We had Trevor MacKenzie speaking with us today in our EDCI 336 class. Here are some notes of things I learned or thought were interesting from his lecture:

  1. Be reflective of your own experiences as a student in elementary to high school. From these reflections, we learn about what we want to do, and what we want to avoid in our own future practice. There is also a practice of unlearning within our reflections, however, as we need to keep in mind that what worked for us in our experiences will not work for all students.
  2. “Am I doing something for my students which they should be doing for themselves?” This question was brought to our attention by Trevor in relation to making sure that the students are the ones who are putting hard work and thinking into their learning, instead of the teacher doing it all for them. Another question that Trevor brought up is “If students are not able to do these things by themselves, how do we put the conditions in place so that they are able to?”.
  3. Make relationships with students, and find out what they find valuable and meaningful. We can use these things in the classroom to make our teaching more engaging to students and motivate them to learn.
  4. When using inquiry in the classroom,  not all students need to be doing the same type of inquiry. Some students may need to stay within the area of structured or controlled inquiry, whereas other students will be able to go into the deep end and complete guided or free inquiry on their own.

Trevor had so much knowledge and experience to share with us, which made this a great lecture to listen to.