I’ve now been in the UNBC Education program for about a month, but honestly it feels longer than that (in a good way). There was an initial shock period when I realised that the ways in which I’d tackled university in the past really weren’t going to work anymore. This was due not just to the pandemic and influx of online-learning, but also to the very different styles of learning and assessment used in the Education program as compared to a more traditional undergraduate program. The biggest thing I’ve taken away so far (and I hope this is right, or at least on the right track) is that while content is important, the ways in which you present that content is much more vital. It is the process of developing and delivering the content that decides how it will be received by students. Putting time and effort into making your curriculum as available and approachable as possible to the maximum amount of students is not just better for learning, but also efficient. The extra hours you spend developing a lesson plan that allows more students to understand right off the bat will save an immeasurable amount of time in the long run, because now students will feel less lost, and the class can be on the same page.
So far much of our learning has been in history and practices, especially focusing on the problematic past of Canadian education, and what we can do to both be informed and act to right some of those wrongs. These are difficult concepts to talk about, and I think it’s a great thing to start out with them, otherwise they’d act like a cloud hanging over our heads. It’s even more important that as we continue with our learning, we continue to ground ourselves in these initial lessons such that we may always be reminded of what we are working towards, a better Canada (and world) for all people. In due time I expect that we will talk/practice at length with lesson plan formation, classroom control, etc. We’re one month in, with 15 to go, so I’m in no rush at all.
The question “what have you learned about yourself?” is extremely difficult in my opinion. Recently I have been thinking about how as people, we are constantly in flux. To say you’ve learned something about yourself is to place aspects of yourself in the concrete, and I’m not sure if I want to do that? There are bits and pieces that I could talk about, for example I think in this last month I have learned that my background gives me a unique perspective on education, and that the knowledge I have from that background is useful not just for myself, but for others in my cohort. One truly concrete thing I’ve learned however, is that I really struggle with online lecture-style content. So far, I have connected very well to breakout groups and discussions in small numbers, but I have been having a hard time keeping focused on more traditional “single speaker lecture” lessons. I am grateful that my professors have made an effort to diversify the learning space to allow for more small group discussions, and I think this experience will be key in how I will teach in the future.
