Goodbyes, Physed, and Bad Jokes

     Hello Blog friends! Today will be my last post, as my education course is ending soon, so I want to say thank you for hearing my out on my journey this far. Today I want to talk to you about an interesting concept that was recently touched upon in my education class. This concept is called Genius Hour. I don't know if any of you have heard of Genius Hour, but if you haven't you're in for a treat. I first heard of genius hour from where it was created, in the Google workplace. Google is rated as one of the top ten places to work, due to a variety of reasons that revolve around how ridiculously well they treat their employees, but that's not what this blog is about so we won't get too in depth on how much I love Google. Genius Hour is a project implemented in the Google workplace where employees have a regular set amount of time to spend working on... literally whatever they want. Employees can work solo or in groups to research a topic or project which they believe can improve any aspect of their workplace or its results, and are to present this idea to their higher ups. The concept is simple: allow people to work on what interests them, and productivity will go up. it is said that around 50% of Google's projects have originated through Genius Hour, and obviously this has benefited them. The question to be asked now is that if this concept works so well in the workplace, how can it me implemented in the schools system?
        The answer to this question is simple enough, If we allow students to research a project that genuinely interests them, they will be much more involved in their education. This is effective because as mentioned in my earlier blog, student directed learning is always a good idea. Of course its not this simple, you can't always trust a student to direct 100% of their learning. If this was the case more than a few projects would have little to no relation to the course content.

No Jimmy, you cant do your project on a tomato

       This is why if a class is implementing Genius Hour it is important that the teacher monitors the learning environment and makes sure that everyone is on task. Students should run their ideas for Genius Hour by the teacher, to make sure that it is appropriate. After students are done researching their project they will be given the opportunity to present their findings to the rest of the class. It is often surprising how ingenious a students ideas are, if they are genuinely interested in their topic. This is exactly what we are trying to achieve through Genius Hour.
      This concept was recently implemented in my education class, where we were to get into groups and present our findings on a question relating to education. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss a Genius Hour topic which I found to be interesting. The first topic I would like to discuss was from a group whose topic was: Why physed should be a mandatory class throughout high school. If you don't already know, physed is a mandatory class in grade 9, but optional from there on out, so the point of this presentation is that everyone should have to take it for all four years. Before I begin I want to make it known that I believe physed is a course which is often underestimated for its importance in the education curriculum. Especially in an age where student health is overlooked and obesity is on the rise, our secondary education often focuses solely on the mental abilities of a student, compared to the physical, both of which are important. Now that the cards are on the table, I also should make it known that I don't believe physed should be made fully mandatory.  Now there are a couple reasons why this topic and presentation frustrated me.The first reason is something which we should all keep in mind when presenting a topic. This group set up a survey through facebook where they tallied why people did or did not like physed, as well as whether or not they think it should be mandatory or not. I love it. Great idea. Statistics are a great way to make a point and are concrete. But the group also admitted that the people who took this survey were on their friends list, and therefore the majority of which were also involved in a post secondary program related to physed. This means that the results were extremely biased in favour of keeping physed mandatory, where an overwhelming 90% (approximation) of people said physed should be mandatory. The reason I picked this part out of the presentation is partially because the way they went about proving their point isn't accurate, but also partially because I'm a math junkie and seem to have to find a way to relate every blog post to math. Exhibit A:

I have a problem.

      We seem to have gotten off topic so lets get back to education. The topic of the day is how much physed is currently included in high schools. On one side of the spectrum, people argue that physed is a bird course only taken by students who want to be marked on running around and having fun, therefore physed should be excluded from the curriculum. As stated earlier I feel like this stigma could not be farther from wrong. Physed is extremely useful in two ways. Grade 9 is a critical year in students lives, puberty and all that fun stuff we've been through. It's a very confusing time for all of us, nobody like change, especially when it offers an abusive amount of hormones and acne. I think everybody knows where I'm going with this, and its the importance of sexual education. Sex Ed is a critical subject in school that is grouped together with physed. Turns out the human body doesn't come with a manual, so we need someone to teach us all about the birds and the bees, for lack of a better term. The importance of education on STD's, pregnancy, and puberty is unparalleled in a high school where students spend more time experimenting than studying. Unfortunately, I found that in my high school as well as others, sex ed was included but skimmed over because the teacher felt awkward or that it was unimportant.

