School of Education Newsletter - November 2017
School of Education Terrace Campus Newsletter - November 2017
Aboriginal Culturally-Mindful Educational Displays (Facebook Album)
On November 1st, our B.Ed. students displayed their Aboriginal Culturally-Mindful Educational Displays in a free open community event. Our students created these displays for EDUC 346 - Introduction to Aboriginal/Indigenous Education. Their assignment was to “Take something you know about or love and “indigenize” it by using an Aboriginal culturally-mindful approach and SHARE it with our community!” People both on- and off-campus joined in on this fun filled learning-exchange opportunity.
Master of Education – Special Education
The UNBC School of Education would like to draw your attention to the M.Ed. in Special Education program which is delivered entirely online in a synchronous format (set time and day). The program began in January 2011 and continues to produce well-educated Special Education teachers and other related professions from across Canada. This unique program, one of the first in Canada, has allowed many students to stay in their home communities while obtaining their graduate degrees. The student only needs a headset, a computing device, and a reliable Internet connection. The program is also the only one that has a fourth exit route, the portfolio, which has become popular with our graduates. Sought-after courses include ASD, Psycho-educational testing, and literacy disorders.
Further information can be found:
- FAQ PDF on Website
- Contacting Andrew Kitchenham (Email: andrew.kitchenham@unbc.ca)
A Letter from China #2: Update from Alyssa Carson (2017 UNBC B.Ed. Graduate)
Ni hao!
Life moves quickly here in China! A lot has happened since the last message I sent, so I will try to keep this message at a reasonable length!
I survived my first round of interim reporting! Our school uses an excellent program to do our reporting (Gradebook), which makes it a lot easier than I had anticipated. Everyone was working late the last week of September to finish reporting before heading out on holidays, myself included… I fell asleep at my desk one evening and woke up locked in the school! I was debating rolling out a yoga mat and camping out in my PE office, but eventually found an unlocked door on the ground floor by using my phone’s flashlight to search in the dark. Apparently the security guards lock the main doors with chains and a padlock here, and they will watch you struggle on camera and laugh about it. Anyway, I am smarter now than I was then; we are currently finishing our Term 1 exam week, and I left the school tonight without napping first!
After the interims, I flew to Beijing with four other teachers for the Chinese national holiday. We went to see a wall; it was great! We visited plenty of other famous sites as well, including Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, and Olympic Stadium. We also had some amazing teas, went to a jade museum, and ate some incredible meals (Peking duck and scorpions were the highlights). We finished the holiday by going to Chengdu to play with some pandas!
Back in Yongchuan, I had my first real challenges since arriving in China. My internet at home had been disconnected since before I left on vacation (hence my late stay at the school before the break) and was still not working. I contacted my landlord about the issue and I had the internet back for all of two hours before the hard drive on my computer crashed. I lost everything. All of my lesson plans, course materials, pictures, music, etc. were gone! I asked our IT department (via Google Translate) if anything could be recovered and they laughed at me in Chinese, which I understood perfectly well in English (on my own). After spending $200+ and waiting four days, I finally had a working laptop again, although everything was set up in Chinese (It’s still in Chinese and I’m still finding surprises). All of this happened while I was very ill; I became quite sick near the end of my holiday and was quickly getting worse (strep). Back home, I could have made an appointment and driven myself to the doctor’s office…. Here, very few people speak English outside of our school. Our foreign affairs secretary, Iris, had to escort me to the hospital via taxi and do all the translating between me, the doctor, and the pharmacist. She is a lifesaver! A ridiculous amount of eastern and western medicines (21 vials of a gingery liquid, 40 mysterious dissolving tablets, a tube of edible burning beads, and good old penicillin) eventually had me back on my feet! Keep in mind that my laptop wasn’t working at this time and I had to send in lesson plans for my TOCs – It was a stressful time! Thankfully, in the relatively short amount of time I have been here, I have developed quite the support network and received lots of help!
Since that little speed bump in October, life has returned to normal, which is to say AMAZING! At the school, our PE department organized a successful Sports Day (which somehow involved live horses), we held a Halloween dance with a student DJ, we had a technology-based professional development day, and we just concluded midterm week (terrible for students, but wonderful for teachers)! The best part, however, was probably the ball hockey unit I was able to design and implement in my Physical Education 10 classes. We all had a lot of fun and many of my students joined the ball hockey club throughout the unit!
So much for a short message, eh? The tl;dr version can be summed up as follows: Life has its ups and downs, but we need the lows to really appreciate the highs. China is incredible and getting on that airplane in August was probably the best decision I have ever made!
Anyway, this waiguoren (foreigner) should probably get back to marking… Cheers!
Linda's Links
- This is a digital/print magazine for and by children from around the world, ages 13 and under.
- This is the Canadian Olympic Team Official website. There are classroom resources and Olympic Day toolkits for all grades. These have been written by teachers. Examples of topics are Literacy, Physical Activity and Social Studies. Themes include friendship, respect, teamwork, and excellence.
Media