Focused Education Resources
This week we had a guest speaker, Mike Siverton, who spoke to us about the professional development sessions we are to attend next week. Prior to this, I didn’t know what to expect for the sessions, and felt neutral about them. Now I am quite excited! He went through some of the Focus Education Resources such as the Worldbook series, NFB Education, Live it Earth, and 4Canoes, among others. These resources are amazing! I kept getting distracted during the presentation by my own thoughts of how I could implement these resources into current assignments, upcoming practicum and into my future career as a teacher.
My excitement was sparked by the Worldbook Kids and Worldbook student programs. I’ve been really drawn to the benefits of inquiry based learning as well as project based learning. However, as I’d like to teach within the primary and intermediate grades I have been unsure what these teaching pedagogies look like at these grades. I’ve discussed this in my previous reflection, Field trip to Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. Randy provided some suggestions such as centres, which has also been brought up in a few of our classes since then. Centres are great, and I do anticipate they will have a place in my practice, however the Worldbook programs offers a great opportunity for young students to truly explore and learn about what they are interested in. The follow along text to speech, and age appropriate writing on so many different topics makes “research” accessible to all skill levels. I was also blown away by the translation tool that our English language learners can use. Obviously, this “research” will have to be guided by the teacher, but still opens the doors to so many learning opportunities.
I’m excited to learn more about these programs next week in the profession development sessions!
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