Entrance slip reading and viewing for Thursday October 1

   For our next class, please read this short excerpt from Vancouver eco artist Sharon Kallis’ book on

learning through reviving ancient technologies and inventing new ones through ‘backsourcing’ and building community: <https://drive.google.com/file/d/16VJRDSKLNO1BAWz4ZPsbucZJlMu8Ux2r/view?usp=drivesdk>

Also, please watch the following three videos— and if you have the chance, please try out at least one of the three techniques shown to begin to get the ‘feel’ for them!

1) The art and geometry of rope-making and yarn plying < https://vimeo.com/168606144>

2) Simple Turkish lace/ netting/ string bag <https://www.facebook.com/rendaturca.singeleza/videos/496395924466783/>

3) How to make multi strand braid < https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f3m2KFZQAlw>

Your blog post should respond to your ‘stops’ in Kallis’s writing and a reflection on viewing and trying out the craft techniques. (We will be making some of these in class next Thursday!)

Resources on embodied math in the garden

 

Here are our body measurement worksheets (thanks to Dr. Julia Ostertag!)

Here are some resources available as a follow-up to our two recent classes in the Orchard Garden!

An interesting article on drawing to learn in in STEM, and this interesting website of naturalist John Muir Laws, who teaches many interesting ways to observe nature through sketching (without necessarily being an expert at sketching!)

A video on awareness of sun, sky, seasons and shadows that I made a couple of years ago with Fresh Roots at David Thompson Secondary for the Canadian Science Odyssey.

Thinking about teaching & learning gardens: Entrance slip for our Sept 24 class

 Here's a recent short article of mine on teaching and learning gardens on campus to read and respond to for next class https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B00n89L6TX5gV1ozZjVMY2g2VTg/view?usp=drivesdk&resourcekey=0-1t5JT3O5TIAuYjRIqP8fZg .  As usual, begin with any 'stops' -- things that made you stop in your reading for any reason -- and think about using these as places for commentary.

When you write your response,  think in terms of teaching and learning gardens at high schools.:

How might you teach in and with a garden in your subject areas at your school?

What benefits and difficulties might you foresee in doing this? Are there ways to work through difficulties in this area?

Finishing up our blog set-up: Here are the instructions on how to invite the rest of the class to be authors on your blog

Hi all! Some people have run into some snags in inviting others to be authors on their blogs, so I've written up the steps below that I hope will be helpful.

Please check your blog dashboard to see whether you have all your fellow students plus me signed up as authors on your blog! If not, please follow the steps outlined below to invite everyone -- or if there are just a few people who haven't yet responded, please try deleting their original invitations and then re-inviting them. 

We're almost there!

Cheers

Susan

******************

How to invite the rest of the class to be co-authors on your blog:


• Open your blog, and choose "design" from the menu on the upper right hand corner of the screen to get to your dashboard. (I've used the 342 class blog as the illustration here, but this applies to EDCP 442 and EDUC 450 as well). 

• Choose "Settings" from the menu on the left hand side of the dashboard.

• Scroll down in Settings to "Invite more authors"

• In a separate tab, open our class spreadsheet of emails and URLs.


• Highlight and then copy the whole column of our emails


• Go back to your blog Settings --> Invite more authors and paste the column of emails there. Check to make sure you are not inviting yourself! You can delete just your own email from the list.


• Press "send", and you should have invited the whole class to be authors on your blog.


Once everyone has finished these steps, and we have everyone accepting one another's invitations, we will take the next step to set the privacy setting to Reader Access --> Private to authors. (But please don't do this till we get everyone signed on!)

 

UBC Orchard Garden information

Here's some information on the Orchard Garden, where we'll be holding our classes for the next
weeks till Thanksgiving. You should have received this in an email too:

Hello everyone!

As mentioned in class and on our tentative course outlines, we are planning to hold our classes in the UBC Orchard Garden outdoor classroom from now till Thanksgiving (Oct. 12), weather permitting. 

How to get to the UBC Orchard Garden:

Address: Totem Field Studios, 2613 West Mall (1 block south of Thunderbird)

Go through the wooden gate between the buildings at Totem Field (the pedestrian gate on the left side is always open -- just push!) Turn right and walk about 100 steps through the 'Xmas tree farm'/ conifer research project, and you will be at the Orchard Garden.

Walking: It's about a 10-15 minute walk south and slightly west of Scarfe.

