Our Importance to Young Minds.

For the last few weeks, my grade 12 class has been visiting a local elementary school and connecting with a grade 4/5 split. I love kids. I have wanted to be a mother since my brother was born when I was two. I was excited about the project since our teacher told us it was going to be happening back at the beginning of the semester. Getting a class, once a week, for six weeks was essentially a dream come true.

During the first few sessions, we read with a student. I rather enjoyed this, as it was much like what I had done two summers ago at the public library. We took turns reading, and I would help with pronunciation or define a word for them. The rest of the sessions, we helped these young learners write a story. As the big buddies, we extracted the plot out of the little buddies, interviewing them about characters, the setting, and the problem. After that, we helped them put their idea into words, before transforming them into a digital story using the iPad app “Explain Everything”.

I worked with quite a few members of the class over this time. I read “Matilda” and “The BFG” by Roald Dahl, before we began the story making process. It began beautifully! Within the first session, me and my buddy Lexi had formed up the entire plot, and were ready to begin the story. The next session, we began to put it most of it down on paper. However, this is when there was a kink in our plan. I got sick. Now, the last thing I wanted to do was give this child a cold, so I opted to stay home and recover. The next week, she was absent. I worked with another child during this time, whose buddy was absent like I had been the week before. The next session, she was absent again. This time, I worked with a child who had just gotten back from a vacation and had nothing. In our final working session, she still wasn’t there.

In the end, I had helped four students develop characters and ideas, but i had nothing physical to show for it. I understand that the main purpose of this wasn’t to create a story, but to create bonds, but I couldn’t help but feel like I let them down. I wasn’t able to finish any of the stories, and I worried myself to the point of physical ailment before the day we were showing them our creations. As I reflected on the experience, although it wasn’t how I had initially anticipated, I came to terms with what happened. Life threw at me what it did, and with what happened, I don’t think I could have possibly finished any of the stories in the time being. What I learned to realize was that these kids, although looking forward to their story coming to life, were thrilled enough at the mere thought of these big kids coming and helping them. I feel as if my biggest mistake was missing their smiles as they remembered the experience, and not being there to finalize the end of it.

The Impact of Format: Reflecting on My Learning

    

For the main project of my English 12 course, we had to take a “driving question”, go research and explore this question, then take what we learn and create both a written piece (what you are seeing now), as well as a student chosen authentic piece. This is much like what an IBL (inquiry based learning) course is structured like. I decided that I would explore the importance of the way you present a story, and how it changes the impact it has on the audience. The way I decided to present this was by taking a story, and presenting it over multiple mediums. The mediums I selected are a comic, a traditional story, and a podcast/mock radio broadcast.

 

The simplest way to research how the medium affects a message, is to take something that is presented across multiple forms, and analyze it. For my learning evidence, I analysed the popular series The Walking Dead. It’s story is presented over a television series, a series of comics, as well as two episodic video games. Now, there is a lot of content there, so I had to put a cap on what I was going to take from. The cap I decided on was the first season of the TV show (6 episodes), the first hardcover collection of the comics (12 issues), and the first video game (5 episodes). I felt that this had enough variety to draw solid conclusions on, but not so much content I felt overwhelmed, or focused too much on the research and not enough on the final project. I took plot notes for the content, so I could compare and contrast later on. I didn’t just pull them from the internet because I remember the material better if I write them out myself. After I had a handle on what changed and what remained constant, as well as personal hypotheses on why, I began to craft my story with that in mind.

  

The main story was going to have three programs I enjoy and am familiar with converge, and a piece from their respective perspectives. I decided that Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars (a western/sci-fi show that’s part of the old-radio-styled podcast Thrilling Adventure Hour) would have the short story, as it already has a comic and podcast form, Steven Universe would have the comic, as I feel that the visual aspect of it is what makes it what it is, and Welcome to Night Vale would have the podcast, as it already has a podcast of ~80 episodes, and I am very familiar with it’s style.

