue a career in my area of engineering. I am lucky that I had professors who spoke highly of me and who did not ignore the fact that I was a woman, but instead celebrated the diversity I brought to my field! I know others were not as lucky, and had to deal with a lot of shaming and insults. 

One of my biggest motivators in showing up for my students is the fact that I can be a female role model in STEM. And it's not that I have a highly developed technical background or a unique comprehension, either. I wanted to become an engineer, so I did. I want my students to know that they do not need to be the smartest one in the room in order to deserve a place there, but if they want a place, their gender should not be one of the hurdles they face.

Inquiry Project Part 1 + 2

by Jaymi and Mike

Question:

How can we use group work to enhance the social emotional learning of our students?

Concept A: Methods of grouping students (student choice, random grouping, teacher choice)

Concept B: Structured vs. un-structured assignment/play (clear, specific tasks vs. flexible planning and learning)

We are interested in this topic because it's an important facet of the way that we both want to run our classrooms. Speaking for just myself (Jaymi), for me I'm really emphasizing in my teaching philosophy the idea of having my students develop ownership over their wellbeing. I think that one of the best ways to know what you need as a student is to have to work with others. Students will learn how to communicate their needs, understand the way they can best connect and build relationships with others, and navigate conflict. I'm excited to see the benefits of every facet of group work, as I believe that it is not about advantages/disadvantages but about the targeted benefits between each setup. 

Entrance Slip: October 21

 I read the excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass and was deeply moved by this chapter. Beyond just the generally beautiful concept of the grammar of animacy, I really appreciated her insight into Indigenous ways of knowing and being. I think it has had the most profound effect on me in years in terms of my own relationship to Indigenous culture and the idea of assimilation. The stories of the elders who speak Potawomi fluently were very impactful on having me be able to move from sympathy to empathy when it comes to internalizing the horror of residential schools. I will never know what it was like, but hearing stories like this allow me to be deeply reverent for the survivors and cultures that endured that experience.

I think the idea of animacy is an incredible way of observing the world, and something I bring into my writing in poetry or storytelling, which makes sense of why it’s such an integral part of Indigenous language. It reminds me of the idea of personification as a literary tool, even though as Dr. Kimmerer explains, it’s so much more than having the tree or rock be a person, it’s about allowing them to live as a rock or a tree, and justifying their right to life through that body. 

I think it is incredible powerful to use these tools to help students breathe literal life into science. It’s not just about like charges attracting like charges in magnetism. I can see how having my students be able to describe behaviour in the context of living could be very impactful for their understanding of a concept. I am excited to share this approach and this idea of care for our environment around us as we stop thinking of ourselves as separate from nature. I would also love to learn more terms like “puhpowee” in order to explain other concepts to my students and have them see how there are tools beyond the English language to help them visualize or describe subtle works of the world! I think it would be a great way to also involve the different cultures from students and have them embrace their own languages or other languages in terms of science. For example, I could have students research words in other languages to describe questions or phenomena they’re curious about. It’s fascinating how even though it’s not common in English, I understood immediately the feeling behind “being” a Saturday. 

Exit Slip: Oct 14

 I thought today's class was great! I really enjoyed beginning to explore my inquiry project topic. I also had a lot of time to think about how I could disrupt the physics classroom after reflecting on the entrance slip article. 

Reflections on Videos:

Jo Boaler

Cause of underachievement in math

"The elephant in the room" - the idea that only some kids can be good at math

There is no math gift or gene; every child can excel in math through schooling and beyond

Fixed vs. growth mindset; you either can do math or you can't vs. you can be determined to keep trying to learn math and get better at it

Parents play an important role in encouraging a fixed mindset. "You're so smart" praise only when they're succeeding, instead better to do "wow, you're learning, that's great". Effective even from 0-3 years.

Memorizing vs. looking for big ideas

Do you know how to pose the right question to find an analytical answer?

Teaching how to do computation by hand, rather than having computers doing that and having students focus more the conceptualization. 

Math: problem solving, reasoning, using intuition, making connections.

Why is it so boring for students? How can we make it more multi-dimensional so that more students can engage with it?

Students solving a problem rather than the teacher. Students building upon each other's thinking. 

How do you maintain a growth mindset in a class where answers are either right or wrong? Not about learning but more about performing. Open the math task to have kids see different threads of the same problem.

Math is not about speed!

