PME Digital Portfolio - PME 801- Collaborative Inquiry

Me as a Collaborator

Collaboration is not a foreign concept to teachers, as a matter of fact it's a rule of thumb. Day one at teachers college is to tap into the resources around you. Don't be afraid to reach out to your peers, and be fearless when it comes to collaboration. As I start this road towards better understanding the processes and intricacies behind collaboration I feel as a somewhat seasoned teacher that I have a good grasp on the process and understanding of collaboration. The website is a portfolio of all I have learned and done during the course.

Before beginning the course I believed I had a good understanding of the Collaborative Inquiry process. While all educators do, it wasn't until I was able to define for myself the process, technologies, and truly engage with the content that I gained a true understanding and appreciation for the process.

SarahWilson_CoreConceptMap.pdf

This was my final copy for my concept map, and one that I found was difficult to start but once I got going I could start seeing the connections and looking at the questions the process posed. As a visual person I really did like the aesthetics of this program using Canva, is a great was to organize thoughts in a visual way.

This was my final version for my Collaborative Montage video. It was difficult to keep it so short, but for my first video I thought it was pretty successful, but I had some feedback on the spelling, as well as issues seeing the text. In this final version spelling has been corrected as well as, making the text bigger and clearer.

In groups we drafted a Design Brief, that looked at the methods to effectively motivation for collaboration. Over the course of three weeks we developed, discussed, and were able to present our solutions, and problems of practice in the form of a website. I feel it was a successful project and we were able to prove three, useful methods to make sure others are collaborating.

This video outlines my growth through the course so far, I learned some new tricks with this one that I hadn't done before. I learned how to do voice overs, as well as how to layer the audio so I had some nice background music. The video addresses what I feel are the most salient take away points from the course. I feel this one was very successful, and a little more polished then my first video, I feel the transitions were a lot smoother.

Here is my short video on my community engagement within the professional communities. Not all of it as I tried my best to keep it as short as possible. However it does detail the breadth of my engagement, not just online but also via OHASSTA professional community by attending their conference in Ottawa.

Reflection

Truthfully when I began this course, I was not looking forward to it. I have never enjoyed collaborative projects. I was often the one doing all the work, while those I worked with got to share in the credit.

However changes to my school, and the new drive towards the implementation of STEM+A, a program demands collaboration across multiple subjects. This particular program forces you to work with people who perhaps you would not normally work with, and of course all those previously remembered issues with collaboration come up again. People who do not want to participate, or are not willing to compromise or change. It has always been a frustrating process. It was making me question, why we need collaboration at all and why can we not just do our own thing.

This course however had reminded just why teachers need collaboration, why we need to grow and change. We get comfortable and complacent, and forget that we once wanted to be that engaging teacher whose students were excited to come to class.

Being new, being different, and challenging students is what we are trying to do, and being able to get a message across multiple classes, is all the better. You cannot teach in a box, and you can not teach out of the box without help. This course has reminded me of that, and the professional communities I have found have already helped me to grow and come up with new ideas and concepts that will help me to in practice, and I've been given the tools and the motivation to do so. Ultimately it is important to understand that learning and growing never ends, especially when you are a teachers.

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