February 9, 2025 – A Fulsome Six Weeks

Wow. We are in Week 6 of the Winter 2025 and I am just finding my bearings for the term. On Mondays, I teach back to back 4-hour classes for the teacher education program with the same cohort, then I teach an undergraduate course on Tuesday nights, and a graduate course on Thursday nights. It sounds like a pretty sweet schedule as teaching faculty, but the weekend is consumed by planning and prepping for my Monday classes, Tuesdays and Thursdays are spent planning and prepping for my night classes, Wednesdays and Fridays are spent trying to catch up with everything. Truthfully, the week is a bit unbalanced.

I have not been able to quite figure out a good rhythm for the first 6-weeks of the term, but as of tomorrow, we are reaching “an end” to the term… at least for me. Next week is reading break for my undergraduate and graduate courses, and next Monday is Family Day. On this welcomed break, I’ll be heading to SFU for WestCAST 2025, which BTW, I need to be planned and prepped for as well. Nonetheless, this Monday denotes “an end” for the teacher education courses I teach. It will be the last day at Harwin for “in situ” learning for EDUC 421 and the evening will entail “numeracy night” at Edgewood Elementary for EDUC 376.

We have done so many amazing things in EDUC 421 and EDUC 376 in such a short time. We participated in “in situ” learning at Harwin Elementary for three weeks where the teacher candidates have an opportunity to plan a linked lesson using BC’s Curriculum, teach students for one-hour per visit, and then reflect on their teaching experience to explore “assessment and motivation.” What I love about this experience is that the K-7 students provide immediate, in real-time feedback to the candidates if the lesson is working or not working, classroom are in the classroom to support the candidate, if needed, and candidates can co-teach, co-plan, and co-reflect with peers before their first teaching practicum.

For the numeracy class, we spent a full day with Carole Fullerton, the district numeracy teacher spent time with us to liaise with Edgewood Elementary to plan for a Numeracy Night and candidates created various math games, and we will have several guest speakers to engage candidates with different approaches in numeracy. Moreover, I am engaged in professional learning in mathematics education and bringing what I am learning to the class. I am loving all of the different things we are engaging in and I am learning lots. Most of all, my love for mathematics is rekindled from secondary to elementary. It’s fun!!

I hope that the teacher candidates are having as much fun as I am, but I am also aware that they are flooded with lots of work as well in other courses. The second term of this program seems like a lot with their first teaching practicum in the middle of the term. I am definitely empathize and as soon as I finish this blog post, I will be planning and prepping for tomorrow’s classes. As mentioned, it’s a big day tomorrow. Our last class with students at Harwin, meeting new students at Edgewood with our math games, and lots of thank you cards, etc. to give too. Slowly but surely, everything is coming together and I trust that all will be well.

Wish me luck.