This week, we participated in an edcamp! This was exciting since I had never been to an education event with this many people before. While I was there, I got to attend different sessions that will help me in my future as an educator. The three sessions I got to listen to were getting ready for the first practicum, Indigenizing the classroom, and mental health in the classroom.
During the practicum talk, I learned a lot from different educators on what they believe we should do on a practicum. Some of this advice was obvious, such as have fun or plan ahead. But I also learned some things I would have never thought about. For example, one of the suggestions was to keep a day book. This will help me in the end since I will be able to remember what happened within the class and how I handled it. I can also reflect in the book and talk about what I wish happened. This idea will come in handy if I ever have a job interview or need to reflect when I get my own classroom in the future. I also learned a bit about authority within a classroom. The only time I have been in the classroom in the past is on my Wednesday visits last semester. Other than that, my only experiences with children have been in summer camps. This differs from the role of the teacher since although you are still an authority figure in summer camps, your job is to allow the children to have fun and stay safe. When you are the teacher, you need to ensure the students still have fun and keep safe, but also that they are learning and getting a good education. There also has to be boundaries set with the students to ensure there is classroom management and that the day runs smoothly.
In the Indigenizing education section, one of the people in the breakout room discussed how we can include the First People’s prinicples into our classrooms. What I found most interesting, is that they told the students the principle and had them connect it to what they were learning. I assumed that since it was a guideline in the class, we would not tell students which principle we were covering and that it would just be for our knowledge as teachers. However, they said that we should tell the children the principle and allow them to make meaning from it. The people in the breakout room also agreed that teachers should explain the principles to their students since they cannot talk about what they do not understand.
Finally, the last session I joined was the mental health group. Here I learned a little more about project-based learning (PBL). I did not spend much time in this group, but, I learned that inquiry can be good for a student’s mental health since they are able to learn about what they want in a method that works for them. When students are more independent, they will get a rush of dopamine since they feel accomplished with the work they completed by themselves.
Edcamp was great and I would love to join in for another section someday. It is interesting since I thought it would be a lot more formal than it was. I would love to attend a session in person, that way, I would get to meet a lot of new people and experience how edcamps work in-person.
