Week 7: Is an M.Ed. project right for me?

I really appreciated the guest speaker, Lisa Tsumura, that Lorayne had arranged to have in class this week. Her talk echoed every thought that I have had about whether I want to pursue a project in my Masters program or if I only want to do the course only option. I've already done the thesis route as I have my Ph.D. in Biochemistry so I really don't want to go through that again (it was a fantastic experience but I know the amount of time and effort that needs to go into it). I am quite intrigued about the project idea though and Lisa (and this course) has given me a lot to think about.

Exploring Ideas

As I've been changing my approach to my teaching practices this year, I'm beginning to identify various issues within my subject area. Chemistry, or any science for that matter, is traditionally taught in a very teacher-directed manner, likely because there is a lot of content to learn in such a short period of time. As I've been moving away from this model to one that is more student-centred, I am meeting a lot of resistance from both students and parents. I've even come up against comments such as "I can't learn this way" or "can't you just teach us the traditional way" to "you're not teaching or doing your job". Just from the conversations that I've had this year, with colleagues as well as with others taking this course, I've seen that other subject areas can easily integrate student-centred approaches so why is it that science can't be taught in a similar manner? Why is there so much resistance in science against student-centred learning approaches? Are these perspectives and views actually present? And if so, how can I, and other science educators, go about changing this? I have so many questions swimming around in my head and I'm wondering if this is the beginning of a project idea...

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Week 2: The Innovation-Policy Gap

This week's readings were focused on digital privacy. It is clear from from both Davis (2014) and Leatham & Robertson (2017 ) that there exists some major discrepancies between innovation, the use of technology in education, and policy. In particular, as I was reading the Leatham & Robertson (2017) article, I began to question my own practices and choices of digital tools in the classroom... do they protect student digital privacy or am I unknowingly putting my students at risk here? I will certainly be examining the digital tools that I choose much more closely to ensure that this is not the case. I found the following quote from Leatham & Robertson (2017) particularly interesting: "Teachers, and in particular, early adopters appear to be caught in the cross-currents of multiple and contradictory technology imperatives" (p. 3). This quote really caught my eye because it is linked to the leadership theory that I am working on with my group for Assignmen

Week 1: Getting Started

This week marks the beginning of this course. I have to admit that I was pretty excited about taking this class; it relates so much to my role as Head of Science and Information Technology at the school I teach at in the Halton District School Board (HDSB). I also just took “Foundations of Leadership” last semester with Bill Muirhead and I am looking forward to continuing my learning about leadership. I am still fairly new to my role as a department head; this is my second year and I’m finally feeling like I have a better grasp on what my job entails. One of my goals this year is to further build staff capacity around technology in the classroom so I’m hoping to gain a lot of great ideas and learn about various theories that I can implement in my practice. I am also continuing my work on motivating my staff to shift their practices towards more problem-based or project-based learning and I’m eager to learn more about leadership theories and active learning in general. In sett

Week 12: Blue Sky Thinking

I have seen a general theme running through both this course and my practice in my leadership role. Technology leadership, or really any leadership, always comes back to RELATIONSHIPS. Fostering good relationships with staff and students creates a positive environment which is key to gaining trust and buy-in. This, in turn, allows for risk-taking and innovation. As I look back on the course, relationships were seen interwoven throughout the course content. For example, relationships were central to many of the leadership theories that I examined early on in the course. As a leader, using and modelling the use of technology can influence attitudes, as seen in social learning behaviour, which can then influence behaviours. This is linked to the theory of reasoned action, which describes how attitudes as well as norms can influence behaviour. Both attitudes and beliefs about the usefulness of introducing and adopting a new technology will influence the adoption. Communities o

EDUC5205G Learning Log

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