From School To Life

1. From School To Life http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-91678430/stock-vector-conveyor-belt.html http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/teen-arrested-after-threats-made-against-alberta-high-school-1.1089110 http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/wallpaper2/page3.html 1

2. My core beliefs as a Teacher • By Tyrell Reimer 2

3. This is a drawing showing the function of the conveyer belt. • There are two ways for the forward command to happen. The teacher pushed the push forward button or the student passes both theory and practical tests. • If the student does not pass the either of the tests, the conveyer belt will automatically go in reverse so that the student can relearn lesson. 3

4. I believe that a Students Intuition needs to be Credited. New “learning science” investigations are developing new models of how knowledge and memory have to do, not with assembling isolated bits and pieces, but with developing, experiencing and cultivating fields of relations. (http://education.alberta.ca/media/1087278/wncp%2021st%20cent%20learning%20(2).pdf) 4

5. The mind of a student is a powerful entity. • My teaching styles that will demonstrate this. • 1) Give students open ended problems that they need to solve them selves. • 2)Embrace the true meaning of constructivism and teach to its fullest. • 3)Make students problems as close to real life as possible. • From the first Lego Blocks to current models. 5

6. The power of students intuition. • While working last summer, I had to install some vibration transmitters on a cooling tower. This tower was acting as a radiator for three big electrical generator engines. During the task I had to get the control cable to these devices. To do so an apprentice and I used aluminum pipe to act as a sleeve. • My apprentice was a brand new tradesman fresh out of high school and knew next to nothing about being an electrician. With that being said, he was able to come up with a way to install the aluminum that was faster and easier than the way I wanted to do the task. • This is just one of many cases where the intuition of a student is a great thing. They are not blinded to the old ways of doing things. 6

7. I believe that Students need to be taught how to survive in the real world. “TARGET ZERO” is Pyramid Corporation’s long-standing, corporate wide safety initiative. Our Corporate Safety Goal is to achieve and maintain “Target Zero - Accident & Incident Free Operations.” No job is so important that it can’t be done safely!.” (http://www.pyramidcorporation.com/content/cdn/target.php) 7

8. Getting ready for the real world. • How I will teach this belief: • 1)I will run the class like a small business. I hope this will teach students to start accepting responsibility • 2)As a teacher I will not leave a student behind. I will provide support to my students the way my foremen supported me. • 3)One way to instill responsibility will be to make deadlines stick unless a student asks for an extension before the deadline. • One way to survive the rigors of work. 8

9. Frustrations of new workers. • During my time as an Electrician if have met many different people., from radically different backgrounds and age groups. • What I have found is that it is getting harder and harder to work with the younger people. The reason is that they cannot take criticism of any kind. • An example of this would of been while working I saw a co-worker working in a unsafe manner. When I saw this I mentioned that what he was doing was not smart and that he should find a different way of doing his task. He ended up getting upset because I criticized his idea, for he was unable to understand that he was wrong. • To be able to give and receive criticism is a required skill that people need to be able to effectively work in groups of people. 9

10. I believe that there is a reason for every behavior. Functional assessment of behavior provides hypotheses about the relationships between specific environmental events and behaviors. Decades of research has established that both desirable and undesirable behaviors are learned through interactions with the social and physical environment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis#Functional_analysis_.28psychology.29) 10

11. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction • There are many variables that determine an outcome of an experiment, try to know them. • 1)Do not react too harshly right away. If problem persists, find out why. • 2)Follow the best theory in the trades, the KISS(Keep It Simple Stupid). Don't over think the problem, it could be something very simple. • 3)Find out what is "normal" behavior for each student. Find a baseline. • Dad suffered a brain injury and now all my riding has a helmet 11

12. Safety Rules are in place for a reason. • In the end of September of 2009, my dad was hunting up by Grande Prairie. During the hunt he rolled he quad and suffered a brain injury that nearly cost him his life. After the accident he was hospitalized for two months with three weeks of that time in a comma. • While he was in the hospital I was an emotional wreck. I had a very short temper and could not stand being around other people. The nice thing was that the place that I was working at was very understanding. They gave me the space and time that I needed to get my wits back. • Dad has now been out of the hospital for three years now, but he is not the same man that I remember. It is sad to think that in some ways, I have lost my father. I have learned to deal with this thought and have moved on. But I know that I am not the same man either. • My acting out was a cause of losing my dad. Having experienced this, I hope that I will become a good teacher for I know that there are many things that can determine the behavior of a person. 12

13. I believe that Students need to feel safe and accepted at school. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Security Needs These include needs for safety and security. Security needs are important for survival, but they are not as demanding as the physiological needs. Examples of security needs include a desire for steady employment, health insurance, safe neighborhoods, and shelter from the environment. (http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm) 13

14. No place like home with family • How I will make my classroom a safe haven. • 1)While teaching, show students that their presence is welcomed in my classroom. • 2)Make it clear to the class that bullying will not be tolerated. • 3)To make sure that students will be safe in my shop class they will have to pass competency tests before they can enter the shop. • No place safer than with family. 14

15. Horrors of Elementary school. • School was never a place that I enjoyed. I remember hating having to go the school when I was younger. Thinking back I think what made me the target was that I was the biggest and oldest in the class. Being held back a year was not kind to me. During lunch hour of my years in middle school and junior high I would spend voluntary detentions to try and get some peace from the others. • Lucky that changed when I went to high school. The reason was because I got to go to a new school. With the new school I was able to make new friends and also joined the schools wrestling team. These few changes made it so that I wanted to go to school. Not only that but I was excited to go. • I want to allow my students to be able to experience the feeling of being safe at school. I do not others to have to go through the same experiences that I had too. 15

