EDUC 450 Reflection

 Hello twins.

The following is a reflection on my experience in EDUC 450.

I really cherished our Thursday mornings spent in the garden. It provided an escape from the frantic busyness of the BEd program as we got some fresh air in the garden. I really appreciated how unique each class was in the garden, and how nature was a central focus point of our learning. I can remember carefully sketching a tree at my sit spot or wandering through the dewy grass looking for flowers to match my paint colour palette. I don't really get to explore my artistic or creative side much and so activities such as writing poetry allow me to tap into a new side of myself. I appreciated how open our curriculum was and it was a very unique experience that didn't overlap with my classes. I think that my experience in 450 will stay with me when I look back on my experience during the BEd program and I'm grateful for the group I got to experience it with. The other major part of the course was the inquiry project and I thoroughly enjoyed researching and presenting on game-based learning. It is a topic that I have been passionate about for a while having used it in my own classrooms over the years. It was exciting to see the academic research supporting certain ideas that I had seen play out firsthand and it provided encouragement to continue implementing them on my short practicum. I also really enjoyed the presentations over the last 2 weeks and the diverse range of topics covered by my classmates. It was like a mini professional development workshop and hearing everyone's ideas was valuable to me.

Thanks for reading,

Josh

Inquiry Reflection

 Hello twins.

The following is a reflection on my Inquiry 1 project and in-class presentation, as well as the link for my slides.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15P97mdLKKsAx1sCFOPKqvp8OrS3sfuESG_xSm2k9suM/edit?usp=sharing

I really learned a lot during the research phase of my inquiry project. There were tons of academic papers and other resources that provided a treasure trove of information on gamifying math. I found that game-based learning provided possible solutions to many of the problems with math education that had been discussed so far in the BEd program. I have years of experience with game-based learning for teaching computer science but it was exciting to see that it can be an equally effective strategy in math classes. I also found my inquiry project influencing the drafts of my first unit plan, as I was constantly looking for games to insert into my math 8 unit on fractions. I attended the virtual math pro-d workshops in November and was fortunate enough to catch multiple talks on game-based learning. This provided extra motivation for my inquiry project as I observed firsthand that other math teachers were clearly interested in exploring adding GBL to their own classrooms. There are 1-2 GBL books from those workshops which I would like to read in the near future. I would say that this project convinced me of the power of using GBL in the classroom and the myriad of benefits it can have on student learning. Specifically, I valued the benefits for students with math anxiety or low confidence, as well as the benefits of learning through social interactions. I also learned some of the drawbacks of GBL from discussing with other teachers and I believe this may guide my future work. My first Inquiry project was essentially about why we should consider using game-based learning in math. For my next project, I want to explore how we can effectively implement GBL in math classes, which will be especially relevant for my long practicum. I am currently wrestling with how best to structure game-based learning in my classes, both in terms of frequency and execution. This would provide a helpful guide for my lesson planning. I would say that things turned out as I expected for this project. I had seen how powerful of a tool GBL can be for students and this project showed that the research backed up this idea. I thought that the in-class activities and presentation went well. Both the gimkit and pig game had the class engaged and provided examples of what GBL might look like. My goal for the presentation was to provide a sort of crash course overview on GBL and the slides listing possible suggestions for online and in-person games could prove to be a valuable resource. I was grateful for the discussion that transpired during my presentation on whether math games need to be used as incentives and how we could potentially blur this divide. In summary, I was very pleased with how my Inquiry 1 project concluded and look forward to exploring it in further detail next term. 

Thanks for reading,

Josh