Matthew's EDUC 450 Inquiry I Blog

 I am doing my inquiry project with Andrew and we are looking at the effect of using a flipped classroom model on student achievement and retention of concepts in a high school physics classroom. Here is our annotated bibliography:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/17z5IrFkha0_8I90NGtUZ3sPK-IyKsNhUHxgEef3kFF4/edit?usp=sharing

Inquiry project progress update: We've made a list of about 25 sources that we could potentially use for our annotated bibliography and now we're just working on sorting through all of them. About half of the sources on the list are academic papers and the rest are a mix of web pages and videos. We need 12 sources for the annotated bibliography, so we will be using half the sources we have on our list. I will also be talking to my SA as well as some students about their thoughts on using a flipped classroom model at my next school visit.

 The Alfie Kohn video we watched in class presents a relatively extreme view of the role of competition in children's lives, and while I agree with some of his points, I disagree with his characterization of competition as entirely negative. I agree that adults often encourage children to take competition too far and push it to the point where it creates unhealthy social dynamics. When children learn that winning is always the most important thing, they will definitely struggle to work with others and develop intrinsic motivation, but I think it is possible to engage in healthy competition when kids can think of winning as one of many goals to strive for during an activity. When students are solely focused on winning, they are likely to get very upset when they don't get the result they want out of a competition, but when they are also focused on learning and social connection and other benefits they can get out of competitive activities, they can have a healthy relationship wi...

 1. Define your question: How does a flipped classroom style affect student retention of concepts taught in high school physics classes? 2. Analyse your topic into concepts. Concept 1: Active learning Concept 2: Problem-solving skills Concept 3: Student retention of classroom material I am interested in learning about the effectiveness of using a flipped classroom style because it is something that has been very helpful for my learning in university, so I would like to implement it into my teaching, but i only want to do so if I think it will be effective for my students. One advantage of a flipped classroom style is that students spend more time engaging with material than they would in a traditional classroom because they are expected to come to class having already acquired some knowledge of the topic that is being covered, so most of the class time is spent working on problems. I think that this increased engagement with material would lead to greater retention, i.e. students w...

I read Braiding Sweetgrass over the summer on canoe trips I was guiding, and I remember reading this chapter around a fire with a group of teenagers on a trip I was guiding. The language we use is instrumental in shaping the way we see the world, and in  Dr. Kimmerer is right that scientific language often teaches us to break things down into their component parts without looking at how they interact with each other to form a living being. I also agree with her observation that scientific language only describes the things we understand, stopping short of describing processes we cannot explain. However, I don't think that this is a shortcoming of scientific language. Its purpose is to describe what we understand and to break living things down into components whose function we can accurately explain. Scientific language can be limiting in its inability to describe processes beyond human understanding, but I think that this limitation is necessary. Much of scientific language is ve...

I think the importance of representation in the sciences is definitely underestimated among the scientific community. It's obvious that showcasing people from minority groups who have been successful in the sciences tells other people from these groups that a career in the sciences is possible for them, which is important in its own right, but I think it also has other benefits that people don't really think about as much. Showing that success in the sciences is not limited to people who look a certain way can help show students that they can pursue any field they want. If anyone can be successful in the sciences, there's no reason to think this isn't true for other career paths as well. For many years, science was a discipline that was mostly practiced by white men, or at least that's what people were led to believe, and letting people see that anyone can pursue science shows people that they don't have to fit the stereotypes of a scientist in order to become o...

Having grown up with very traditional teaching methods, I can see myself potentially struggling to be as flexible as I would like to be in my own teaching. However, I also know that sticking to a rigid picture of what teaching is will prevent me from growing as an educator. I really enjoy spending time outdoors and I know from personal experience on top of research that's been done on this topic how beneficial it is for students to see nature as a teacher rather than just a different setting for a classroom. I liked the idea that instead of aiming to move as far away from grids as possible, your goal should be to use them where they're actually useful but be able to abandon the comfort of grids at times when it would make sense to do so. I appreciated this framework because too often theories about education are completely abandoned when newer ones are developed even if some aspects of them are still useful and I can imagine that this pattern often makes it difficult for teache...

