First Week of Tutorials

My first week of tutorials went off fairly smoothly. I introduced myself, discussed the policies I wanted to enact and negotiated them with the class, and then we did an introduction activity. Normally I am not a fan of ice breakers as they feel very contrived, so this time I explained why it was important to me that I know a bit about each student. I told them that I am not very good with names or faces, but that I tend to remember people by stories I know about them. As we went around the room, instead of just writing down each person's name, I also tried to find some comment or question to ask each student about their story. I ended up learning a lot of cool things about my students. For example, I found out one of my students work with children with special needs, anoth volunteered in Haiti. Another one is a fellow fan of Adventure Time. Still another collects sheet music for film scores. I feel like this excercise let me see I each student as a unique individual and I'm very excited to see how their experiences play into the development of the course.

Another great thing that happened this week is one of my former students from last semester's tutorial in legal philosophy asked if I would like to join her for lunch. I wondered if perhaps there was a problem or she needed help with something, but it turned out she wanted to share a comment she made on the course feedback form regarding my performance:

"Bev was the best TA I have ever had. I nominated her for the best TA award. She has so much knowledge and shares tons of information with us constantly. She was so committed to our success and made us all feel so comfortable. She explained the course so well and made herself available almost 24/7 for anything we needed. I wish all TAs were as competent and committed as Bev. Bev made our class interesting and fun, and even bought us Timbits as a prize for our jeopardy game. She made getting up for a 8:30 am tutorial worthwhile. Great job Bev!"

Needless to say I was extremely flattered! I feel this semester is off to a great start!

Wrapping Up the Year...and Looking Forward to Next Semester!

Rather than reflecting on theories or practices of education, I just wanted to provide an update on what is going on in my life in terms of education.

I decided to let my tutoring job go, even though it has been a real highlight of my week. The main reason why I left is because I am not spending enough time focusing on my thesis, and even though I really enjoy the job I definitely cannot afford to spend more time in grad school than my scholarship allows. It's a pity really, but I know there will be many more opportunities in the future to work with bright students like the ones I had. I feel like not only did we learn a great deal about math and history together, but also about life. It's one of the great benefits of working one-on-one with students--that you become not only a teacher but part of your students' support system as well.

I've also wrapped up my tutorials and submitted the grades on my students' final exams. On our last day, I had a 'Study Jeopardy' game I put together to help them review the concepts from the course. As a prize I brought in a box of timbits for each tutorial and the winning team in each tutorial shared with everyone. I feel like we have some very smart and compassionate students in our first year program, and I really hope they continue to be involved in philosophy. Probably many of them will go on to law school and I hope they retain their high-minded ideals. I'm very proud to be a role model to them and to show them what it means to be a student at McMaster. I will admit philosophy of law isn't exactly my forte, but that didn't stop them from giving me a round of applause on our last day, and even a hug from one student.

As my private tutoring and tutorials at the university wrap up, I'm spending the holidays getting organized for next semester. I'm really excited about everything coming up. I will be TAing for moral issues, one of my favourite courses, with our new lecturer who I really admire. I will be working with many of my friends, and I might even be able to do a guest lecture, which I feel is really the next step in my professional development. In January, I will be meeting the organizers of the McMaster Children and Youth University, which I discussed in my previous entry, and of course I'm still applying to conferences. Since this is my last semester, I also need to start thinking about work. Even though I feel I'm ready and well-prepared to start my career, I can't help but be a bit nervous. All this is on my mind as I enter the new year. I suppose this time of year is all about being excited about future projects.

Which reminds me--I hope you have a great holiday and your New Years goals all come to fruition!

McMaster Children and Youth University

If there is one piece of advice I could give students for how to have an engaging and rewarding academic career, it's to keep up on email. Sorting through all the emails various departments send out can be a draining chore, but every once in a while it can lead to an exciting opportunity.

For example, I just recently learned about the McMaster Children and Youth University and I'm very excited. First, because there is an opportunity for local youth to engage with the university and learn more about university-level research in a fun and accessible way (what a brilliant, community-enriching idea!) Second, because they are looking for people to help with this project (and I am just the person!) and third, because this could be an opportunity to do some Philosophy for Children!

I have only run a few Philosophy for Children sessions in the past but I have enjoyed them immensely. The idea that children can engage in philosophy is gaining popularity in the philosophy community, (as a matter of fact, I just found out about a new journal on the subject) and understandably so. Philosophy for Children allows people to have early contact and familiarity with what we do, which is important if we want the respect and understanding of the public. Many of us have had early experiences in science, we understand what science is about and respect it as a discipline, but the general public tends to have a foggy concept of what philosophy is and why it is important. I genuinely believe the best way to show people isn't by explaining what great philosophers have said, but by inviting them to participate in the process.

Furthermore, it's not very often I find a venue for doing these projects. In the past I have had opportunities to work with children in classrooms and conferences, but those opportunities are few and far between. I'm really excited to learn more and get involved with this project!

