Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Provides opportunities for prospective educators to begin their development as reflective practitioners. Through readings, classroom activities and discussions, and interactions with students and practicing teachers, students will be exposed to various educational issues and questions. They will be given time to explore their own values and beliefs about education and teaching. Time may be spent observing in a selection of educational settings, and there may be opportunities to work with learners individually, and in small and large groups. Students enrolled in or with credit for EDUC 401, 402, 403 or holding a teaching certificate may not take this course for credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

This in person course introduces students to the art of reflective practice that can be applied to and enacted in educational settings of wide varieties and venues. Reflective practice as theorized and practiced in this course rests on three foundational orientations:

• Existential inquiry: Reflection starts with, and returns to, the self’s existential condition, questions, and quest in one’s real-world contexts.
• Contemplative inquiry: Reflection is vitally supported and facilitated by contemplative inquires and practices, for which the self taps into different states of consciousness through engaging in contemplative (body-mind) practices.
• World-centred learning: A reflective practitioner engages in world-centred educational practices and activities in which students encounter and explore real places, situations and environments and come to reflect on themselves in-relation to the world and all its dynamic, indeterminacy.

This course is structured in such a way that theory and practice go hand-in-hand, and curriculum content and pedagogical process are integrated. Weekly learning activities include:

• Creating (multimodal) reflective-entries in response to published articles and video materials from reflective practice and philosophy of education that inquire into and explore the phenomenology of reflection and related practices;
• forming a community of practice through canvas dialogue with peers and instructor, and;
• undertaking a series of guided, reflective exercises drawn from the three foundational orientations (existential inquiry, contemplative inquiry, and world-centred learning).

These exercises and practices are deliberately capacity- and skills-building, and thus relevant to students and people interested in reflective practice across a broad range of domains and fields (from artists to health and care-practitioners). Course participants are invited to engage in daily reflective practice, applying what they are learning each week.  All these practices and explorations will eventually lead to each students crafting their own pedagogical creeds as short essays or curriculum resources articulating what you value about life, learning, teaching, and education. Note that this course involves off-campus adventures in teaching and learning, so please feel free to contact the instructor if you have questions about whether this course is right for you.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

The course is organized in terms of six, two week-long, modules – each with a pertinent theme(s) in reflective practice, and each arranged in a manner of building up and working toward a comprehensive understanding and enactment of reflective practice in one’s life. Each module will include content, both in terms of: written material we provide to guide the learning journey, split into Theory and Practice sections, as well as; selected ‘readables and watchables,’ that is, readings and videos. 

One of the main ongoing assignments is your Multimodal Response Journal (assignment 1) in which each student responds personally and multi-modally to readings and videos each module, and submitted as a portfolio in the final weeks of the class (Week 13). Students will submit a Sample from (their) Multimodal Response Journal (assignment, 2) in week 4, ensuring direct guidance and low-stakes assessment on this practice early on in the course.

Most weeks there are also specific psychophysical (mind-body) practices and exercises to try out -- students will reflect on their engagement and approach to these practices in a one page Mind-body Self-assessment (assignment 3) form, which they submit in week 10.

Students will also engage in ongoing Reflective practice community-of-practice sessions with their peers throughout the six modules. These sessions are largely student directed, with the aim to provide students time to collaborate with their peers in crafting their multimodal response journal.

Along with the Multimodal Response Journal, students also submit Journal Practitioner Statements (final process reflections; assignment 4), reflecting on their process of journaling and explaining artistic and multimodal decisions.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING NOTES: