Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.
One way to support Standard 4, is for our lessons to be planned and interactions to occur in a way that relates to students’ diverse personal, family, and community experiences, and are culturally appropriate.
I am mindful to try and relate student experience, history and culture to our discussion topics whenever ever possible, regardless of the subject. The more I can connect the lessons to real world examples and/or students’ personal experiences, the more meaningful their learning becomes and the easier it will be for them to recall the lesson content.
One example of this during my practicum was in my Grade 7 English class. Students were learning how to write an opinion essay. Their task was to write an essay discussing which subject they felt was the most important to learn in school and why. I began with the entire class brainstorming the various subjects and asked them why they felt those subjects were important to learn. Some students chose a subject because it was easy for them, while others chose a subject simply because they enjoyed it. I challenged them to think deeper as to which subject was most important to learn. Which subject content would they find more useful in their everyday lives? Which subject is most useful for their future lives after they graduate school and are expected to work? Eventually, the subjects narrowed to English and Math with English winning out because of how literacy is necessary to function in our daily lives.
It was a challenge for some students to think about this topic but it helped them understand why teachers focus so much on building literacy skills in school. The class recognized that having a strong literacy foundation in English is crucial in our local B.C. community, but French or some other language like Japanese, would be just as important if we lived elsewhere in the world. One student explained how he sometimes spoke Swedish with his father, and while this skill is not necessarily important for functioning within Canada, it had merit for building relationships and connecting with families living overseas.I reminded the class that all languages have merit, even if you can only speak it. I, myself, cannot read or write difficult kanji in Japanese, but I could still deal with the day-to-day life in Japan through simple conversation. One of my Indigenous students also mentioned a similar case where they used to speak with their “Nana”(Grandma) in their native tongue.
Another way to support Standard 4, is to have lessons that are well planned, where interactions occur authentically in a way that focuses on students’ personal, family, community experiences, and cultural backgrounds
This aspect of the standard is more easily incorporated in subjects that have discussions. Prior to doing an art craft I like the class to discuss and think about the topic. So in Art class, before we made red origami poppies, the class discussed the flower’s connection to Remembrance Day and the famous Canadian poem In Flanders Fields. We also discussed the connection to the Legion’s war veterans, and the mistreatment of the Indigenous war veterans even after the war. Some students had family members who fought in past wars, but their knowledge was limited. As more veterans begin to die out, I feel that understanding the significance of Remembrance Day might fade away.
Lastly, when supporting Standard 4, educators should use differentiated instruction to provide appropriate activities to support or challenge.
When creating the math quiz on multiplying integers, I designed the quiz in a way that would start off easy and lay out the foundation-based conceptual questions first, before asking students to calculate or apply their knowledge. I was more concerned about the mathematical process so I used simple factors and included a multiplication table so that weaken students could still do the math without a calculator. At the end of the quiz,I also included a few optional bonus challenge questions. I explained that students would not be penalized for giving the wrong answer. I wanted them to have a growth mindset and try. Most of my students did the challenge questions. Interestingly, there was one student who had a perfect score prior to the challenge questions and decided not to do any of them. I wonder if some students are perfectionists and so the anxiety about making mistakes prevents them from trying, even when they do not lose marks.
Here is a link to the math quiz document :
QUIZ — INTEGER MULTIPLICATION
QUIZ ANSWER KEY
In the case of the art origami lesson, I prepared additional optional origami pieces that varied in difficulty for students to do after they made their origami poppy. The students were encouraged to help each other in making their poppies, and many successful students opted to make additional poppies for fun. This was a stark reminder for me to always prepare extra resource materials just in case. Here is a link to the lesson plan: REMEMBRANCE DAY GRADE7 ART LESSON.