Here I will be reflecting on my experience over the past semester, especially near the end as my knowledge became synthesized, how I created some concrete next-steps for my pedagogical practice, and my reflections on the process of creating and listening to our podcasts.
Podcasts
What I learned about my own teaching practice after creating and listening to our podcasts.
The process of creating and editing my podcast was incredibly enlightening. First, by reviewing literature on the topic of Indigenous Pedagogies (the general topic of our podcast) I came to better understand the current state of the literature in this area (i.e., focusing on decolonizing academia, Indigenizing campuses, and not just inserting Indigenous history or cultural knowledge into a curriculum). Second, reviewing the information from the studies for the purposes of sharing the information prompted me to enter into relationship with this knowledge, preserve its context where possible, and better understand what I know and don’t yet know on this topic. The many conversations that Anna and I had before doing the podcast helped me feel like I was doing the topic justice and flushing out some of my own ideas as I grappled to better understand Indigenous Pedagogies on a personal level, by way of decolonizing my own mind. Anna mentioned so many new concepts to me, introduced me to new language, and reminded me of additional perspectives I would have never thought of. For example, Anna described a kind of elasticity that feels present in the processes of unlearning/relearning the settler-colonialism of educational processes and how despite any “progress” that is made in terms of unsettling Anna’s understanding or worldview, how it returns to default, colonial, capitalist ways of operating. This was an experience that feels very true for myself as well, and so I referred to it as a “snap back” that happens (in our podcast). By including this in our podcast, it felt as though we were making a case that understanding and discussing Indigenous Pedagogies in higher-ed is not the same process that may occur with disseminating other pedagogical strategies, because it is a personal process for everyone and the knowledge is highly contextual. Considering the ways in which this knowledge is moved from person to person is part of understanding and respecting Indigenous pedagogies. Next, having the 1 hour conversation with Anna for the podcast was so illuminating in terms of how we spontaneously found ways to fit our knowledge together and how we realized the ways in which our articles complement each other, contributing to a larger conversation of SoTL.
Then, listening back to my podcast to begin editing it revealed so many of my remaining biases and mis-steps; I called them cringe-worthy moments with Anna because it felt like I said things that I didn’t mean or that could be misinterpreted. These revelations are one of the biggest take-aways from this process because now I can concrete topics to continue gaining understanding on and to better understand before I speak about them. It also helped me to further synthesize the information into a story that can be followed by listeners, which, is helping me continue to build my ability to articulate my rationale for why academia must prioritize Indigenous pedagogies where appropriate.
Finally, shifting our podcast from the editing stages to the final product brought out so many feelings of pride for me. It felt like Anna and I created a landmark in time, marking our current understanding of Indigenous pedagogies. Regarding my own teaching practice, this represents a catalyst from which I can now be transformed as I now move into deeper relationships with the specific areas of knowledge we excluded from the podcast. I for-see myself circling back to many of the articles we used with a new lens, seeking cues for how to introduce Indigenous pedagogy to undergraduate or graduate students while I try my hand at prioritizing some of the strategies that I have already mentioned in my SoTL snap shot, micro-teaching session, and in the podcast with Anna. A main next-step I have for myself, since I am currently a TA and not an instructor, is to support students in self-pacing their learning where possible. There are three ways I do this: negotiating with instructors for no late penalty for students in the majority of scenarios when students reach out to request extra time, providing students with resources that scaffolds their learning by either giving next steps for how to improve their grade or higher-lever resources that go beyond the parameters of a course, and by advocating for grading assignments by way of accounting for student growth, rather than meeting objective expectations. For this semester, this has worked well, but I imagine these goals taking on new forms in the future.
How the content of the podcasts related to or informed my teaching practice.
From listening to my peers’ podcasts, I learned about effective, evidenced-based teaching practices that support students’ motivations. In the podcast about effective teaching, they discussed one study about teaching of foreign language and the effectiveness of inductive, active learning, and interactive or integrated techniques that include the use of technology and visuals to support the shift in teaching from teacher-centred to student-centred. Regarding the study with 7 strategies for effective teaching, I learned something new: that communicating high expectations can be really effective for students’ learning. Both articles discussed active learning, respecting students as individuals with unique skills, preferences, and motivations, which, are all strategies that are reflected in the Papp (2020) article that I used throughout this semester. Papp’s article discussed student-centred pedagogy that supports students holistically by offering self-paced work opportunities, promoting Indigenous culture, and providing financial and familial support where necessary. Finally, my peers mentioned that the role of reciprocity and collaboration needs more attention – this is something that I the Papp article also discusses and something I modelled in my micro-teaching session.
Regarding the podcast about student motivation, I loved learning about the ABCRM acronym of autonomy, belongingness (something that connects with Indigenous pedagogies and that is well-documented in early learning pedagogies), competency (highly connected to early learning), and relatedness/meaningfulness (something that is also highly discussed in early learning through the use of emergent/responsive curriculum. This acronym is something I will keep in mind in my teaching practice because it already aligns with my teaching philosophy statement. Additionally, the idea of students using RRP and a whole class performing at once sounds so fun, which reminds my of the play-based pedagogy that I am so familiar with. It is no wonder why this increased feelings of autonomy that was mentioned, because that is part of the aim of play-based learning, since it is self-directed and voluntary. The role of co-operative learning in student motivation is something I feel like we have experienced a lot this semester with shared google docs and other methods of collaboration, which I plan to continue to use in my own teaching practice since I saw how effective it was.