  

 There were a few issues with this thrilling adventure of a project, the biggest of which was my procrastination. Although heavily sedated with a well-formed calendar, it is a beast that is extremely difficult to tame. Around half of The Walking Dead comic went unread, as my brain had decided that seeing we had already went over the boundary of the first season of the TV show, it wasn’t necessary. This on it’s own isn’t a bad thing, however, when you instead allot these as “breaks” instead of getting ahead and creating a more polished product, it isn’t as positive. On the other hand, I managed to plow right through the script for the approximately 15 minute podcast in a matter of 2 days. Naturally, it was finished first, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

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The Actual Authentic Pieces:

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The Podcast: The Old Birch Doors (Version A)

For the sake of understanding the style, and explaining much of the oddity within the podcast, I HIGHLY recommend that you listen to the official episode above for yourself.

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The Short Story: The Old Birch Doors (Version B)

The Thrilling Adventure Hour

Linked is the source material for the character’s perspective the story is told from. The show from the many they do, is Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars. It is quite funny I recommend it, as well as Beyond Belief, personally.

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The Comic: The Old Birch Doors (Version C)

Steven Universe

Finally, the comic takes on the perspective of Steven Universe from the children’s television show of the same name, produced by Cartoon Network. Linked is a site that allows you to watch all of the aired 10 minute episodes.

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Optimism, and Why We Need It

Today I watched a video titled “Optimism is not Insane”, in which Hank Green covers a bit about the power of optimism.

To summarize, Hank talks about how our brains are generally not good at seeing hope or optimism when it comes to things beyond our individual control. However, it happens all the time! Even though we are not consciously thinking about how we can avoid something like global warming with every action, our bodies and habits adapts to deal with this looming threat.

One way that Hank explains optimism, is in a rather unique way. He states “You are being lied to by your own brain,” By this, he means, that the outlook that our mind automatically goes to is one that is not necessarily true. Our brains tend to focus on negative events and possibilities, rather than positive ones. Optimism is important, because it is so easy to get lost in the anxiety that these negative outlooks bring with it. Without being able to talk back to your brain, saying ‘Actually, I have multiple examples where the worst possible scenario did, in fact, not happen’, you live controlled by your fears.

In the video, Hank says “We are the superhero, none of us individually, but all of us together,”. If I had to choose one quote to summarize the video I chose, it would be this one. This, I feel, is something everyone can reflect on on a bad day. This is something that we can all hear, and feel the importance of ourselves as a single being on this planet. We constantly find ways, together, to do good. In example, after the death of Micheal Brown, an unarmed black teen who was shot by a police officer in the town of Ferguson, Missouri, people came from across the United States to protest against his death. #BlackLivesMatter became trending on all sorts of social media, giving awareness to the problem of African-American citizens being discriminated, and even killed, due to their race. Recently, there has been a call from Barack Obama, to end LGBTQ conversion therapy, sprung into action after the suicide of a transgender teenager who was known to friends as Leelah Alcorn. She commited suicide after constant rejection and abuse from her parents regarding her being transgender. A petition was inspired by her suicide, to end conversion therapy like that the 17 year old had to go through, and to call it “Leelah’s Law”. I can go on and on with current day examples of how people banded together to help solve or bring attention to a problem. I believe that the optimism that the problem will someday end fuels the massive spread of these things across social media.

All in all, optimism is an important part of our psyche, because without it, our lives would be a complete wreck. Not only would be all be living, to some extent, fearing everything, but we wouldn’t be able to solve our large societal problems. Try to fight back against your brain’s first thought.

Students Should be IBL to Learn How they Learn Best

(Note for title: pronounce IBL phonetically for the pun)

A different way for students to learn, is through a technique called “Inquiry-based learning” or “IBL”.  In this, students ask questions about things they are curious about, such as “Why do flowers bloom in different colours?”, or “How does a clock work?”. They then go and research the answer to that question, and share what they found. Although this technique wouldn’t be an effective way to learn for me personally, it is still a valid way to teach, and some students would benefit from it.