Beads observation

I am working with a 9-year-old student whose family immigrated from Nigeria. We are using wooden beads as manipulatives to review multiplication and division concepts. Most of the beads are a yellow-white colour of wood, but there is one bead the same size as the others which is a dark burgundy, and one smaller one that is black. I've arranged the beads into an 8 x 6 matrix.

Student gestures at small black bead and burgundy bead: "I don't like these beads."
Me: "why not?"
Student: "They are different from the other ones."
Me: "yes, I have more dark beads at home but I put them all together on a giant strand, so now I have mostly light ones left."
Student: "I don't like them"
Me: "Oh, that's too bad. These ones are my favourite. Can you tell me what eight times six is?"

In my interpretation, this was a symbolic reflection of internalized racism. I hope that maybe what I said helped to some degree. I feel confident discussing issues of race with my white teenage history student. Not only do I feel like we have similar experiences, but I know he is old enough to discuss these topics and it is relevant to the course material. With this student, I feel I am in a position of relative ignorance on the issue, that it might not be an appropriate context to bring up such a discussion, and that he may be too young to engage in such serious discussions with someone outside his family. Nevertheless, I care about this student and I hope he develops the tools he needs for self-love and self-respect. His parents certainly are trying hard to make sure he has the best start, and I hope that I can be a positive influence in his life.

The Importance of First Days

When I was in Concurrent Education, a book called The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher was wildly popular. Although I haven't read it, I understand the basic concept is to take advantage of the first days of school to set up well-structured procedures, smoothing out transitions to reduce potential conflicts and classroom management issues before they even start. This is especially important in a primary classroom where classroom management can take a lot of energy, but even at the university level I think the first days of school are really important.

Usually I use this time to establish some boundaries and policies for my tutorial, but I also think its important to give my students an idea of who I am and what kind of space this is. I make it clear that I am concerned about each of my students, about treating them fairly and respectfully, and that I am an open, approachable person who wants to help them and work with them. I also try to make it clear that philosophy is something I care about, and that I believe can be fun and enjoyable. To me, establishing a relationship of trust is important to keep a classroom functioning because students who don't feel you are on their team won't be open about what they need or are having difficulty with. I think its also important to convey enthusiasm for the material because students learn more when they are having fun, and you need to lead by example.

Unfortunately this year there was an error and I have to switch tutorials with another TA after our first class. I'm a little concerned about not having established my relationship with this class before teaching them, but it will also be interesting to see what kind of effect this will have. Perhaps I can use my morning tutorial as a control group to give me a rough idea of just how much impact the first day really has. Of course, different tutorials always have different personalities, so predicting the results might not be so easy.

Paying attention to the environment in classroom interactions

This morning I read an interesting story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/jobs/looking-another-culture-in-the-eye.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&_r=0

In it, the write realizes that in Japan she needs to look for eye contact from members of the audience and directly ask them if they want to contribute something instead of just asking the entire room. I thought this was very interesting and important for me to remember because I tend to get very absorbed in the content I am discussing and lose my focus on my surroundings and time management. 

In the future, when I am checking to see if anyone has questions, I want to pay close attention to body language. Not just because McMaster has many international students, but also because I want to give support to quiet students who may have very important questions. I usually do have pretty lively discussion in tutorials, but I want to be proactive about it. Sometimes we don't try to understand or fix something until it doesn't work for us, but if you want to keep things running smoothly you need to think about what could go wrong in advance and how to prevent it.

A Meditation on Base 10 Number Blocks

You may remember little orange cubes, sticks, and squares used to demonstrate place values of one, ten, one hundred and one thousand from your public school mathematics curriculum. Today I revisited these old friends while tutoring, and I remembered just how ingenious they are.

Not only were they shaped and textured to be neatly and easily countable without distraction, their consistent colour created a strong image--so much so that when I was a kid I couldn't help but think of my math lessons whenever mom decided to include thawed peas and carrot cubes with dinner. Furthermore, the ones cubes were exactly a centimetre, so they were useful for teaching the metric system too. 

When we learned about Montessori materials in ECE, they showed us how simple materials were designed to introduce students to gradually more complex mathematical concepts. Since I have seen these cubes in classrooms around ontario, I think it would be interesting to see how these cubes could be used to communicate more mathematically complex concepts to an audience already familiar with the materials. 

For example, the idea of holding a 'million cube' or 'billion cube' sounds like an enticing novelty, or using these cubes to show how much the United States spends on defense annually might be an interesting excercise. What might alternative number systems like binary or hexidecimal look like as 

3D plastic objects? Obviously our system, which follows a 'X, ten X, one hundred X' fits into cubes well, but might there be a system better suited to another three dimensional shape? Would it be possible to have a number system best suited to a cube?

Being able to experiment with visual, physical objects to represent number systems opens the door to all kinds of numerical experimentation and learning, and the possibilities for teaching and communication certainly open up as well. Well-designed teaching materials open the content up to the possibility of play, and play is where the best learning happens.