How I can use SoTL literature to inform your teaching practice
I have already begun to consult SoTL literature to inform my teaching practice. I have been curious about the role of self-reflection in learning because I noticed how some spaces have prompted transformational change. In our last class I asked for how to learn more and was prompted to consult Mezirow’s work. From here, I learned of the stages of transformational learning: disorientation, self-reflection/examination/assessing assumptions, planning next steps including what resources are required, and building experience and confidence in trying out these new roles. Patricia Cranton adds to this conversation the critical role of consulting additional perspectives and the role of each learner as an individual. This demonstrates my comfort with exploring and understanding new areas within SoTL that are of interest to me in building my teaching practice. I plan to use what I learned from transformative learning in my teaching practice, but this has also taught me that I can now search the literature to find strategies or concepts that meet the unique needs of my students and support the situations in which I am teaching.
Challenge: one limitation I have noticed when I consult the SoTL literature, is that I would like to continue to engage in conversations with others about how to effectively use the strategies in various contacts and realities. It’s one thing to read about the use of these strategies in ideal situations or in different parts of the world, but I feel that it is important to continue to engage in considering how it can be applied in particular institutions.
My comfort with evaluating SoTL literature and understanding its relevance to your own teaching practice.
I have an emerging ability to evaluate the SoTL literature, and I have certainly seen this skill improve over the course of the semester. In my first draft of my SoTL Snapshot, I misinterpreted what the researchers did in the study (I think because I was not used to reading qualitative summaries of teaching strategies, rather than an evaluation of the strategies). This represented a poor ability to identify the key information in a resource, analyze its accuracy, and evaluate its relevance and appropriateness for the purposes of my snapshot/ use of the article. It took me some time to get oriented to the lingo and culture of the SoTL literature, and navigating several articles for the purposes of creating our podcast, communicating our information about pedagogy effectively, and making a meaningful contribution to SoTL conversations elevated my comfort and confidence in being able to wade through information related to SoTL. I have come to place in my journey where I now prefer to read about innovative strategies that support reimagining and decolonizing learning spaces rather than that quantitatively evaluate strategies in order that have broad, generalizable results. I am more interested in unique experiences that will help me navigate more specific problems or situations that I encounter in my teaching practice.
Future Plans. I have realized through writing this reflection that another thing I took away from the Effective Teaching Practices podcast was the reminder to evaluate the methods, analysis, and interpretation of SoTL articles. Being reminded that I can critically appraise SoTL literature supported me in using my graduate level training to determine the effectiveness of the strategies that were evaluated in the articles. I have been told that I have strong literature searching and synthesizing skills by my advisor, and I have therefore been wondering if I should take on a project in which I do a literature review on a SOTL concepts such as Indigenous pedagogy and experiential Learning, or the overlaps between early childhood education pedagogy’s and higher education strategies. I also have an emerging interest in starting a podcast about pedagogies. This interest was born from my experience in creating a podcast for this course, but further activated when I listen to some higher-ed podcasts. I immediately felt compelled to contribute to this kind of conversation with my own perspective, as well as to elevate other people’s voices and to use my skills of active listening, audio editing, and and literature searching to mobilize knowledge in society.
Learning goals
I adjusted my goals slightly in order to make them more aligned with the parameters of this course. They are listed here.
Goal 1: By the end of this semester, I will be facilitate a 10-minute interaction lesson with students through zoom. To achieve this, I will implement activities in my micro-teaching session, including menti, jamboard or kahoot, which ask the learners to contribute collaboratively to answering questions or reflect upon the information that is being discussed. If I can implement these tools, receive student engagement through their use of these tools, and if I am able to respond to my peers’ answers, I will feel I have achieved this goal.
Goal 2: By the end of this semester, I will improve my confidence and self-efficacy in terms of implementing one teaching strategy that is culturally responsive by being aligned with Indigenous pedagogical practices. To do this, I will review three peer-reviewed articles on Indigenous pedagogy and teaching approaches, and discuss them with my project partner for the podcast. I will feel successful in this goal if by the end of the semester I can describe, in detail, one teaching strategy that I can use virtually that is rooted in Indigenous pedagogy and that is appropriate for me, a white settler, to implement in a University class setting.
Goal 3: By the end of the semester, I will be able to discuss the considerations for creating assignment instructions that are rooted in universal design for learning and/or universal instructional design. For example, I will be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of including student choice in how they create/present their assignment, in order to support the engagement and expression elements of UDL. I hope to learn more about universally accessible learning strategies through this course (such as the “late bank” article from SoTL snapshot). My will keep a list of ways of strategies that I learn about, including how and when I might want to use them, can be incorporated into assignments that I have an influence in creating.
Meeting my goals.
