“Design thinking asks students to become investigators in their world, attempt to solve problems, bridge gaps of knowledge independently, collaboratively, and resourcefully.” So decrees Lee-Ann Gray of the ability of Design Thinking to “make school more like real life.” Gray positions her view of schooling’s purpose clearly in her opening paragraphs, where she notes that, […]
Read more "Design Thinking as Critical Literacy"I’ve quoted D’Arcy Norman’s MSc thesis here before. However, newly immersed in the introductory strides of Design Thinking, courtesy of UVic and #TieGrad’s EDCI 335 course, I think the following bears on our emerging discussions: …educational technology can be prone to cycles of hype and fetishism, where new tools and applications are rapidly adopted by individuals who are […]
Read more "This year’s new Dylan: Design Thinking"This semester I’ve been using Google Forms to collect reflections, self-assessments and unit feedback from both the Philosophy 12 bunch, as well as the TALONS. As with many aggregating aspects of the web, what I appreciate about this method of collection and feedback is the ability to analyze trends and other information (beyond the individual […]
Read more "Ethics Unit Feedback and Reflection"As part of my personal learning project in #TieGrad’s studies I’ve been guided in my efforts to frame my learning – as well as the intentionality of creating my classroom spaces – by delving into educational research surrounding topics of interest this semester. Aligning neatly with my opportunity this term to be teaching Philosophy 12 […]
Read more "Citizenship Learning and the Project of Enlightenment"I started blogging with the TALONS class (since expanded to two) a little more than four years ago. In that time I’ve learned a great deal about the capacity for such digital publishing tools to help realize aspects of the larger purpose of schooling; part of this has come through developing my own informal network […]
Read more "Blogs as Documents of Learning"A few of us from the #Tiegrad group met up on Sunday morning to talk about all sorts of things: project updates, questions, and frustrations, the nature of personalized learning and education in the ‘open,’ and the unique moment each of us finds ourselves in: presently at the intersection between teacher and learner. Even Valerie Irvine, […]
Read more "On Teaching and Learning"As I continue to wade through Paulo Freire‘s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it is easy to see its range of influence within faculties of education across North America. The intentions expressed in Freire’s praxis of critical pedagogy form the basis of (what I sense to be) most teacher-certification programs, graduate diplomas and masters programs. And yet we continue […]
Read more "Liberation Citizenship for the 21st Century"For the first time in what feels like a while, I took the almost the entire summer as vacation this year, and came back into school fresh with (albeit unfocused) enthusiasm and energy for September. By design or retro-active justification, I like to come into a new school year without too many preconceived ideas about […]
Read more "Reengage"As part of the ongoing assessment of personal and collective learning that went into the class’ study of Canadian Confederation, TALONS learners were asked to reflect on their quad’s presentation & facilitation of a discussion topic pulled from the unit, taking into account the Nine Dispositions of Democratic Discussions. As with many of these sorts […]
Read more "Reflections on the Confederation Discussions"This past week, the TALONS classes have hosted and facilitated half-hour long activities and discussions that have been focused on an exploration of historical contexts and details of Canadian Confederation, as well as an attempt to cultivate the recently discussed Dispositions of Democratic Discussion. After an initial introduction to the Victorian era in the Canadian […]
Read more "The Confederation Discussions"