Inquiry Project

The way that teachers have different classroom layouts always piqued my interest. I always wondered if there was a specific reasoning why they chose a particular layout, or if it was unintentional. In many of my courses we have talked about how to make group work effective. Topics such as Zone of Proximal Development have come up of how we should pair students based on their skills. Initially I was on board with this idea of pairing stronger students with weaker students, but after a particular school visit my opinion has shifted to undecided. The teacher had a completely randomized seating plan for each class. He labelled the tables and when students came in, we would tell them which table they were assigned to. His reasoning behind this was so that students would not judge each other based on their skill level. I do believe in the ZPD, but I don't feel like students should feel superior/inferior to others. Hopefully this topic will not be too broad and I will be able to find specific research.

"Class layout, do seating plans really matter?"

Exit Slip for Oct 17th

I think percentages may be better and more accurate than assigning letter grades. The stress that comes from the difference between a B+ and A- is much worse compared to an 83 to 86 percent. The problem with this is that we can't assign a percentage to everything. Students may vary in different areas of knowledge. For example, one student may be better at solving questions on paper, but another student may be better at explaining it in words. Both students could be very knowledgeable, but it would be easier to assign a percentage for the first student. Percentages may not be the best and most accurate, but it is somewhat an acceptable baseline of measure for knowledge.

Entrance Slip for Oct 17th

As a student, I feel that getting a letter grade or percentage can let me know how well I am doing. But on the other hand, a better way for feedback would just be a direct comment on my work instead of a grade. I feel like a lot of students tend to compare themselves to each other. The comparing of grades helped me because I did not want to fall behind my peers. Throughout most of my post secondary I spent less time comparing myself to others because I was just struggling to keep up with my own work. As a teacher, we are always learning about assessment and ways to implement it. Grades seem like the only realistic option that works for this educational society because of the inherit nature to stick a number to everything.

Getting good grades is for sure a stressful part of a student's education. I do believe that if the grading system was phased out it would prove less stressful for students, but I'm not sure how society would cope. Like the article mentioned about competition and comparison, for me as a student it motivated me, but I can see it being stressful for a lot of people. I strongly believe that if you do not wish to compare your grades to others it should be confidential. This is crucial because students who did poorly would obviously not want to be outed to the class.

Grades for a lot of students are just a means to get into post secondary. I'm not too sure if there is a way around this because post secondaries kind of need a concrete way to assess your academics. As a science/math teacher maybe we could not have grades on a homework assignment. Instead of assigning grades we can provide comments and feedback. The negative part of this though as stated during the article is that students might not be motivated to do homework. During my school visits I met a teacher who let students know that their education was also part of their own responsibility. If we have to constantly remind them to do homework or pay attention, then it's not really fair for us. We as teachers are here to guide them in education but students also have to take responsibility. So I think if we were to phase out this grading system, students will also have to do their part and take responsibility in their own education. Overall this is a very tough topic to talk about as both sides have such strong arguments. For me personally if I had to pick a side, I would stick with the grading system. As I said before maybe the homework assignments could not have grades assigned, but students will need to take responsibility!

Entrance Slip for Oct 10th

One of the lesson plans that I just made for physics involved the students getting up and walking around. We could teach students just by the book definitions of displacement/distance, or we could actually have them walk around and see the distinctions between the two. This definitely helps the students understand the concepts more and also makes it more memorable!

Reflecting back to my high school math class, I do not remember learning too much about geometry, only really about circles and triangles. I had no idea that these complex shapes such as hyperboloids existed. I feel applying a bodily movement to relate to the hyperboloid would be particularly challenging and I'm not too sure how I would approach it.

I feel like using gestures as when we are teaching almost comes naturally. People tend to move/wave their arms around when they talk. For example in physics or math when we are talking about waves, it's helpful for students when we use gestures because they can get an idea of what the wave looks like.

Exit Slip for Oct 3rd

Today I learned that making rope was actually simpler than I thought! The process was easy and I thought I would be bad at it because I'm usually not great at crafts. This helped me learn and appreciate the historic craft of rope making. The rope was very strong even though I felt I was not twisting it as tight as I could have. This reminds me of a concept in physics called mechanical advantage (levers, ramps, pulleys, etc.), we could use a simple 'technique' to make something very strong or useful.

The Da Vinci Bridge was interesting because all we needed was a couple of sticks with notches in them to make a bridge that was quite sturdy. It helped me understand how we could use geometry to craft these strong constructions. It also helped me see that this could be done on a bigger scale of logs to make a bridge across a river.

Entrance Slip for Oct 3rd

In the reading when Sharon Kallis was speaking about how consumers are able to dictate the terms using their purchasing power, it reminded me of the saying that "the people should vote with their wallets". It makes sense but it really only takes affect if a large majority of the consumers boycott a product. If a product or brand is not meeting expectations, the consumers need to 'vote' with their wallets, by not buying the product and not supporting the company. A lot of times, this is easier said than done.

Another thought I could relate to was about that self-made creations give a better emotional 'feeling'. Something this reminds me about is when cooking a home meal. Cooking something at home compared to eating out is a better feeling of achievement. Although there is a bit of a nitpick with this issue because in order to get the ingredients to cook a recipe, we often just fall into the convenience of going to a supermarket for groceries.

From the 3 videos I found that the last one about multi strand braid looked most interesting and simple for me. I'm not a person who is very good with my hands at building/constructing things so that's why the braid was most interesting because it was just repeated steps.

I would like to do activities A1, A2, and A4.