My Teaching Journey

              Hello, my name is Kasia Kubara, and welcome to my EduBlog! Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to grow up to become a teacher. In high school I took a course called “Living and Working with Children Co-operative Education” and it was my first insight and experience into the real world of teaching. I loved my Co-op! My mentor (a grade 2/3 teacher) provided me with guidance, feedback, and support. I wanted to become a teacher just like her. After high school, I enrolled into King’s University College at UWO, where I completed a double major in Childhood and Social Institutions, and Sociology. In my final year at King’s I knew I had to apply to Faculties of Education to pursue teaching and to get closer to starting my teaching career. While researching universities I came across a two-year Bachelor of Education and Early Childhood Education (B.Ed/ECE) joint degree/diploma program through the University of Windsor and Lambton College. It was a hard decision to apply to a two-year program instead of a one-year. Questions such as: “Do I really need to get an ECE diploma? Will this be an advantage for me?” caused me to reflect on my decision. With Ontario’s government implementation of Full Day Kindergarten across the province I ultimately decided to go ahead and take the B.Ed/ECE program. With kindergarten classrooms now having a teacher and an early childhood educator, I thought my chances of getting hired by a school board would increase if I had both credentials.

            I am very content with the decision I made! I really enjoyed the Early Childhood Education portion of the program as it provided me with more hands-on experiences with parents and children. During my full-time studies I had the opportunity to work on-call for the Ontario Early Years Centre, the Parent and Professional Resource Centre, and I was honoured to be nominated by faculty to work as a B.Ed/ECE Student Ambassador. Following my graduation in spring of 2013, I was hired fulltime as an ECE with the London District Catholic School Board. I had my first classroom and I shared it with a teaching partner that has been in the field for many years. My teaching partner was a mentor to me. She shared numerous resources with me and taught me the hands-on things that I did not learn in teacher’s college. She challenged me to teach the grade 7/8 After School Math program at our school. Being qualified for JK-Grade 6, I never thought I would enjoy teaching the older grades. I was wrong! It was a nice balance to work with the youngest of students every day to teaching the oldest ones twice a week. I knew I had to register for additional qualification courses in order to become qualified to teach a wider range of students.

         In 2015, I made the transition from ECE to occasional teacher. Even though I miss having my own classroom, I thoroughly enjoy seeing what other teachers have implemented into their classrooms. I love learning new strategies, new ways of intertwining lessons, and how to incorporate technology. I take pictures of bulletin boards and learning goals I see posted around the classroom and/or hallways. I am currently completing AQ courses to challenge myself and stay current in my practices.  Occasional teaching has allowed me to network with teachers and professionals within my school board and community.

       

My perspective on teaching: While completing my Bachelor of Education, one of my professors stated: “if a student fails to learn, it is your [(the teacher’s)] fault”. To this day I remember this quote, and I agree with it. Educators need to be able to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of every student! I believe I have the dedication and determination to help children succeed and to change their mindsets. As a child I immigrated to Canada with my parents. They stressed the importance of education from a young age, and have inspired me. Fortunately, many people have inspired, supported and believed in me and my decisions. I now want to “pay it forward” and be the person to believe in, support and inspire my future students. I have a passion for teaching, and life-long learning! I cannot wait to have my own classroom! 

Using Social Media in the Classroom

How can teachers use Social Media in the classroom as both, part of the instructional approach in teaching as well as helping students understand the online web 2.0 environment?

            To answer this reflection question I first had to research the use of Social Media as part of the instructional approach in teaching. I personally have not used social media or the online web 2.0 environment as a teaching tool. Please do not get me wrong, as a recent certified Ontario teacher (2013), I am beyond comfortable with using current technology and the Web 1.0. I regularly make use of Smartboards, iPads, classroom websites (TeacherWeb and ClassDojo) and online assessment and documentation tools (Sesame). What concerns me about incorporating social media into the classroom is students’ privacy and security issues. The article “Investigating Instructional Strategies for Using Social Media in Formal and Informal Learning”, by Thomas Bryer and Baiyun Chen, found that my concerns are common in academic institutions. As educators we are required to protect student records. “However, a class discussion on social media might reveal students’ identification to the public” (Bryer & Chen, 2012). I am taking this course to educate myself on how to safely and effectively use this online environment in my future classrooms.

            As 21^st century educators it is important to teach our students higher-order skills such as collaboration, effective communication, critical thinking and creativity. According to the article by Bryer and Chen (2012), incorporating social media and the online Web 2.0 environment into the classroom provides educators “with the ability to break the limitation of course management systems, enables innovative and collaborative interactions, connects textbook knowledge to real-world problems, and facilitates personalized constructive learning”. The belief that students learn most effectively by problem solving and collaborating with peers (under the supervision of an instructor) stems back to Lev Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism in the 1960s (Bryer and Chen, 2012). There is a great deal of research that supports Vygotsky’s theory, however there still needs to be more current research conducted on the impact of social media on academic performance (Bryer and Chen, 2012).

            Teachers need to teach students that when they post their work online it becomes part of the greater World Wide Web. With a greater audience “students have increased motivation to carefully consider their language, spelling, and grammar usage as well as how they draw in outside information” (Edudemic Staff, 2015). Teachers must take this opportunity to discuss plagiarism, voice, writing style, as well as the dangers of posting personal information. “A piece of personal information or a picture on the Web might lead to issues of identity theft or prevent them from future career opportunities” (Bryer and Chen, 2012). Students know how to use technology for entertainment (such as Facebook), but they need guidance on how to use technology to assist them in their learning process. Incorporating social media and the online Web 2.0 environment into the classroom can help students to succeed in an ever-changing, technology-driven, globalized world.

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          To answer the question, I believe teachers can use social media as both, part of the instructional approach in teaching as well as helping students understand the online Web 2.0 environment in numerous ways.

Teachers are able to:

-   connect to other classrooms through social media.

-   have students host a show or a podcast on YouTube.

-   create a classroom Twitter account and tweet about student learning

-   create Twitter accounts for a special interest projects.

-   have students use Twitter to reflect on daily lessons and post any questions
  they may still have.

-   require students to create blogs where they can reflect on lessons or
topics of interest.

-   showcase student work on Instagram

-   start a classroom Facebook group

The possibilities of incorporating social media into lessons are endless. I believe teachers still need to model how to use social media appropriately and meaningfully with their students. They need to have clear expectations of what is acceptable and what is not. By incorporating the online web 2.0 environment, students “recognize that there are connections to be made beyond their Ontario classroom -- all while working on their reading, writing, communication and collaboration” (Holland, 2013).

References:

Bryer, T., & Chen, B. (2012). Investigating Instructional Strategies for Using Social Media in Formal and Informal Learning in The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. Vol 13, No 1. Retrieved from:    http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1027/2073

Edudemic Staff. (2015). How to Use Social Media as a Learning Tool. Retrieved from:

http://www.edudemic.com/how-to-use-social-media-as-a-learning-tool-in-the-classroom/

Holland, B. (2013). Introducing Social Media to Elementary Students. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/introducing-social-media-lower-elementary-beth-holland