I met my modified goals, but I also recognize I still have a long way to go before I feel like I can really use these skills in reality. I modified each of my goals slightly to better fit with the course expectations and assignments, and this allowed me to meet all three of these goals. I have documented why I couldn’t reach my goals in a previous reflection, and after getting feedback from Jessi I decided to adjust them to better fit the course, which is reflected above. I am now leaving the class with a high comfort in using collaborative technology to facilitate active learning (e.g., jam board or google docs), with one Indigenous pedagogical strategy I can describe and implement (prioritizing student knowledge and culture by supporting self-reflection in lessons), and a list of strategies that we discussed in class, read about in our readings, and/or learned from guest lecturers (as well as some advantages and disadvantages to know when and how to use each strategy). I have realized that there is value not only in evaluating my progress towards a goal, but keeping a goal a living document that can flex with the needs or resources available to me. It was really valuable seeing how I couldn’t reach my goals, but the logical next step was just to adjust these goals to be more achievable and realistic so that I can feel successful.
Challenge. I am left wondering how I can then scaffold my learning and maintain high expectations for myself and my learning journeys. Since I’ve met these goals, I feel like I need a challenge to continue forward in my learning journey. Therefore, I would like to create 3 new goals that I can work on over the summer semester that will extend the learning that has occurred in this course.
Future plans:
Goal 1: By September I would like to gather 10-20 articles that will help me draw connections between Indigenous pedagogies and experiential learning concepts that are captured in SoTL, with the purpose of working towards creating a literature review with a peer. I am particularly interested in place-based education, significant life experiences, and the role of the whole person in these pedagogies.
Goal 2: By September I would like to gather 10-20 articles that will help me draw connections between early childhood education and care practices and post-secondary education pedagogies. I am particularly interested in the role of belonging, how visibility can be brought to learning processes, hands-on/active learning, and responsive or emergent curriculum.
Goal 3: Decide if I have the resources to start a podcast about Play and Pedagogy whereby I would interview many educators and “experts” to discuss their pedagogical approaches, how they learned what they know, how they think learning happens, and what “knowledge” even is. I would like to linger on the boundaries of education, recreation, and occupation. My first barrier to doing this is understanding if there is funding available to produce the podcast and whether I can manage doing so during my Masters. This kind of journey would push me to learn about many areas of SoTL well beyond my comfort level, to evaluate many competing theories and practices, and to integrate this information into digestible content for listeners. Whether or not I end up starting a podcast is less important to me than the process of mapping out which topics and educators I would like to continue to have conversations with about SoTL, pedagogy, and playful learning, and deciding in which capacity I want to connect with them.
Overall, my plan is still applicable to me and I think by progressing into these three goals I will be able to extend my learning about Indigenous pedagogies, better understand how many instructors and educators facilitate active learning in various settings, and how educators strive for inclusive assessments in their many iterations over their career. This leads me in a slightly new direction than I had intended, but changing course when it feels right is an important part of my learning and research process.
Micro-teaching lesson: Changes I noticed and next steps to elevate my teaching practice.
As I reflected on in a previous post, I made many changes that resulted in the learners being able to meet the learning objectives. I also reflected on the role of practice, feedback, and how to support reflection during in-class activities. From these reflections I have realized I would like to commit to maintaining connections with peers as a way of having a Community of Practice to continue conversations about our teaching practices. Continuing to seek constructive feedback and help from others who are also interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning is how I hope I can continue to refine my pedagogical practice and continue to learn from the meaningful experiences that occurred during this semester.
Next steps to improve my teaching practice.
Some of my next steps are captured in the goals I listed above, but when I integrate these steps into the reflections I’ve had about my micro-teaching, I realize that pedagogy is not a private endeavour. I deeply believe that learning happens in healthy relationships, like in communities where individuals feel supported to active experiment with their knowledge and take risks/be wrong/grow from discomfort. This has deepened two of my pedagogical commitments: one, that I must continue my development through discussing pedagogy with peers, and two, that as an educator I can support student learning by providing opportunities for students to build long-lasting and meaningful connections to one another. I am still feeling unclear about how communities can be supported across a variety of classes regarding discipline, class size, and method of delivery, but I feel grounded in figuring this out as I go as part of my teaching practice.
Lessons learned that I will take into my future teaching practice.
I feel like I have identified and described many lessons learned that I will take into my future teaching practice. Most of these lessons involve an interest in delving deeper into the scholarship of teaching and learning, participating in research in this area, and acting as a researcher about my own teaching practice. I plan to gather many sources of evidence, as we discussed in week 11, to analyze my own teaching documents and methods as well as the learning that students are demonstrating – and whether the tasks and assessments I create even support students in making their learning visible. I was really inspired by our chat with Gavan, and I have started reading his posts on Twitter and his 3 teaching things newsletter. This course is a bit like another catalyst for my learning as an educator because I am now equipped to continue my learning journey about SoTL through the higher ed podcasts (I’ve been liking Teaching in Higher Ed), I started reading a copy of the Spark of Learning, and through many reflections I’ve realized that I might be interested in starting a podcast about some of the connections I see. Continuing to reflect through this blog will hopefully continue to extend and expand my learning and development.
Pursuing Questions 