Growing a synapse when making a mistake is not bad, mistakes = brain growth, getting things right does not grow synapses.

Grades

Students are more focused on the grade than on the learning experience

Have students choose their own grades

How do we mark students' competency without grades?

What does the post-secondary application process look like without grades?

Entrance Slip: October 14

The article for today's reading, "Dancing Teachers Into Being" was an interesting and artistic read to help me open my view about the type of work that the Orchard Garden is geared towards, both in developing teachers and students. 

I think that some of my own hopes and concerns in the profession of teaching were addressed in the article, mainly in the ways how I can provide an alternative learning experience for students and the types of "disruptive education" that I might enjoy providing in the classroom. By disruptive education, I mean learning in a way that disrupts the students' idea of what learning physics or science needs to look like. I think it's an idea that I've been playing around with a lot this year as we have so many inquiry-focused or demo-based lessons. For me, learning physics in high school and beyond was a pretty standard recipe: stand-and-deliver, maybe watch a demo and talk about it, test. Since my interests don't actually lie in theoretical physics, it's encouraging for me to see research and discussion about other effective ways to be able to engage students in science and natural phenomena.

I love the image of people napping in the garden as part of a class, and I also really loved the flax grid. I think the idea of taking time away from a classroom environment is something that is really different from the typical learning experience. Napping is also such a fascinating way to do this because your mind really does get a chance to be somewhere else. I am hoping that I can figure out some kind of way to blur the time constraints of my classes and have students feel separated from the confines of 'clock time'. The flax grid was a beautiful visual and I loved the dance described in the article, more than just trying to make kids sit down in class, we continue to try to put them in boxes of "scientist", "auditory learner", "class clown", etc instead of allowing them to grow and flourish outside of those boxes. As the flax was growing outside of its grid, it was also budding flowers, changing colours, etc! Such a beautiful metaphor for releasing students from their own box.

I am still exploring the idea of being able to effectively teach curriculum in a more creative way. Learning this course in the garden has really opened my eyes to the idea that curriculum can look different than the textbook, and to the value that this learning experience adds for students who think that every day at school looks the same. I can truly differentiate every class we've had in the garden, but find it a little blurrier for the classes where I'm just sitting at a table listening to the professor. One of my core beliefs is that people should be doing something every day that is different; I think getting stuck in routine is one of the quickest ways to not be present in your life. The world changes quickly around us and I think that continuing to push yourself outside of routine gets harder as we grow up, gain dependents, have other responsibilities...high school is one of the times in your life, where you are gaining independence even though mostly still living with your guardians...you should not be feeling mundane, but instead playing or doing parkour with the world and the limits around you. 

Exit Slip: October 7

 Today's class in the garden was a lot of fun! It was great weather to be outside.

My personal favourite part was the sit-and-stop in the same place as before, as I was able to observe the pear tree and how the environment has changed in the past two weeks. I've included my thoughts and observations. I was reflecting on my experience afterwards with Mike, and realized that I hadn't registered any sounds while I was sitting. This happens to me often when I'm deep in thought, where I can block out sounds very easily. Both a blessing and a curse, and maybe a sense that I need to be paying more attention to.

The other activity of today was a compass and straight edge activity with leaves. Jenny and I looked at two leaves with very different levels of complication at a surface glance. With the more simplistic rounded leaf, we thought it would be really easy as we could just do two circles and have them intersect in the shape of the leaf. However, when we were starting to work on this more, we realized it was going to be way more complicated to do this, and what we could do instead was break it down in a bunch of smaller circles. You can see the multiple layers of circles in the images below. 

For the other leaf, we started with the general idea of the triangular shape, and then got more detailed as time allowed. Next, we tried to use circle bisection to approximate the tip of the leaf, and connected these bisections to approximate the structure of the main vein. We also used fractals to extend the use of triangles and straight edges for the details of the leaf. We realized that the smaller triangles could be broken down into even smaller triangles, etc, all extending to the main stem of the leaf.

I reflected on outdoor learning after class and am encouraged to do more outdoor learning with my future classes as a method of incorporated First Peoples' Principles of Learning. I think that outdoor learning can be used as a tool to embody your learning and to interact with nature. I think that a lot of teachers mentally check this off as a decolonization practice, but the real anti-racist practice is to explain the 'why' to your students. Instead of just having a fun class outside, I hope that my students will leave with a true sense of why it is important to connect with nature and what that can teach us.