The Introduction:
We are told, again and again, never to talk at our students. We are told to engage our students. We are told to never put information on our slides or presentations that our students could read to them. We are told never to read off our sheets of paper and we are told to sound natural and not rehearsed. These are directions that our advisors are given by the Ministry, so why doesn't the Ministry follow their own directions?
I was so excited for this self-directed workshop and it is heartbreaking how terribly it opened up. The presenters did all I mentioned above for two hours. One young presenter, three years into the game of teaching, freshly graduated and one who you'd think wouldn't have picked up bad habits of Socratic teaching due to her obvious passion for her career (and her students) read off of a sheet of paper with a rehearsed and difficult speech to listen to, even apologizing when she missed a word and had to re-read. What happened to practice what you preach? Why wouldn't they model what they expect from us? The Mellenial generation (or Y Gen) have too great of expectations for the workforce, most of the time, but I don't think it is too much to ask that we be talked at less and talked to more, with engaging presentations that keep us focused and off our cellphones.
"Literacy Workshop"
While a lot of the information in this workshop was repetitive of what we speak about in our Language course, the information was presented in a more interactive manner, encouraging our participation and even having us get up and fill in anchor charts. The presenters also made note of how much we had been talked "at" and how they wanted to change that.
Some of the best points I took from that session were:
- Making kids feel like they can take action
- Robust thinking is reflective thinking; metacognition is important
- Allowing kids negotiate their thinking for meaning; eg. a child saying, "That isn't how I saw it." and why
- A lot of digital literacy was emphasized such as having kids look at advertisements and debating whether advertisements should be in video games
- Another media literacy project that was given as an example was a photo essay for environmental issues
- Rich tasks are cognitively demanding, engaging, have new knowledge and thinking
"Occasional Teaching Workshop"
This workshop, while presented in a simple slideshow-and-talk form (the teacher actually admitted to leaving the career of teaching due to technology; when she couldn't keep up, she felt it was time to bow out) but the presenter was passionate and knowledgeable about her topic and kept you listening. She shared a handful of new information and had a lot of visuals to share with the class, giving physical examples to the many ideas she had to share. This was my favourite workshop of the day.
"Healthy and Safe Schools Workshop"
If you have taken law as I have, this presentation didn't have a lot of new information. The presenter was one of the ones I couldn't hear in the morning, but in a small space, his voice was quite booming and clear. His presentation had a lot of group problem solving and discussion and he even prepared a little quiz to test the knowledge of school statistics of bullying and harassment. It was a very well put together presentation and while it didn't keep me as hooked because it was repetitive, it was still clear and laid out nicely with the group work and hypothetical situations we were presented with.
Conclusion:
Overall, the workshop was quite beneficial. I truly wish the introduction wasn't so demoralizing because I would have been far more excited for each workshop if it had been presented with excitement and enthusiasm as well. I see nothing unprofessional with this advice that I hope the Ministry stumbles upon, because I am all about laying things down as I see them and not sugar coating them or putting on a guise. I am sure they'd be rather pleased to hear constructive criticism in order that they may improve the presentation for the following year.
I also wish that information on each work shop would have been available (eg. the Tech Showcase has a blurb about every single workshop prior to signing up for it) so the tedious situation of hearing repeated information doesn't occur.
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