ACTUATE (definition taken from dictionary.com)

  • to incite or move to action; impel; motivate
  • to put into action; start a process; turn on

In my struggles to find a word that I wanted to be a OneWord for “push through” I found this beautiful word that means so much more. I feel like our first semester in this program was a lot of eye opening, brain renovating, looking at the foundational pillars of teaching, and bits-and-bobs learning to prepare us for second semester. Now that we’re one month in to the New Year and approaching practicums, I feel our courses are focused more towards giving us the tools we need to do the job rather than focused so much on changing our mindset. As such, actuate is a perfect word to describe 2021 because we are putting into action all the things that we’re learning. We’re starting the process of DOING teaching.

On that note, I wanted to collect and catalogue some of the things we’re learning, whether I totally understand them yet or not.

  • Modelling – whether you’re showing your students how to make a sentence or showing your students how to make something.
  • ADST
    • Projects-based learning
    • Student-centred learning
    • Scratch
    • Creating to show learning
    • Portfolios instead of grades
  • Lesson planning
    • Learning progressions
    • Learning continuums
    • BC Curriculum
  • Assessment SERVING Learning
    • Assessment FOR learning
    • Assessment AS learning
    • Formative assessment
    • Summative assessment
    • Pre-assessment (Keeping content and interests separate)

I’d say the foggiest area currently for me is the lesson planning section. I feel like everything else I’ve had the chance to read solid books explaining and then had productive work in class to start cementing learning. However, with lesson planning, I’m still very unsure of what exactly that is going to look like for me, and how I’m going to get there. I’m at the point with it, however, that I’m just going to be stumbling through the fog until my coaching teacher tells me what to change.