February 12, 2024 – Grateful for Community

What can I say about community-based learning? It’s been everything to me and my practice as a teacher educator. Last term, we went to the Two Rivers Art Gallery, the Prince George Public Library, and Cottonwood Park. This term, we had math night at Quinson Elementary, guest speakers from SD57, and “in-situ” learning at Harwin Elementary. It’s been amazing to host EDUC 421 (assessment and motivation) at Harwin this year. Last year and year before, I had EDUC 391 (experiential practicum) as part of my teaching assignment. Normally, “in situ” learning marries well with practicum courses. With only EDUC 421, we spent 4 weeks at Harwin learning about assessment and motivation with K-7 students.

We spent the first week focused on the Career Education curriculum to create a lesson plan to know the students better, then the Arts Education curriculum to develop a linked lesson or mini-unit. Assessment and motivation are closely tied to lesson planning and teaching. Teacher candidates learned experientially with K-7 students and the support of the classroom teacher, support staff, and administration that assessment and motivation are planned and intentional. You can’t teach that from a lecture. Talking about classroom management, building relationships, and centering the student in the planning is very difficult to do without students yet fundamental to motivate students to learn and engage.

We tinkered with assessment, which is a HUGE topic. However, at Harwin, the students will give you immediate feedback if the learning target was clear, if the success criteria were attainable, or if the assessment method was appropriate. Assessment requires very deliberate planning from BC’s Curriculum and the teacher candidate must also know how to read and interpret the curriculum in a meaningful and appropriate way to motivate students to learn but also be able to collect enough evidence to track student learning and evaluate student achievement. Assessment is not a “carrots and sticks” approach to motivation. Assessment is meaningful and purposeful to develop one’s intrinsic motivation.

I am so grateful for the teachers, staff, students, and administrative team for having our EDUC 421 class in at Harwin to learn more about assessment and motivation in a meaningful and purposeful way. All formative, of course, but the experience also created a scaffold for the teacher candidates as they approach their first teaching practicum in a couple of weeks. We addressed many nuances of assessment and motivation at Harwin Elementary and they also had the opportunity to work in a school where COLLECTIVE EFFICACY exists. It’s very rare to belong and experience this collective way of being. It is so powerful. There was nothing more worthwhile than this collaboration. We learned a tonne!!