Cycling or scootering: Faster -- about 5 minutes from Scarfe

Bus: There is one of the smaller community buses (#68) from the UBC Bus Loop that I have seen has a drop-off point right outside Totem Field. However, it is scheduled only every 20 minutes on school days (for example, at 12:20, 12:40, 1:00,...) Google maps say to get off after 5 stops at eastbound Thunderbird @ Eagles Drive, but it's still a 450m (4.5 block) walk from there (I've done that...) I'm not quite sure how to access that bus stop right in front of Totem Field, but maybe you can figure it out and share this?

Car: There's no street parking on West Mall and they do ticket. You are probably ok parking inside the Totem Field gates -- or at the UBC Botanical Gardens lot across Marine Drive? (I don't have a car).

What to bring/ wear:

• A sun/ rain hat -- very important!
• A water bottle -- remember to hydrate frequently
• Any medication, epipen, etc. that you need. (Please let me know about any relevant allergies or medical conditions for safety precautions)
• Appropriate layers of clothes for the changing weather
• Appropriate close-toed shoes or boots for walking on uneven or muddy ground
• Light jacket or windbreaker
• Sunscreen and lip balm with sunscreen (I've had sunburned lips, and it's not fun!)
• Laptop, tablet and/or phone for accessing the internet and writing
• Notebook and pen may be helpful as well
• Snacks

Looking forward to seeing you at the Orchard Garden for our classes this week and onward!


Cheers

Susan

Google sheet with our class blog urls and emails

   

Here is a link to a spreadsheet with our blog urls and emails. Please add your name and information, so that we can invite everyone in the class to be co-authors on our blogs, then set the privacy so that only authors can read them!

Our entrance slip reading for our second class (Sept 17)

  

Here is the link to Grant & Zeichner's classic article, On Being a Reflective Teacher.

Notice that this is an older article (from the mid-1980s) written by two American education professors. (You may be interested doing a quick google search on the work of these two famous education scholars...!)

Your 'entrance slip' writing in response to this article should be posted to your personal class blog by Wednesday at 8 PM, so that I can read everyone's responses before our Thursday morning class.

Questions to address in your response:

1) Does this article 'speak to you' as a new teacher candidate in Vancouver in 2026, even though it was written in a different time and place? What in this article reaches or touches your life and ideas as a teacher candidate, and why? What seems dated or irrelevant, and why?


2) In what ways does this article help you develop your ideas about teacher inquiry and critical thinking -- both through points you agree with and those you may disagree with?

Our first class: Exit slips

For your exit slip, please write a paragraph or so about what you take away from our class discussion. What questions did it leave you with? Did you change your mind or your ideas in any way? What did you feel strongly about, and why? You may write about any or all of these -- and here are some further writing prompts from our course outline, which may be helpful for future exit and entrance slips for our class:

•What does this text (or discussion) say that struck you? Why? 
•What questions does it provoke? Why? 
•What ideas, events, or images did the text (or discussion) illuminate or challenge? What does it remind you of?
•What dilemmas, tensions, or contradictions do you notice ? 
• How does this inform your own understanding of teaching, learning and knowing? 
Your exit slip should be posted on your personal class blog by next Wednesday Sept. 16 at 8 PM at the latest. I strongly suggest that you write it sooner than that, while the ideas and the discussion are still fresh in your mind!

'Teacher Man' and teacher inquiry: Frank McCourt

   

Frank McCourt (1930-2009), the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the memoir Angela's Ashes, grew up in extreme poverty and hardship in Limerick, Ireland. At age 19, he emigrated to New York, and eventually became a highly skilled and beloved high school teacher -- despite the fact that he had never completed secondary school himself.

In the third volume of his memoirs, Teacher Man, McCourt talks about what it meant to him to be an 'ordinary everyday' teacher and to inquire into his practices. He tells his story briefly in these interviews.

1. Frank McCourt: The journey of an ordinary teacher (13:17)

2. Excerpts from Frank McCourt interview on Teacher Man  (1:34)

After watching these, what do you think 'teacher inquiry' meant to McCourt? What could you take from his sense of teacher inquiry for your own inquiry process?

PS: Here's a link to another (text-based) interview with Frank McCourt and another video interview if you're interested...

Welcome to our Inquiry 1 class blog!

 Hello, new colleagues and wonderful new teachers! Looking forward to many great experiences where

we inquire together into teaching and learning this year, and learn from one another.

Here is a link to our tentative course outline, which may be updated here from time to time.

This blog will be the place to connect with readings, viewings and class assignments, and we will link our personal blogs for class here as well.