16. I believe that Students need to be able to critically think and problem solve. • The competencies described in the Framework for Student Learning are the attitudes, skills, and knowledge that contribute to students becoming engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit. (http://education.alberta.ca/teachers/aisi/themes/21-century.aspx) 16

17. We can not believe all that we see and hear. • How to teach trouble shooting and critical thought • 1)I will give my students bad blue prints and make them find the error in the design and fix it. • 2)Have students design make their own blue prints before they can build their project. • 3)Provide projects that only describe the end result. Students need to come up with the means. http://landofblogging.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/how-many-boxes-do-you-see/ How many boxes do you see 17

18. No more guessing. • There are many skills that a good tradesman needs to succeed and the most important is being able to problem solve. With being able to problem solve we need to be able to t critically think to be able to find out what the problem is that needs to be fixed. • These skills are slowly disappearing in the new workers that just came out of high school. I feel that this is because it is easier for students to give answers that will appease to the teacher instead of thinking for them selves. With out the ability to think for them selves or to think critically, students will not be able to see the problem let alone being able to fix it. • Students need these skills to be able to survive in the 21st century. 18

19. I believe that a Students mold is not set. Students change through out life. these stages unfold over time, and all children will pass through them all in order to achieve an adult level of intellectual functioning. The later stages evolve from and are built on earlier ones. They point out that the sequence of stages is fixed and unchangeable and children cannot skip a stage. They all proceed through the stages in the same order, even though they may progress through them at different rates.(http://www.icels-educators-for-learning.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=61) 19

20. They broke the mold with you. • How to tailor teaching styles to the needs of students. • 1)Use Jean Piaget's four stages as a guide line to format teaching. • 2)Realize that a "bad" student can become a "good" student with good instruction or role models. • 3)Provide ample opportunity for students to shine. • These are not the only molds that will shape students. 20

21. One mold does not fit all. • Through out our lives our way of thinking changes and out looks on life changes. I am living proof of this. In the seven and a half years that I have been out of high school, I have become an Electrical Engineering Technologist, a Journeyman Electrician, and now I am in university to become a high school teacher. • When I first got out of high school the most important thing on my mind was to make money and to get many toys. For example by the time was 22 I was working up north in Fort Mcmurray and had a new quad and a new truck. But as time went by I found out that those things are meaningless. Now all I can think about is being home around family and friends. • That was just in a span of less than a decade. I now know that teaching is the thing for me because I enjoy it so much when teaching new apprentices the trade. The added bonus is that it will fulfill my need to be close to family and friends. 21

22. I believe that Students need school to find them selves. Identity vs. Role Confusion (13 - 18 years) During adolescence, the transition from childhood to adulthood is most important. Children are becoming more independent, and begin to look at the future in terms of career, relationships, families, housing, etc. (http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html#sthash.S20BixVs.dpbs) 22

23. There are many roads that lead to the same place. • Ways to allow students to explore themselves. • 1)Provide support so that students can feel safe while finding themselves. • 2)Allow lots of room so that students can find out what they like and don't like. • 3)Show that students have lots of options for work when they are out of high school, such as trades, medicine, university,... • Who would of thought that beating on people helps find your-self. 23

24. I am not lost. I know where I am.... • Finding ones self is not as easy as the text books say it is, at least it was not for me. It took many different experiences in my life to get me to where I am. The most defining experience would be my five years in the trades working up in remote locations around northern Alberta. • In this time I have met many idiots and even more great people. Both of these groups of people have played a role in the man that I am now. The idiots have taught me how to be tolerant towards others, while the greats have showed what kind of man that I want to become. • These are the people that helped paved my trail to become a teacher. It was while helping some of these apprentices that showed me what I need to do as a career. 24

25. I believe that Students have many different intelligences. For Gardner, intelligence is: -the ability to create an effective product or offer a service that is valued in a culture; -a set of skills that make it possible for a person to solve problems in life; -the potential for finding or creating solutions for problems, which involves gathering new knowledge. (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/education/ed_mi_overview.html) 25

26. My way is not the only way of thinking. • Some ways to adapt to the different intelligences of students. • 1)Allow students with multiple ways to earn grades in class. • 2)Test students across different intelligences. For example, have lots of math on fabrication exams, or exams that require students to tell proper safe work procedures. • 3)Network with other teachers to find out what works for some students. • Not just another good looking teacher. 26

27. Great minds do not think alike. They think for them selves. • During school there was one subject that I absolutely hated; Language arts: English. I hated the face that there could be so many different answers to the same problem. It also did not help I was not taught properly from the start of school how to think in that manner. For some reason, math and sciences came a whole lot easier. • Now that I am in University, I got introduced to a new term which is called Multiple Intelligences. After learning about it, it makes so much sense about my self. With this new knowledge about my self, I hope that this make me a better teacher for I will be able to relate to students better. 27

28. Reference Page:Pictures • High School Picture • http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/teen-arrested-after-threats-made-against-alberta-high-school-1.1089110 • Conveyer Belt • http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-91678430/stock-vector-conveyor-belt.html • Earth • http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/wallpaper2/page3.html • Many Boxes • http://landofblogging.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/how-many-boxes-do-you-see/ 28

29. Reference Page:Quotes (In order of appearance) • http://education.alberta.ca/media/1087278/wncp%2021st%20cent%20learning%20(2).pdf) • http://www.pyramidcorporation.com/content/cdn/target.php • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis#Functional_analysis_.28psychology.29 • http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm • http://education.alberta.ca/teachers/aisi/themes/21-century.aspx 29

30. Reference Page: Quotes (In order of appearance) • http://www.icels-educators-for-learning.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=61 • http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html#sthash.S20BixVs.dpbs • http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/education/ed_mi_overview.html 30