Learning Goals

Hello everyone!

My name is Trisha Phillips and I am teaching a grade 1/2 split class this year. I have taught at the same school in the North Vancouver School District for the past three years at the primary level. As a primary teacher, I seek to create fun and engaging lessons that are based around my student’s interests and passions. 

Through this course, I am eager and excited to begin exploring the various ways that technology can foster inquiry based learning with young learners. So far in my teaching career, I have incorporated technology in small, isolated ways where lessons have solely focused on the use of technology as opposed to creating opportunities for technology to aid and support student learning across the curriculum. These lessons have included direct instruction of technological tools and often have been limited to a few apps, including Seesaw and Scratch Jr. While the technological use in my classroom has been centered around fundamental usage, I have tried to empower my students to use apps for coding, reading strategies, and documentation of their learning. I use the word “tried” because I feel my students are more capable than the simplistic avenues I’ve allowed them to explore via technology. As a new teacher, it is overwhelming to consider curricular expectations and how much needs to be accomplished within any given day. When teaching technology in isolation, it creates an additional unit that requires time which could be allotted to other subject areas. 

In this course, my goal is to view technology as a teaching and learning tool as opposed to an additional curricular outcome. It is my hope to learn new ways in which I can use technology to help create a more student-directed, inquiry-based educational program for my students. I recognize that integrating technology creates an ideal opportunity to engage all learners with their individual access points in mind. In young primary classes it can be challenging to create individualized, research-based projects when students don’t have the fundamental technological skills to navigate new tools nor the ability to read complex text.

 Last year I attempted to support my Grade 2 students through individual inquiry projects about Canadian provinces, as well as countries around the world. While the process proved to be very challenging for me, my students were very engaged and would constantly ask when it was time for Social Studies to continue working on their projects. I believe part of this excitement came from the personalization of their projects but a large part of it was the opportunity to use technology. Considering my class this year and their current capabilities, I would like to learn ways to make projects like these more realistic for primary students without the demand of one-on-one teacher support. Additionally, I want to explore sites and apps that may be available to best support young learners with simplistic text and accessibility so that they are capable of navigating their research semi-independently. Lastly, I would like to further investigate different ways in which technology (e.g. Seesaw) can support the needs of various learning styles and expressions of said learning, whether this be through photos, audio, or text.