Module 5: A Journal of Connection to my Professional Learning Community
Electronic Journal
Facebook Selection & Group Approval... A Waiting Process!
After being approved to join a couple Facebook groups that I initially requested, I spent a lot of time reviewing the quality of posts, frequency of responses, and content material being shared. I decided that the Facebook group called “Math-Minded Teachers”, was the most appropriate platform for me to engage with regarding the topic of curriculum geared towards mathematical learning.
I selected this platform to engage with for a few reasons:
The content and questions shared was broad enough to encompass my inquiry around teaching math and comparing curriculum designs.
In the group “rules”, asking questions and engaging with members was encouraged. In fact, a rule was “leave more than you take”, encouraging members to contribute to discussions and support one another!
Many personal questions by members were responded to – with suggestions, resources or opinions – offering opportunity to engage in a conversation and learn together.
Although I am not allowed to post a link to my personal website, I can respond to a question or comment with the link (as long as its relevant).
I have been reflecting on the course content in terms of my personal and current practice and experience. Like I mentioned, I wanted to engage in a math-specific online PLC due to my current focus this year on the subject and PLC work with math in my school. I view math as a controversial subject to approach through the lens of curriculum design since it lends itself to many different curriculum designs and philosophies, and traditionally, was taught through a very subject-centred design. For this reason, examining PME 810 course content through a focus of math provided me professional context, connection and a challenge.
Posting to an Online Professional Learning Community
One thing I noticed about an online PLC platform such as Twitter or Facebook is the “need for speed”. As a group member, you want to sign on, explore while scrolling, and take what you want and leave what you don’t. Online platforms can offer a lot of posts with questions, resources, etc.– almost too many to keep up with everything. I wanted my post to be worthy of an online platform, so I realized that a brief, yet effective post is important. It should introduce a question or idea, and be to the point. The discussion can come later! First one must see if anyone “out there” is interested. Another aspect that I observed about posting was that visuals catch the attention of other group members. Some group members even post their questions in a poster-like picture! After realizing this, I knew that I had to pair-down the information I wanted to share/inquire about, and re-design a worthy visual connected to my question and to catch the eye of some group members. Too must information, and those posts seem to be skimmed over with less engagement.
What I ended up focusing on was exploring how traditional curriculum designs and contemporary curriculum designs play a role in planning and teaching math and if this has evolved over time. Specifically, comparing subject-centred curriculum design and learner-centred curriculum design. For my visual, I modified a previous visual that Amy and I designed and created an easy-to-view T-able to inform the reader so they could easily access the information they needed in order to engage with my post. I posted this visual in addition to a short blurb which posed my question and predicament I am in.
My Post to “Math Minded Teachers” Facebook PLC
Hi everyone,
I have a question regarding math curriculum philosophy/ design as I engage in a course and find myself in a time I am hoping to refresh my math teaching practice:
When planning and teaching math, do you find your math teaching to have evolved to a more learner-centred philosophy and design, or is there still a place for subject-centred curriculum designs when teaching math?
Traditionally, math lent itself to a very subject-centred curriculum design and approach -- content organized by units, in isolation from context, outcome-oriented, and practice driven by textbooks. In recent years, many speakers and conferences I’ve attended stress the importance of learner-centred designs to planning and teaching math, particularly in elementary. So, instead, the teacher steers the learning, content and topics are integrated, and learners are engaged through interests to discover concepts.
With scores so influential on student’s admissions at the post-secondary level, yet the benefits of learner-centred designs becoming more apparent, I feel pressured and torn as an elementary teacher how to approach it all now I want my students to love math, and don’t want to do a disservice to them
Thanks for your ideas around this.
Sarah
And now I wait! All posts must be “approved” by the online group Administrator which I can appreciate in order to keep the group focused, safe and legitimate.
Remembering that group members are encouraged to “leave more than they take”, I engaged in responding to some posts by sharing professional resources and commenting on their posts.
