PME 810: Module Four

We're upping the ante, I see. This module response was SO HARD to keep concise! Still, my goal continues to be to speak simply and to the point so here we go!

Section 1 & 2

For my online professional community I chose a Facebook group for teacher-authors that publish their resources for sale and also teach in a classroom environment. I hope that I will be able to contribute ideas taken from both our current PME course and from the courses I’ve already taken, like Self-Regulated Learning and Collaborative Inquiry. I really enjoy that each course in my PME journey thus far has challenged me to go out into the internet ‘world’ and tap into new communities of educators, each with their own perspectives, needs, and ideas. In the context of this course specifically, I’m looking forward to engaging in discussions about how foundational curriculum bias and inspiration can be translated across the planning/ instruction/ assessing continuum. Doing so within this particular Facebook group is quite interesting as it units over a thousand educators from across North America, each with a slightly difference curriculum to draw from.

I was fortunate in this case to be admitted to the group quite easily. The only prerequisite for admission is the possession of a shop on the web store ‘Teachers Pay Teachers’ and some degree of classroom experience.

Section 3

For my context of professional practice, the type of curriculum theories and philosophies was hard to put a finger on. With such a diverse group of educators, there is a veritable sea of (sometimes conflicting) ideas and philosophical underpinnings guiding each teacher’s work. For the most part, participants seem to hail from a very content-driven background in which standardized testing is vital to their continued employment, if not to their personal educational beliefs.

Section 4

The group I have joined is extremely supportive. As an example: One new teacher commented that she had been given a new assignment (from the very bottom of her board’s priority pool) for a subject area that she had never taught and had no qualifications for. The group responded by raining down resources on her, both of their own creation and ones that they had purchased and were transferring licences for so as not to break copyright. What impressed me most about this instance, however, was that the educators contributing those resources also engaged this new teacher in a detailed and applied discussion about the deeper purpose and needs of students within the curriculum and “in spite of it.”

I do feel that the group, in all its diversity, is connected to my philosophy of education as well as the professional context in which I practice. I am governed and driven by content-based standards as well as a need for high level public performance (though in my case this stems more from parents paying for an expensive private education and myself the music teacher, rather than the heavy hand of standardized tests). It’s inspiring to read about educators’ commitment to the ‘in spite of’ curriculum that is so deeply rooted in their own personal philosophies and beliefs about the purpose of curriculum.