The e-portfolio is a tool that is used during the EDUC 394 course to use for formative and summative assessments for demonstrate learning. One of the assignments for EDUC 394 is the “Metaphor for Teaching.” This assignment was created by teacher educators Nina Pak Lui and Jennifer Skelding, which has been adapted to EDUC 394. The metaphor serves as a pre- and post- assessment of your learning in EDUC 394 and see your growth over time.
In BC’s Curriculum, we have the “Core Competencies” which are birth to death life goals and development, where students self-assess their progress. E-portfolio is one method to collect evidence and reflect on our growth over time. We will be collecting items throughout the course for this portfolio. This webpage will have 2 parts: the metaphor for teaching at the beginning of the course, and the metaphor for teaching at the end of the course.
Initial Teaching Metaphor: Success Criteria
- Briefly introduce yourself and your story in school/education.
- Briefly describe a teacher who was most influential to you and why.
- Briefly describe a memorable learning experience and why it mattered.
- Add an image of the object that represents your metaphor for teaching.
- Conclude by telling us (1) what the metaphor is; (2) why you chose this metaphor; (3) how does this metaphor represent teaching and learning.
Growing up I found school fairly easy, I did not have to study much until Grade 11/12 and even then that was only for certain courses. This made university a bit of a learning curve. I started at UNBC studying Chemistry, this shifted to Physics, which then shifted to Anthropology. Math was no longer easy and my interests changed, plus grade school does not have all the course options and career paths that the university offered. I found an interest in learning about people and their cultures. But, throughout all of the degree changes I knew the end goal was teaching. While I found school interesting, I had many friends that struggled, I aspire to be the teachers I admired most while striving to be adaptable to the needs of other students’ learning styles.
My Grade 6 teacher was one of the most influential to my learning experience. Rewinding to Grade 5, I was really struggling with long division. No matter how many times I tried to do it, even staying in at recess or lunch to get practice, it did not make sense. This was a new problem for me as I had always been fairly strong in math. I began to feel stupid since I just did not understand. Over the summer my mom bought me a math book to try and practice it but my older cousin wanted to play so she helped me fill it out. Then came Grade 6 and I was again faced with long division. This time it was explained to me in a different way and all of a sudden it clicked. By having my teacher explain it from a different perspective I no longer felt stupid. It instilled a knowledge in me that there is no right way to learn something and that everyone can learn anything it just may take a different perspective.
A truly memorable learning experience for me was when I was trying to help my younger sister with her math homework and she just kept asking me why. This was difficult for me as I had just been taught that the answer was XYZ and why did not matter. I came to realize that understanding the why helped her to apply the logic to later problems, which is the whole point of learning. People learn to be able to apply the knowledge they have learned to their life so, while understanding the why for one certain problem may not seem important it can be more impactful further down the road.
an image of the object that represents your metaphor for teaching
what is the metaphor/ why you chose this metaphor/ how does this metaphor represent teaching and learning