Engaging in an "in-person" PLC at School
Prior to engaging in my online PLC, I took the feedback of Dr. Cunning to reach out to my colleagues at school and engage in discussion around some of the curriculum-related topics I had been studying. Last week, I took the opportunity to do this when we met for our regular in-person PLC. My new school is in a transition to move away from a previous traditional subject-centred curriculum design and academic rationalism philosophy to a more contemporary learner-centred design and self-actualization philosophy and approach to learning. Many of the staff are new to the school, and were hired based on their curriculum philosophies, inquiry, experiential, hands-on learning opportunities they provide their students.
What I appreciated about meeting in-person with my colleagues was the trust and familiarity we have with one another already. Because of the professional context and relationships, there was no judgement. There was more time and space for me to explain my assignment and ask questions, versus on the online platform. Knowing them as teachers, I could even better appreciate their feedback and suggestions since I have witnessed their professional practice.
When sharing and discussing the various curriculum designs, and philosophies with my colleagues, and sharing the visual that Amy and I designed, there were a few key takeaways that came out of our discussion relating to curriculum conceptions, philosophies and designs and how they connect to planning, teaching and assessment:
Formal assessment practice, like report cards or “Gradebook” programs, that are school board mandated do not always “align” with the planning and teaching for learner-centred curriculum designs and related curriculum philosophies.
There is a time and a place in school to compare subject-centred and learner-centred designs. Some skills and school goals require explicit teaching of concepts and practice. Some students learn best this way. Some administrators expect this design. It is a fine balance as a teacher to incorporate BOTH.
For a teacher to be open to and supported with a learner-centred curriculum design, it takes trust, patience, an open-mind, and flexibility.
Parents can be skeptical and question learner-centred designs due to their own educational experiences and expectations.
We are constantly evolving as teachers to meet the needs of our students, keep up with the latest educational philosophies and practices, and personally improving and exploring. We may transition between curriculum designs and philosophies, incorporate many at a time, or apply one at a time during our professional careers and that’s OK!
Within my PLC at school, we were able to discuss more in a short period of time. Maybe I have not yet found the “right” online PLC, but I did feel as though I could cover more with my colleagues in-person since their engagement fuelled the conversation as well. I’m comparing this to single posts that you must take the time to compose, wait for responses, and craft replies to one another. However, the “lull” time in between online output does allow for independent reflection on professional practice and student learning (Blitz, 2013).
The Wait is Over... I'm In!
To be honest, I didn’t know if my post would be approved to post. So, to my surprise, the next morning, not only was it approved and “live” on the group, but there were many responses to my question using common terminology (subject-centred, learner-centred). Members really seemed to resonate with my question sharing personal teaching transformations, strong opinions, resources to achieve one design over the other, encouragement, and even some healthy disagreeing! For some reason, it was amazing to me that so many people wanted to engage in discussion around curriculum philosophies and designs from a math perspective. I think this surprise stemmed from the fact that most of the official PLC’s I have been apart of are mandatory for teachers. Engaging in discussion out of personal interest can offer a more natural flow to the conversation, knowing that you do not have to frame your conversation around an accountability PLC form. Also, I was glad that I focused my PLC group on math and its connection to curriculum design as I found that there were many passionate specialists in the Facebook group that could offer different perspectives. Possibly a more specific Facebook group may offer more focused, genuine engagement?
Below I have shared with you the comments that have (so far) replied to my post. I am slowly going through them and replying to members who took the time to reflect on my question. I didn’t feel like it was appropriate to “direct them to my website”, but instead, simply engage in that natural dialogue around curriculum approaches that formed based on their replies. Interestingly, almost all members were for a learner-centred approach. Some teachers suggested that a balance is required and both designs may be necessary. Not one teacher advocated for strictly a subject-centred curriculum design!
Reference
Blitz, C. L. (2013). Can Online Learning Communities Achieve the Goals of Traditional Professional Learning Communities? What the Literature Says. Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic.
A Reflection on Discussing Curriculum Frameworks in Math PLCs
The past few months have been a period of professional reflection for me. Moving schools, leaving my team-teaching partner of 6 years, studying a curriculum course, implementing a new provincial curriculum, meeting new educators near and far. I have had no choice but to critically examine my philosophy as a teacher –vision, planning, teaching and assessment practices.
