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...

Before the Akom reading, I had never given much thought to how valuable hip hop could be within the classroom. Akom insists that hip hop can be used as a tool to illuminate current issues of poverty, police brutality, patriarchy, misogyny, incarceration, racial discrimination, as well as love, hope, and joy. Not only does this approach to teaching social justice challenge the typical classroom practices, but it engages students by producing more justice-oriented citizens. The goal of integrating critical hip hop pedagogy is for students to develop meaningful strategies to fight for social justice and take on roles of advocating within their community. Not only does this encourage students to use critical thinking, reflection, analysis, and action with a social justice lens, it engages students with music, something kids care about . It is argued that Hip Hop is a valuable tool we can use to introduce youth to social justice issues as "Hip Hop is the dominant language of youth cult...

In my schooling, the main focus was creating a personally responsible citizen, to be a functioning part of society. I was taught to be personally responsible as my elementary schools motto was the "3R's: responsible, respectful and ready". Students were expected to be responsible, be respectful and be ready while being honest, obeying the rules and using our manners. I remember an emphasis on learning how to recycle, taking part in walks around the school yard picking up litter, as well as donating non-perishables to the local food drive. In high school there was a slight shift in citizenship as it became more of a focus of participatory citizenship. There was more of an emphasis on the students taking the leadership roles through organization of school fundraisers for things like sports teams, dances and graduation.  Having most of my school experiences focus on the personally responsible citizen I was never really taught to push for change, or made aware that change was...

After reading Levin's article I have a better understanding about the development of curriculum and how it is created through a process starting with a policy. The process involves bringing in groups of experts and representatives to revise or renew curriculum. This process could be negative as these experts are not considering the teachers in this process and how they may not have the resources or level of expertise to teach the curriculum in that way they are expecting. I now understand it is not as simple as you would like to think. The process involved in creating curriculum also has a lot to do with politics involving discussions of what subjects should be included or excluded, how much of these subjects and during what stage of a students' education should they be taught. There is also debate over the content of the subjects. Levin describes how difficult the curriculum making process is as "Any issue that is politically contentious can also turn into a curriculum di...

 [Deepening the Discussion]  Educators can go about addressing the ways in which the systems that we teach our curriculum in are intrinsically homophobic, transphobic, biphobic and oppressive towards queer and trans people in many ways. It is the responsibility for educators to develop further understandings and educate themselves on these topics to have a deeper and complete understanding of these terms and how to support all students who might identify as gender or sexually diverse. It is also important to be aware of their own ideas and how they transmit them within their classrooms. The deepening understanding text mentioned it is important for educators to "reflect on their own privileges and assumptions."(p18).  As educators it is our responsibility to become aware of personal assumptions and how they might influence the classroom or conversations. In doing this, future teachers will provide and make a habit of using inclusive and appropriate resources and language ...