Educators engage in professional learning.

Going With The Current

Wading into Standard 7, this standard I believe is very important to the quality of your teaching. I say this because engaging in professional learning over the course of our careers can only serve to continue to develop your practice and improve it over time. Every job sector has some form of innovation moving it forward as the needs of society change over time, so of course, teaching is no and should be no different. As educators, if we ignored changes in society and its needs and stayed set in our ways I don’t believe we would necessarily be needing the educational needs of our communities. While I am writing this I just keep thinking about the song from the musical Hairspray “Welcome to The Sixties” where the main character welcomes her shut-in mom to the new age of their city.

I think this connects because to keep our teaching in connection to what our students need we have to stay with the current of where our communities are. This is not to say classic approaches should be thrown out the window but I believe we should be constantly reflecting, learning and engaging with our peers to improve our own personal teaching as well as our profession as a whole. We encourage life lone learning in our students so as teachers we need to model that as well.

Mcgregor River- Prince George Area (Speaking of current :))

When it comes to how I have interacted with this standard so far in my teaching practicums and throughout this program, I think that being a new teacher candidate the professional learning never stops. This process is a positive one as I have not only had the opportunity to engage with experienced educators through professional development days but also soak up all the different approaches of the different educators I have met along the way. Not only have I and my fellow cohort members been able to take in different types of activities and approaches to use with students but also the meaning and thought processes behind them. In my last practicum, my coaching teacher and I spent one of our Pro-D days researching indigenous content resources as this was a needed resource for us given the recent events of the residential school mass grave announcements. I really appreciated this because it connects back to what I was stating earlier, we saw a need that stemmed from our community and brought it into the classroom. Overall, I believe that actions like this are at the heart of Standard 7 and I look forward to continuing to enact this standard in my future teaching.