Examining the various curriculum frameworks through a mathematics lens caused me to narrow down the number of curricular philosophies previously studied to only two. Considering the multiple curricular philosophies, I decided to leave out social reconstruction relevance, technology and development of cognitive processing conceptions. When planning, teaching and assessing mathematics, I felt the conceptions of academic rationalism and self-actualization were most relevant and controversial within the evolution of math curriculum which educators from all over could relate to. I found the philosophies for both of these conceptions – subject-centred and learner-centred - to be opposing which could offer opportunity for rich discussion in a PLC.
Not that long ago, I remember the math curriculum was organized by unit (ex. number sense, patterns, statistics, etc.). This provided the frameworks for teachers to teach those units in isolation, resulting in teaching being the transmission of knowledge, facts and skills for that particular unit. This aligns with academic rationalism conception and subject-centred design (McNeil, 2009). Report cards supported this conception, as teachers had to provide a grade for each specific unit. Just recently, Alberta’s curriculum was revised and math learning outcomes are now arranged into “Organizing Ideas” – topics that work well together and overlap. This lends itself well to the humanistic approach and a more student-centred design– integration of units, projects, cooperative learning and inquiry in instead of teacher-dominated instruction and large-group learning for isolated skills and topics (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2013). This approach is less rigid and it encourages teachers to explore these topics in broader ways. The learning outcomes follow the guiding questions, and since teachers are to assess these, this new framework allows teachers to meet learning outcomes through a broader approach while considering the guiding questions and organizing ideas outlined in the curriculum framework.
New grade six Alberta curriculum – Example of an organizing idea, guiding question, and learning outcomes
Report cards have followed suit, combining math units in a single report card stem, instead of them being isolated or skill-based. This piece is so important – revising the formal assessment document to align with the planning and teaching is crucial to ensure fluidity in the process and reveal a through-line for teachers students, and parents.
New elementary assessment –math report card stems
Despite these new revisions, I think it will take time for teachers to adapt their practice, and simply, their beliefs and philosophies. Vallance (1986) does state that the academic rationalism conception is likely to continue, which I believe will be true. This is especially true in math since academic rationalism stresses the transmission of a set of knowledge in order to build on in upper grades and eventually contribute to admission scores. The variance in curriculum designs between education levels can be conflicting, particularly for myself, as an elementary teacher. I find most high schools in my area to approach math in a more subject-centred way, while I am trying to implement a learner-centred design in order to provide context and joy in learning math for my young students.
Contradictory to my own belief that many upper grades approach teaching math in a traditional way, many of the responses to my PLC question on “Math-Minder Teachers” vouched for a student-centred approach, or a balance between that and subject-centred. I wonder if this is because many of the teachers seeking out PLCs and professional development are open-minded and willing to reflect on and adapt their teaching practice. Is strictly subject-centred design when planning, teaching, and assessing math a result of stagnant teaching? Do teachers approach math this way because this is what they remember from their own schooling? Do math PLCs offer a new world of curriculum philosophies, designs, and accompanying resources that provide teachers with the tools and skills to evolve their practice? Perhaps PLCs offer one mode of inspiration and knowledge to reflect on curriculum philosophy and design.
After reflecting on the replies to my question in the Facebook group, “Math-Minded Teachers”, and considering what I learned during this course, I believe a student-centred curriculum design is crucial to engage young learners in math. Providing context, relevant learning experiences, utilizing technology and resources to allow for exploration and problem-solving is crucial. With so much knowledge accessible at the fingertips of our young learners, teachers don’t need to front-load facts and knowledge, but instead initiate and steer the learning through experiential learning opportunities. Of course, there is a time and place for direct-teaching of computational procedures and new concepts, but a teacher’s role demands a more modern curricular approach and philosophy to learning and teaching math.
References
McNeil, J. D. (2009). Contemporary curriculum in thought and action (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Pages 1, 3-14, 27-39, 52-60, 71-74.
Ornstein, A. C., & Hunkins, F. P. (2013). Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and issues (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. Read part of Chapter 1, pp. 1-8.
Vallance. (1986). A second look at conflicting conceptions of the curriculum. Theory into Practice, 25(1), 24-30.
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