Last night I had the pleasure of going to a Future Aces workshop with my mother, also a teacher! The workshop was full of amazing educators of whom I learned a lot from! Although I was there for a short period of time, it was time that was valuable to my future teaching career. Above you can see some pictures from the workshop of some activities we did as a group, and individually. To start, I will talk briefly about the organization that ran the workshop. Future Aces is a foundation that was founded by Herbert H. Carnegie in 1987. Unfortunately Herb passed away in 2012 so the foundation is now run by his two daughters, alongside a great crew. Future Aces' purpose is to inspire youth as well as adults to become the best people they can be. It helps students see the benefits of being responsible, respectful, peaceful and confident as every day citizens. One of the Future Aces' mandates are to foster self-esteem and ethical behaviour by applying the Future Aces Creed. To learn more about their foundation, Creed, and if you are just genuinely interested in more information I have embedded their website link in the picture at the top of this blog post! One thing I found particularly fun, was an ice breaker activity (but could be used for any subject!) where the teacher hands every student a puzzle piece, and the students have to complete the statement on their piece with the statement on another piece (e.g. "always say" and "please and thank-you"). This is a way to get students to interact and collaborate. We then had to share one interesting thing with our partner that they wouldn't know about us, and then we shared that interesting thing about our partner with the rest of the people at the workshop. This would be an excellent ice breaker for students, and a great way for them to show positivity, kindness, and courage, even if it wasn't used for an ice breaker! At this workshop I learned how to have the confidence to speak in front of large groups. I learned that there are so many people that think in a completely different way. We did an activity where each table was given a piece of another puzzle (different than the first activity!) and it had an item written on it that is shown in the Future Aces Creed photo (see photo to the right) (e.g. the clouds) and we had to write on that puzzle piece what we thought Herb's message was through putting those items in the picture. Every group then had to tell the rest of the people at the workshop which item they got and their reasoning behind what they thought Herb meant. This item really opened my eyes to how everyone has different views and sees something different in everything! Once everyone went, the pieces fit into the puzzle to spell the word "aces" (refer to photo below!). I lastly wanted to talk about how most of the activities we completed last night at the Future Aces workshop were based around puzzle pieces and putting them together. This foundation really strives to make students become one, and become a team where everyone is collaborating with a positive attitude, setting an example for one another! This workshop was so valuable to my education, and I am so glad I learned the things I did!
Thank you Future Aces for allowing me to join your workshop as a student candidate, and helping me extend my knowledge and open my mind to new opportunities for my future students! Again, if any readers are interested in reading about this foundation, click the picture at the top of this blog to go to their website!
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Growing up, I always enjoyed looking at pictures whether they were in a picture book, a photo album, or on a screen at the dentist office! There is something that I can connect to when I think of photography and visual learning. Today's blog post is going to be about visual literacy within the classroom, and I'm sure you already know that I am going to mention something about visual learners...that just seems to be the way it goes when you are a teacher!
As a teacher, the quote "a picture is worth more than a thousand words" is really important because it can ultimately be used as a tool within the classroom. When thinking about visual literacy it is important for students to be able to analyze and depict different perspectives, emotions, understandings, ideas (and more!) that images are portraying. In EDUC 4000 we recently went out into the community and took photos using the many photography techniques (e.g. the rule of thirds) (see image on the left above) and then reflected upon those images to see if there was anything we could see within them. We then were told to look at these photos and try and find a specific letter of the alphabet within them, An activity such as this one helps students develop their critical thinking skills because they really need to focus on an image and think of the many things it could be saying. In the classroom, a teacher could use images for any project, or lesson. Using images to convey messages would be an excellent minds-on activity because students love looking at images (especially if they are visual learners) and they can focus on them to try and portray meaning and develop reasoning for this. The teacher can activate the student's prior knowledge if they have seen something in the image before, or if they have seen the image itself before. The teacher can also ask critical, open-ended questions, which gets student's brains warmed up, and allows them to think critically about what they are viewing and allows them to think outside the box, and be open minded to new ideas and possibilities about the image. Furthering this, it allows for students to improve their language skills in terms of predicting. Having an image that students know nothing about can allow them to make predictions and assumptions about what is going on within the photo, or what the photo is titled. Therefore as a teacher, I will be sure to include many images within my classroom, and my lesson plans because I think it is very important to help students become engaged and to help further their visual literacy and critical thinking skills! Resources Tryptofish. (2011). Wikimedia Commons. File:20090211 thousand words-01 cropped.jpg. Retrieved online from: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20090211_thousand_words-01_cropped.jpg |
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