ECS 203 Curriculum & Pedagogy

Thinking back to my experiences with mathematics in school, I only seem to recall the negative events. I believe I have mostly negative memories associated with mathematics because of how much it challenged me. For me, especially in high school, math was taught out of a textbook. Learning through a textbook is not my first choice as I am more of a visual and auditory learner. I learn best when someone is able to explain while modeling multiple examples or ways to reach an answer. Having a teacher who was only able to explain the concepts in the one way, which was the one and only way he claimed he had taught that math class for the previous 15 years, is oppressive. Sometimes I was not able to fully understand his way to solve the problem and wondered why he couldn't explain it in another way. I wondered if he ever considered the fact that his way of solving the problems made more sense to him only because he had been doing it for so long. It's oppressive as it was only suitable...

Integrating Treaty Education in our teaching is extremely important regardless of the classroom, or school demographics. As Canadians, it is our responsibility to learn about our history and understand why it is still relevant in the present day. In creating an understanding of the past, we will be able to teach students the effects of colonialism. Dwayne Donald mentioned in his lecture that Treaty education is imperative as it "deconstructs the past that we share" and allows students to "engage critically with the realization that the present and the future is very intimately tied together." In understanding the past, there will be greater chance to deconstruct prior knowledge and beliefs about Canada and Indigenous people. Challenging the previously held beliefs and teaching students how to analyze the Eurocentric ideologies they are being taught will help future generations work towards a more just society. Even though introducing Treaty education may be challeng...

Knowing that I will have a diverse group of students within my future classrooms, it is my responsibility to provide positive learning experiences that include every one of my students. As Lopez (2011) states: "diverse student populations are now one of the distinct features of schools in North America"(p. 90). Meaning, as educators we have to be aware of the diversity within our classrooms and integrate multiple forms of knowledge and perspectives into our lessons to ensure learning is relevant to students' lives and experiences. The importance of culturally relevant pedagogy is that it is an effective way to focus on the cultures, languages, and experiences that diverse students bring to classrooms to increase their engagement and academic achievement. In doing this, "students will learn to be critical, understand each other, and appreciate other forms of knowledge"(Lopez, 2011, p.75). I hope culturally relevant pedagogy for me will be researching different cu...