Hello World,
In each edition of this newsletter, I will share five inspiring web resources that I have curated after hours of research to ensure that you have the best education coffee in your inbox. I also hope to share some lessons from the classroom in these upcoming editions of the newsletter.
I am six months into my first year of teaching. I learned a lot this year and also faced several challenges along the way. We had to transition to online learning at the start of the year and then had to make the transition to in person learning again. Here are some things that I have learned in the past three months that I would like to share with all of you.
1) Bring the Real World into the Classroom
There are several ways to use the internet and your local community to bring the real world into the classroom. You can invite experts from different professions and fields to come and talk to the kids. We invited a parent who was a practicing pathologist at a local hospital to come talk to the kids about the life of a doctor and the training required to do so. You can organise virtual tours to local sites of relevance. We recently organised a virtual tour of the Ontario Legislative Assembly for our Canadian Government unit. You can create a virtual resource library with links to videos, websites and articles related to a unit you are exploring together as a learning community. I recently created a resource library on financial literacy with links to student enterprises, websites on creating budgets and basic videos on important terms. My students really benefitted from these resources and would re-visit the same if they were unclear or wanted to brush up on the topic later in the year. I love this video from Edutopia about how a set of schools in the U.S. use community resources to extend and expand student learning.
2) Try to have one heart to heart conversation with each child during the day
In the busyness of our lives we often forget that in the long run students will always remember how you made them feel. At the elementary stage children are very impressionable and observant. They observe you closely as an adult. It is so important to model positive social emotional learning skills as a teacher in the classroom. The best way to practice this on a day to day basis is to try to have one heart to heart conversation with each child during the day. This is a conversation where you talk to the child about something they enjoy doing outside school; their favourite books; their favourite movies; their weekend; their family members. There is no fixed structure to this conversation, but the objective behind this conversation is to create a safe space for students to talk about issues on their mind beyond school work. This simple practice has been very impactful to strengthen relationships with the kids in my class. It also important to model other skills like managing emotions and responsible decision making. There are several schools of thought and frameworks on Social Emotional Learning (over 40 frameworks to date). To understand this better, I would highly recommend exploring this excellent resource titled, ‘Explore SEL’ created by the EASEL Lab at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
3) Communicate regularly with the parents of each child in your classroom
This was vital for me as a first year teacher to build trust and credibility with these important stakeholders. I follow a practice where I put up an introductory post at the start of each school day and a summary post at the end of each school day. I have done this religiously since day 1 of the school year. I normally post this on our Google Classroom. I have invited parents to this classroom as well and they can view all updates by the teachers and students in the virtual classroom. In these posts I basically outline our plan for the day and also outline how we were able to successfully or unsuccessfully achieve those objectives. This way parents clearly understand what their children are learning on a day to day basis. It also helps them have more in depth conversations about the child’s day at school over the dinner table at home. Another great practice we adopt is to have one monthly call with the parents about the students progress at school on academic and social indicators. Both these ideas have helped me build and sustain a strong bond with my parent community and that buy-in feeds into student success tremendously through the academic year. Maša Đurišić and Mila Bunijevac (2017, pg 137) published a paper titled ‘Parental Involvement as a Important Factor for Successful Education’ in Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal where they discussed some parent engagement strategies that teachers and schools could adopt.
In this paper the authors summarize leading principles for the successful partnership of parents and school and present six factors (Parenting, Communicating, Volunteering, Learning at home, Decision-making and Collaborating with the community) and six models (Protective Model, Expert Model, Transmission Model, Curriculum-Enrichment Model, Consumer Model and Partnership Model) of parental involvement.
4) Alumni Talk - After the B.Ed and Life as a New Grad
I recently participated in a virtual talk at my alma mater, The Faculty of Education at Western University about life as a teacher after the B.Ed program. Each year the teacher candidates organise an annual professional development event where experienced educators and researchers are invited to share their stories and life lessons with future teachers. I was part of the team that organised this event in my second year in the program. This event was a wonderful way to sow the seed of lifelong learning in teacher candidates. Teaching is one profession where you have to constantly develop your skillset through both pre-service and in-service learning opportunities. The sessions at Conference Week are normally hour long conversations with a question and answer round at the end. One of the sessions at this event is a chat with former students in the program to see how they are faring after the program. I was one of three panelists in this year’s talk. We spoke about our experience in the classroom, job applications, classroom management, mental health and more. It was a wonderful experience to speak to current teacher candidates and also reflect on my journey as a teacher in my first year in the classroom. I think we did a great job articulating the highs and lows of life after Teacher’s College. Here is a link to a virtual archive of other videos from that event.
5) Learning Stories Episode 11 - Aamoye Chaudhary
I started a YouTube Channel called ‘Learning Stories’. This is a show where we interview a diverse set of learners from the 21st century. Each guest profiled here has a unique story to share about how they acquired a set of valuable skills and knowledge in a creative and innovative manner. In the process, we hope to uncover a new understanding of learning as conceptualized, imagined, and narrated in these learning stories. These conversations have given me so many insights on the learning process within and beyond the classroom.
On Episode 11 of #LearningStories we chat with Aamoye Chaudhary. He is an artist based in Mumbai, India. He expresses himself through artworks, sketches, photos and poems. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Applied Art from the Viva College of Art and Design. You can find him on Instagram @revolution_aamoye. Some show notes from this episode include:
Copy and imitate the work of individuals who practice your craft in an expert manner
Think about your own preferences for Art by reflecting on the kind of music, films, artworks and media you engage and consume on a daily basis
Find formal and informal ways to get more information about the field you are interested in professionally.
Build communities of like minded individuals you can learn from.
Find ways to share your work with the world through an entrepreneurial project or digital portfolio.
References
Đurišić, M., & Bunijevac, M. (2017). Parental involvement as a important factor for successful education. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 7(3), 137-153.
Please do send me your thoughts and resources on any edition of this newsletter through email at abhishekashokshetty@gmail.com or on twitter @AbhishekShetty_. I love taking these discussions forward on those platforms.
Abhishek
17/03/2022