 How do we fix this? I don't know, I'm just a math teacher. Maybe one day when I have my own classroom I'll devote a single lesson to sexual education, partially because I think its important, but mostly because my students will be so confused and thrown off they will forever revere me for being able to throw a curve ball at them at any time.
      The second reason physed is useful is for the fitness aspect. At this time some young adults have been introduced to a life of fitness, those who have already spent years on the ice playing hockey or on the field with a soccer ball. There is also the other half of the population who are similar to me, those who know nothing about fitness, and can't even skate. If given the choice in grade 9, me and my fitness-phobic peers would never take physed, but this is why it is so important that it is so mandatory. Grade 9 physed teaches those who are unaware the importance of a healthy lifestyle. They can use this information to hopefully continue a healthy lifestyle in future years.
      Although I find physed irreplaceable, I also find it illogical to have it mandatory for all four years of high school. I believe that physed is just as important as art, history, and many other topics which are not fully mandatory in high school. So why should physed be mandatory if none of these other courses are? I believe that the only fully mandatory course in high school is English, even core subjects such as math or science do not have to be studied throughout all four years. At the end of the day the point of high school is to prepare a student for post secondary education or work. There is often little to no room for students pursuing post secondary education to take an elective that does not relate to their topic of interest. Therefore if physed is fully mandatory, so should a number of other classes. There is simply not enough room in a students schedule to take more than one or two courses which do not directly relate to their preferred field of study. If students want to take physed classes, they have the option of choosing it as their field of study or even making it an elective. Therefore even though I find physed important, I believe that it should only be mandatory in grade 9.
       Tadah! We have finally finished my blog section. The end of an era, one might call it. No one calls it that, I'm probably lying to you. Thank you for sticking with me throughout this journey blog friends, you have been great listeners. Stay golden ponyboy <3


Mark

Integrated Curriculum

     Hello Blog friends! Long time no see, I hope all is well. We are back here today to speak about education, although I am starting to feel as though I am doing most of the speaking. I would like to talk to you today about Integrated Curriculum. Integrated Curriculum is a concept which works extremely well, but can be difficult to implement. To put shortly, The idea of integrated curriculum is to include a variety of different subjects into a single project or lesson, which accurately teaches the separate curricular material. By expressing to students the possible overlap between subjects they are able to understand the importance of each topic in a real world application as well as their relevance towards each other. The goal is that through this students will become more engaged in their education.
      An example of integrated curriculum applied in the classroom would be to have your students work on a project based on answering the question "Where is the best place in the world to live?" Obviously this question is partially opinionated so many different answers will arise. The objective is for students to research an area based on its geography, history, and several statistical based ideas to represent a variety of factors that are applicable. Through this students not only understand how these separate subjects can relate to each other but also direct their own learning withing the classroom.
      The reason that I am bringing up this topic is because I am currently doing a project based around Integrated Curriculum in my education class. This project consists of me working in a group to create a curriculum based around this concept. Through this project I have realized how difficult it is to create a large scale Integrated Curriculum, it is hardly a one man job. If schools are to implement this concept it will require a large amount of collaboration amongst their teachers, otherwise it may prove to be ineffective. There are many faults that exist within Integrated Curriculum if it is not planned well. One of these faults is the fact that some lessons may be overlooked. There are many concepts that the curriculum states is necessary for a student to know. Some of these concepts are compatible with other subjects, others are not. These concepts which may not be effective for Integrated Curriculum may be overlooked by teachers, and then the students will be unprepared when reaching higher levels of learning. Another factor that needs to be taken into account is that unless the teachers of a school are constantly in tune with each other and plan ahead, an integrated based project may become confusing and messy. It is important that teachers are consistently collaborating in order to make Integrated Curriculum effective.
    As mentioned earlier this only applies to larger scale ideas of Integrated Curriculum. There are much smaller scales that can be applied in individual classrooms, and if a school is not confident with changing their education practices this can also be effective. Examples of smaller scale ideas of Integrated Curriculum is an elementary classroom spelling a word, and then drawing a picture of that word and colouring it in. This simple activity combines art and spelling, and is extremely easy to carry out. Therefore although integrated curriculum can be a difficult accomplishment, it can prove to be very rewarding, even in the smallest of senses.