MY PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY
WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
It is hard to acknowledge that the goals you’ve set are not necessarily the outcomes you’ve hoped for. Having spent time grappling with the idea of creating an online learning course using WeChat as a platform, I have arrived at the conclusion that, for now, I need to step back, focus on smaller parts of WeChat and set more realistic, attainable goals. And so, as reflective practitioners do, I have adjusted the course of my learning. Allowing for flexibility in the learning path is key and allows us the freedom to remain open to other possibilities.
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Flexibility in learning is not just about adjusting the goals, but also looking at alternative strategies for delivery which better meet the needs of students. It is about considering individual learners and looking at practices to address their learning. While culture plays a big role in our classrooms, mature students with added responsibilities have placed new accommodation requests on our program. We have had to review our practices with regard to accessibility, something which is also quite new to our English for Academic Purposes program. Flexibility and keeping integrity of your program in tact is a tough balancing act.
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Looking back at my professional learning throughout this course, I am more aware of my own mindset as it relates to teaching and learning. This is important because as influencers, we set the tone in our classrooms and need to demonstrate a mindset of growth for our students (Hicks, 2015). We need to emulate what we expect from our students. Dylan Wiliam said it best, “Every teacher fails on a daily basis. If you’re not failing on a daily basis, you’re just not paying attention because we fail all the time” (2014). While this sounds extremely pessimistic, his message is quite the opposite. He claims the challenge is what motivates us to carry on improving our practice. This quest is an important part of professional learning and as educators, we need to commit to lifelong learning and continuously seek opportunities to refine and rebuild what we do in practice.
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Another key aspect of my own professional learning that I have come to recognize is the collaborative nature of the experience. Seeking out the alternative viewpoints and looking for opportunities to collaborate and share. There is great power in the collective of “we” when it comes to inspiring new ideas. The energy and synergy is palpable when community members converge on a task. Adding cultural lens to the mix brings forth even more possibility to consider diverse viewpoints and to learn. I think that I have always been collaborative in nature, but I am looking to new areas of collaboration. For example, in my role as coordinator, I encourage and engage students more in helping to determine their academic pathway. When they are struggling, I try not to inundate them with advice, I ask questions and listen to their concerns. We discuss how to work through the problems and each suggest solutions. Students feel more empowered because they’ve helped to formulate their academic recovery plan.
I have also been reminded of the importance of sensitivity and empathy throughout this journey. Irish and Scrubb (n.d) provide us with sage advice related to culturally competent teaching and learning which I would argue would serve most any student in our class. Directly attributable to our practices in the classroom is their reminder to critically analyze our own cultural assumptions and be careful not to assert our own preconceived ideas and stereotypes into learning practices. I now have a heightened awareness of my own interactions with students and pay attention to be more sensitive and self-aware.
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Another important facet that resonated was the power of positive education. Seligman et al. (2009) question whether it is possible to teach well-being in schools. One cannot deny the empirical evidence that seems to support the power of positive reinforcement. There is little question that in my own practice, positivity goes a long way to mitigate negative situations. I am more sensitive to the language or words that I choose to discuss difficult situations with students. I recognize that often when students are meeting with me, it is not under the best of circumstances and that I do have the opportunity to practice more positively and make a difference in how a student might approach a challenging situation. I take care to be encouraging and boost rather than admonish them. I always try to remember that I was young once too.
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Teaching 21st Century skills is another great take away in terms of professional learning. The challenges to keep up and to help inspire creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication in our students is daunting. Assessing for these characteristics even more! Rafiq Elmansy (2015) offered some great advice related to creating spaces to promote creativity and innovation. In particular, I think that one strategy we need to infuse into our curriculum is the idea of focusing on just one project instead of multiple projects. This makes sense on so many levels. It helps to build community, promotes collaboration and asks students to share in the knowledge rather than regurgitate it to each other.
Assessing for these skills is an area I would like to do more research. Larmer’s (2014) discussion related to assessing creativity and innovation was particularly intriguing and I think that our program could do more to assert more cohesive assessment strategies. At the moment, assessment is left largely to each individual faculty and this can create problems when we run multiple sections of one level. Students will sometimes compare their grades and inquire as to why one assignments and assessments are markedly different. This definitely bears more discussion for our program.
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If I have learned anything at all, I have learned that this is not the end of my professional development. I am motivated to not only continue to practice my own professional learning, but also to build this desire in my own students. We cannot expect any less of ourselves, if we are to expect more of our students.
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My quest to harness WeChat will continue, as will my goal to raise cultural awareness at the college. I have learned that we must not be still in our learning, learning is active and I hope to be active for a very long time yet.