As an educator I am always striving to develop new skills that I can use to help enrich the lives of my learners. Because of this I am frequently looking for opportunities to help with facilitate this growth.
Regional Science Fair Judge
This past month I had the opportunity to be a judge at the Peterborough Regional Science Fair for K-12 and was very pleased to have the experience to participate in such an event. There were over 200 entrances and I was given the chance to work on my assessment skills while judging 9 projects that were entered in the Primary category. The amount of work and dedication that was placed into all of the entrances I judged and saw throughout the day was just amazing. I was happy to come home with a pocketful of neat ideas that I could use in my future classrooms as well!
Drama Club
Myself and a fellow teacher candidate approached the principal of our extended placement school and asked if we would be able to run a drama club twice a week during first recess for the grade 4-6 students. We were granted the approval and started the drama club up the week after March Break. The students who attended were full of vigor and great enthusiasm for many of the activities and really started to learn how to think outside of the box and feel more comfortable working in front of others. We focused on a lot of small activities that helped the students understand power of changing of expression or body language and mannerisms, with the goal that they would learn a few new things and gain even a little bit of confidence while having fun!
This was a great opportunity for me to step outside of my comfort zone, I have little to no background in drama, but really enjoyed working with the students through the activities we had planned. I think I learned just as much as some of them if not more!
Alternative Learning Placement
For my alternative learning placement I have been fortunate enough to be in contact with and welcomed to complete my hours with the staff at Exeter Outdoors in Exeter, England. Exeter Outdoors is a registered forest school that specializes in outdoor learning for youth and adults. I am very excited for this amazing opportunity and look forward to all that I will be learning about during my time there. The natural environment has a lot to offer all people and is a vital aspect to all human life and is something that is very important to me as an individual. I feel that experiences which cause us to step outside of the normal learning capacity and usual settings have a lot to offer all of us.
Forest School Leader Level 3 Course
At the end of May 2014, I will be partaking in the Forest School Leader level 3 course that begins run by Exeter Outdoors . The course includes 5 days of training on site, ITC Forest School Fist Aid qualification and then requires the participants to design and deliver six forest school sessions. Once that is complete I have six months to complete an online portion of the course before receiving my qualifications. The Level 3 Forest School Leadership qualification is the only qualification that allows an individual to run a Forest School programme. I feel this would be an incredible asset to have and would help me further develop my leadership qualities in a setting that goes beyond that of a public school setting. It's very important to me that I am able to learn in alternative settings that give me a different perspective of the world that I belong within. This is knowledge and experience that can readily be passed along to young learners in a variety of ways both inside and outside of the usual school setting.
Eco-Mentorship Certificate Program - Trent University (completion in progress)
During the school year while obtaining my Bachelors of Education Degree I also participated in the Eco-Mentorship Program that was run by the Camp Kawartha Environment Centre and the School of Education at Trent University. During the program we learned how to integrate outdoor activities and nearby green spaces into our teaching practice safely and with purpose, while developing strategies to integrate environmental education into curricular subjects. To obtain this certificate we were required to attend a series of four Saturday workshops and then develop a way to integrate what we learned into our final extended placement and submit written and visual evidence of this. I was happy to have the knowledge gained during the weekend workshops as I found it helped me out a great deal when creating and implementing the grade 5 science unit on conservation of energy.
Regional Science Fair Judge
This past month I had the opportunity to be a judge at the Peterborough Regional Science Fair for K-12 and was very pleased to have the experience to participate in such an event. There were over 200 entrances and I was given the chance to work on my assessment skills while judging 9 projects that were entered in the Primary category. The amount of work and dedication that was placed into all of the entrances I judged and saw throughout the day was just amazing. I was happy to come home with a pocketful of neat ideas that I could use in my future classrooms as well!
Drama Club
Myself and a fellow teacher candidate approached the principal of our extended placement school and asked if we would be able to run a drama club twice a week during first recess for the grade 4-6 students. We were granted the approval and started the drama club up the week after March Break. The students who attended were full of vigor and great enthusiasm for many of the activities and really started to learn how to think outside of the box and feel more comfortable working in front of others. We focused on a lot of small activities that helped the students understand power of changing of expression or body language and mannerisms, with the goal that they would learn a few new things and gain even a little bit of confidence while having fun!
This was a great opportunity for me to step outside of my comfort zone, I have little to no background in drama, but really enjoyed working with the students through the activities we had planned. I think I learned just as much as some of them if not more!
Alternative Learning Placement
For my alternative learning placement I have been fortunate enough to be in contact with and welcomed to complete my hours with the staff at Exeter Outdoors in Exeter, England. Exeter Outdoors is a registered forest school that specializes in outdoor learning for youth and adults. I am very excited for this amazing opportunity and look forward to all that I will be learning about during my time there. The natural environment has a lot to offer all people and is a vital aspect to all human life and is something that is very important to me as an individual. I feel that experiences which cause us to step outside of the normal learning capacity and usual settings have a lot to offer all of us.
Forest School Leader Level 3 Course
At the end of May 2014, I will be partaking in the Forest School Leader level 3 course that begins run by Exeter Outdoors . The course includes 5 days of training on site, ITC Forest School Fist Aid qualification and then requires the participants to design and deliver six forest school sessions. Once that is complete I have six months to complete an online portion of the course before receiving my qualifications. The Level 3 Forest School Leadership qualification is the only qualification that allows an individual to run a Forest School programme. I feel this would be an incredible asset to have and would help me further develop my leadership qualities in a setting that goes beyond that of a public school setting. It's very important to me that I am able to learn in alternative settings that give me a different perspective of the world that I belong within. This is knowledge and experience that can readily be passed along to young learners in a variety of ways both inside and outside of the usual school setting.
Eco-Mentorship Certificate Program - Trent University (completion in progress)
During the school year while obtaining my Bachelors of Education Degree I also participated in the Eco-Mentorship Program that was run by the Camp Kawartha Environment Centre and the School of Education at Trent University. During the program we learned how to integrate outdoor activities and nearby green spaces into our teaching practice safely and with purpose, while developing strategies to integrate environmental education into curricular subjects. To obtain this certificate we were required to attend a series of four Saturday workshops and then develop a way to integrate what we learned into our final extended placement and submit written and visual evidence of this. I was happy to have the knowledge gained during the weekend workshops as I found it helped me out a great deal when creating and implementing the grade 5 science unit on conservation of energy.