Combatting the idea that you're either good or bad at math is a really important part of being a math or science educator. When students come into a class with the idea that they can't improve or that they'll never be able to succeed at it, it makes sense for them not to try because why put effort into something if you won't get anything out of it? If teachers can make math and science classes more accessible to students, they will be much more likely to show interest in the classes and put in effort to do well. Some strategies for helping students realize they can succeed in math/science classes are: Teaching multiple methods for solving problems – everyone will have an easier time with some problem-solving methods than others Introduce areas of math that aren't often taught in high school – geometry, graph theory, etc. are fields that favour spatial awareness and will come naturally to students who may struggle with things like algebra and calculus that form the b...

"commercial shipping and oil exploration are becoming possible in the arctic ocean (IPCC, 2018). Whether to exploit these opportunities is not really a scientific question: such decisions depend on values" 1. What is our responsibility as educators as we help to raise and teach new generations to be leaders in our contemporary and future world? I think that community engagement is the most important factor in teaching students to be leaders in the world. Regardless of any values you espouse in your classroom, students will not become leaders in greater society if they don't see for themselves how social issues affect the people around them. The example from the article where students in Norway did a project demonstrating the ineffectiveness of safety barriers on the road near their school is a great example of this – someone died as a result of the barrier heaight being too low, so students conducted a mathematical analysis to show that the barriers were ineffective as sa...

 I enjoyed the crafts we did in today's class, especially the rope making, and I thought that they offered a great opportunity for interdisciplinary teaching. These activities could be done in many different classes because they have connections to art, math, physics and biology (that I can think of, you could probably connect them to other classes). I especially liked the rope making activity because it's a good example of how you can often make things using natural materials instead of buying them. The rope making also offers many opportunities for integrating material from multiple different subject areas. It would be a great activity for an art class, but there's also a lot of potential for discussion of the physics and biology of making ropes. You can discuss how the tension from twisting the material causes the strands of the leaf to wrap around themselves and stay twisted even if the ends are free. You can also discuss the biological properties of the plant leaves yo...

The book excerpt reminded me a lot of a book I'm currently reading called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer that discusses similar themes around how people can repair their relationship with the land and have a positive relationship with it. One of the points that Kimmerer makes is that she thinks planting a garden is the best thing a person can do in order to begin building a positive relationship with the land, and this is nicely complemented by Kallis's discussion of the importance of. a garden to the health of a community. One of the points that I found the discussion about building communities focused on production rather than consumption really interesting and I definitely agree that the benefits would likely outweigh the downside of reduced convenience. It's unfortunate that most people don't consider the benefits of having a stronger sense of community and improved relationships with others and solely focus on convenience.

 I thought it was really nice to have class outside today and to be able to spend most of the class focusing on the garden. I think it's important to remember how much we can teach/learn from nature because getting kids outside during class is not only good for their health but will also likely get them more engaged in their schoolwork. I also think that showing students how much there is to learn from the natural world helps them develop a relationship with nature that will make them more inclined to be environmental stewards in their community, which is essential in a time when most people find themselves very disconnected from their environment. On a different note, I really liked the activity about calculating the angle of elevation of the sun because it can be adjusted to many different levels of difficulty depending on what class you're doing it with. If you have older students, you can go beyond calculating the angle with your arms to have students prove the formula for ...

 The beginning of the article, where the authors discuss the wide variety of approaches to teaching that exist, is definitely still relevant to today's teacher candidates. I think that as a teacher, it's important to use a teaching style that works for you, but it's also important to be able to modify your teaching methods to suit the needs of your students. I also think the idea of viewing your school's everyday reality through a critical lens is something that will always be relevant to teachers. The only way that school systems improve is when teachers want to improve their schools and accept the idea that the way their school currently operates isn't the only possible way for it to be run. In contrast, I think that many teachers today would argue with the stipulation made on page 2 that the question of what to teach always precedes the question of how to teach. While you do need to cover specific pieces of curriculum in every class, there is a bigger focus now o...

Exit Slip 07/09: Frank McCourt on Continuing Education I think my biggest takeaway from today's class was one part of the Frank McCourt video where he says that if you're not learning, you're not teaching. I think that this statement holds true in many different ways. Teaching methods are always changing, and it's important to keep up with these changes in order to teach effectively. In addition, every year you'll learn what does and doesn't work for the students you have that year, and over time you will learn more and more about general strategies for improving your teaching and classroom management skills. I also think the idea that you're always learning is important for life in general, because it's important to welcome growth in all areas of your life if you want to be the best person you can be.