Jeff Hopkins is the founder and principal of The pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry right here in Victoria. I think this is something so special that we are able to have here on the island and I am super excited we get to have the opportunity to learn how the school is operated and its focus for the learners within.

I agree with Jeff’s ideas that inquiry is an effective way of helping students learn in an environment that provides them with adequate learning and resources for their own proficiency level and learning that aligns with their own personal interests. I think that inquiry allows the students to really deepen their understanding because they are genuinely interested in what they are learning about. Inquiry has the power to diminish that act of laziness and disinterest that is difficult to overcome in high school.  You typically either get learners who are beyond interested and so in tune with their learning that they are more focused on marks rather than the actual content and if they are even interested in the learning, and then you get the students who just are completely checked out and do not want to be there because they are uninterested in the content.

I also really like the way this school is set up. It is not like a typical busy high school. It has space and places that allow your creativity to flow in a safe and welcoming environment. I think this is really important in an inquiry based setting. We as teachers in places like PSII need to allow the students their own individual spaces and areas where they can work individually on what they have chosen to work on, rather than seating in a traditional classroom with desks in rows that all face the front of the call. I like this approach to learning because I feel like it provides much more leeway in the learning and also in the ways they choose to go about the learning.

Today in class we spoke with Trevor Mackenzie on the inquiry based classroom. We had a really interesting and valuable conversation in my breakout room about our thoughts on Inquiry in student’s learning. We all agreed that inquiry is great! It promotes discovery and sparks interest in the students’ learning.  If the student gets to choose what they are studying it will be something they are actually personally interested in and therefor become more motivated to learn. We also spoke about how learners like myself may struggle with inquiry as we like structure and “guidelines” when it comes to school. I am very much a learner who needs a clear and precise outline of what is expected to me; sometimes I can become overwhelmed and lost in inquiry just because of the vast interpretations and topics we can discover. I think there is a nice balance like Trevor spoke about between the two where you scaffold the general idea for the students and from there they pinpoint one thing they personally want to explore and learn more about.

Trevor also showed us a great map that featured “the Ten Characteristics of the Inquiry Classroom” This is a great resource as it reminds us as teachers what we are striving to achieve when introducing inquiry based learning into our own classrooms. My group felt like even though we have not had much classroom experience as teacher candidates, there were still characteristics that we recognize and strive to achieve in other fields of work such as camp leaders, dance teachers, and any other job that has to do with children.

I personally really like this map and am going to save it as a resource for me as a teacher when creating a inquiry based environment in my classroom to make sure I am welcoming every student, their ideas, and the exploration of new and old knowledge.

Attached map created by: Trevor Mackenzie, Sylvia Duckworth

https://www.trevormackenzie.com

Today in class we had a presentation and discussion from Jessie about social media and our image as educators. This was an eye opening class as I am from the generation who heavily uses social media for anything and everything. I know personally I am cognizant of what I post on social media mainly to maintain the positive image I present myself as, but also because there are things that I don’t necessarily want my future students or employers to find and that skew their image of who I am as a person. I have done lots of jobs with children before who want to follow me on instagram or add me on Tiktok, therefor all my social media is private and I get to decide who sees and who does not see it. I think it is important, and also reasonable to be careful of what you put on social media as an educator. You want to be viewed in a professional role and someone who can be a good role model to people’s children.  Videos of you heavily drinking, or doing things you should not be doing are not a good way of connecting with parents and showing them that their children are in good care. Social media is a powerful tool and it can be used for many great things. It can be incorporated into the classroom and is a great tool to teach and connect with students. That being said I think the biggest take away from today was that you just need to be mindful and careful what you are posting on the internet, and if it is something you wouldn’t be comfortable showing potential bosses, maybe think twice before you post it.

This weeks class I found particularly fun as it was something that I have wanted to know how to do for a while! We learned about photo shop and how to create Bernie memes on powerpoint on desktop. I have never really used power point and I was happy to use it and find out how easy it really is to us. We used the trasparent backgrounders PNG picture of Bernie Sanders and were able to put it onto whatever photo we wanted to. It was super fun and I really enjoyed having the freedom to put him on whatever picture I wanted! This class was also really cool because I ended up using this Bernie Idea to create a few poster for my job. I have an upcoming event soon that I am hosting for my residents on campus and added Bernie to the posters and they absolutely loved it! 🙂

This week in class we talked about plagiarism and we looked at websites and resources we can utilize to avoid copy right. I found this class particularly helpful because I was able to find a bunch of websites I had no idea were accessible to use! I am looking forward to utilizing the multimedia websites and integrating things I find off there in my blog and also into future creations and resources I create as a teacher for my students.