There are many differences from the educational system in most schools right now and IBL. IBL creates leadership skills, independence, and teaches self-motivation. All three of these things are skills looked upon when going into the work force. However, as I said before, getting put into a classroom with a complete inquiry-based ideology, would make some students completely break apart. A traditional classroom gives me what IBL wouldn’t – criteria and instruction. If inquiry-based classrooms were introduced as young as kindergarten, then perhaps that would lead to students like me being able to succeed in that style of learning.

In the video above, IBL is explained thoroughly and in detail. The narrator speaks about many topics, such as how an inquiry-based classroom works, and what the teacher does when using IBL. I chose to include this video, out of all the videos on youtube concerning IBL, for a few reasons. The narrator’s voice is calm, and easy to listen to, and the use of pictures makes it charming in appearance. It also does a good job at remaining unbiased revolving around inquiry-based learning, giving you the facts, but not pushing you to use, or not use, this method.

All in all, although inquiry based learning is a new style of teaching that’s quickly gaining in popularity, personally, I wouldn’t be signing up for any IBL programs, due to the fact it just doesn’t give what I need in education. However, I would love to see it available in schools everywhere, for those who need that in their learning.

That concludes my thoughts about inquiry-based learning. Thank you very much for reading them! If you enjoyed this post, please consider checking out my other post, The Necessities of My Learning, about what I feel are necessary qualities for teachers.

~Toria

Articles I read before writing this post:

http://www.edudemic.com/7-ways-to-hack-your-classroom/

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/pbl-practices-redefining-teachers-role-josh-block

The Necessities of My Learning

(Quote in picture: “I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught” – Sir Winston Churchill)

     Academic teaching is something that I’ve been experiencing since I was 6 years old, even younger if you include when I was taught by my mother how to count and read (which I was doing before I entered kindergarten). I love learning, but when I enter the classroom, the way that I’m expected to learn is often different from the way I would learn best. This is expected. How is a teacher expected to teach 30 different kids, who have 30 different ways of learning, in a way that they all succeed?  Today in class, we talked about how we learn best as individuals. To me, there are numerous things that assist me in class, and help make it enjoyable as well.

Right off the bat, ensuring that a cell phone policy is in place and enforced is important to any class. Cell phones are distracting not only the person using it, but also the people around them. If I or they are distracted due to the fact that their cell phone is burning a hole in their pocket, neither of us can learn.

As well, a teacher should be passionate about the subject they are teaching. If the one giving the lecture isn’t interested, why the heck would I be? Passion also goes hand-in-hand with enthusiasm!

To make lectures, or classes in general, more interesting, enthusiasm is the key. If you are excited and interested in something, your excitement will find itself into my mood. Enthusiasm is contagious and it helps lift the mood of a class, as well as give a more casual atmosphere.

In an academic course, especially in a section that is tedious or difficult, it helps to have a teacher supporting me. If someone else believes in my abilities (especially someone I see as an authority figure, such as a teacher) then I tend to do better on an assignment.

However, it is also important for them to point out what I can improve on, and perhaps some tips and tricks. This makes sure I know how to prevent making the same mistake in the future. After all, if you don’t improve, are you really learning?

It helps for me to have time to work in class. The classroom atmosphere makes me more productive, and it helps keep my stress and anxiety levels low. It also allows me to ask for help if I don’t understand a part of the assignment.

If I have a problem,  I feel that it’s helpful and encouraging if a teacher can make time for me, or other students. Whether it’s to go over their questions, the course material, or an assignment, it is really encouraging to know that they care about my learning. This could happen at lunch, after school, or even when the rest of the class is working.

All in all, I love to learn, and having a teacher who supports me, and loves to teach helps. It encourages me to ask questions, explore the subject, and even to pursue it in my free time. Teachers who encourage me to challenge myself and reach new levels of success are embedded in my mind for years to come. I remember a quote that one of these people gave me. I believe it went something like this:

“An exciting teacher can make a boring subject exciting, however, a dull one can make even the most interesting course a bore”.

Thank you for reading about my thoughts on how I prefer to learn. Have a wonderful day!

~Toria