Category: EDCI 336 Page 2 of 3

On March 1, 2022

and breathe neon sign on tre — Max van den Oetelaar

This week, I had the opportunity to watch the Netflix series The Mind Explained, and specifically, the episodes on mindfulness and anxiety really stood out to me. As I watched them, I started to think about how I wanted to add my findings to this blog. What I learned was that “meditation causes big changes in the minds of experts,” as the documentary explains, which ultimately backs up the claim “meditation can make you a master of your own mind” (Netflix, 2019).

You Got This Mental Health GIF by YouTube — You Got This Mental Health GIF By YouTube

When one reflects on how their breath feels when they are relaxed or just have woken up in the morning, they will quickly realize that in those situations their breaths are even, slow, and soft. As the University of Michigan states, “deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress in the body” (UMHS, 2020). But, how can we slow our breathing to experience stress relief? Two ways the University of Michigan’s Health website explains are;

Belly breathing: This can be done either sitting or laying down (any position that is comfortable really). Place one hand on your stomach, just below your ribcage, and the other on your chest. Taking a deep breath in through your nose, feel your belly fill up with air. Pause for a moment then release the air through your mouth and feel your stomach go back in. Re[eat this process upwards of 5 times and take your time with each breath, really thinking about how your stomach fills and empties.

4-7-8 Breathing: Like belly breathing, find a comfortable position and place your hands on your chest and stomach. Again, feel the air fill and release from your stomach as you breathe in and back out. When you breathe in, silently (and slowly) count to four. Next, hold that breath for 7 seconds. Afterwards, breathe out steadily for 8 seconds. This method can be repeated several times, or whenever you feel calm and relaxed again.

As I have learned over the past few weeks, “mind and body practices such as yoga, meditation, progressive relaxation, or guided imagery use mental and physical abilities to improve health and well-being” (PMC, 2015). In these past two weeks, I have made an effort to swap up my styles of daily meditation from guided youtube meditations/ mindfulness to breathing exercises. I found that this really worked for me on those days that I was busy and didn’t have time to participate in a guided meditation. On those days I found that though I could sit through the video, I wasn’t actively participating as much as I thought I should be and when I finished, I didn’t feel like I cleaned my mind. Practicing different breathing techniques has been great for those days because I find that I’m able to calm myself down in a shorter amount of time with deep breathing. Breathing exercises are all about someone focusing on their own breath so no external factor needs to be involved. I really like that because it’s easy for your mind to get distracted when you depend on an outside factor, at least it is for me. With deep breathing, I am in complete control and can determine when I am feeling calm and ready to continue my day.

Sources:

Vox Media. (2019, September 12). The Mind, Explained: Netflix official site. Watch The Mind, Explained | Netflix Official Site. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.netflix.com/title/81098586

Healthwise Staff. (2020, August 31). Stress management: Breathing exercises for relaxation. Stress Management: Breathing Exercises for Relaxation | Michigan Medicine. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/uz2255 Boccia, M., Piccardi, L., & Guariglia, P. (2015). The meditative mind: A comprehensive meta-analysis of MRI studies. BioMed research international. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471247/

GIF: You Got This Mental Health GIF By YouTube (GIFY)

Photo: Max van den Oetelaar

Blog Four: What is Mindfulness and What Are the Benefits?

On February 16, 2022

This Week’s Meditation

This week, I want to focus on what mindfulness means, why practicing it is a goal of mine, and how it’s useful in the classroom.

Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
Mindful.org

woman doing yoga meditation on brown parquet flooring — Photo by: Jared Rice

Originating from ancient eastern and Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness dates back thousands of years. According to the study The Mindful Self: A Mindfulness-Enlightened Self-view, Buddhist psychology has a great focus on understanding the nature of the self. “The central tenet of Buddhist psychology with respect to the self is that of “no self,” which posits that there is no unchangeable self,” or in other words, there is no such thing as a permanent unchanging self (Front. Psychol, 2017). The word “self”, in westernized psychology, refers to anything connected to both mind and body, it’s a definable knowable entity. Over the past two decades, more and more research is being done on the connections between Buddhism and the methods used to enlighten the experiencing self. Some of these findings are that “mindfulness meditation offers significant positive effects in reducing various physical and mental symptoms, enhancing self-functioning, facilitating self-integration, and altering the perspective of self-observation” (Front. Psychol, 2017). This is a great article and goes on to later explain that the practices of mindfulness meditation can produce positive changes in the social-psychological functioning of the self. I want to list a few quotes below of some findings that really stuck out for me.

Principally, mindfulness in Buddhist teaching is viewed as a fundamental pathway through which to become aware of the causes and sources of suffering and to attain enlightenment or an awakening, thereby enabling the individual to be less egotistical and obtain insight into the state of “no self.” According to Buddhism and its Chan School, when an individual has truly acquired complete enlightenment or insight into the “non-self,” they will have achieved full freedom of the mind.
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As an essential agent of a functioning mindfulness, mindfulness meditation is a way of looking deeply into oneself in a spirit of self-inquiry and self-understanding by a process of dis-identification or decentering with respect to the contents of the mind, and an experiential movement into a broader domain of consciousness which can make us aware of what we really are beneath the image of the ego
The Mindful Self: A Mindfulness-Enlightened Self-view

man and woman sitting on chairs — Photo by: NeONBRAND

In my Wednesday visits last semester, the grade 6/7 class I was placed in practiced morning mindfulness every day. I thought that it was such a unique and great way to start the day. Quite often, before the 5-minute mindfulness practise, the students would come in with so much energy and were chaotic, disorganized, and not in the right headspace to start the day. Once they did attendance and got settled, the teacher shut the windows and turned off the lights. This immediately created a calm and soft environment that grounded the students. Next, she would play a short 5-minute meditation just like the ones I’ve been uploading each week. This practice allowed students to become aware of their presence in the classroom as well as focus on the ‘now’. As soon as the mindfulness was done, the lights would go back on and the windows would be opened back up. Class would begin as normal but that extra act of grounding and reflectiveness truly made the difference in how the students started their school day.

I remember talking to my teacher about why she does this practice every morning, and she explained how it can decrease anxiety and promote happiness in students. In the article Mindfulness for Children by David Gelles, he highlights the parallels between habits and mindfulness for students. It is important to know that habits are formed early in life and impact our behaviors when we reach adulthood. Gelles explains how with mindfulness, we (as teachers, mentors, parents, etc..) “have the opportunity to give children the habit of being peaceful, kind and accepting” (New York Times).

Part of the reason why mindfulness is so effective for children can be explained by the way the brain develops. While our brains are constantly developing throughout our lives, connections in the prefrontal circuits are created at their fastest rate during childhood. Mindfulness, which promotes skills that are controlled in the prefrontal cortex, like focus and cognitive control, can therefore have a particular impact on the development of skills including self-regulation, judgment and patience during childhood
( David Gelles, New York Times).

Reading these articles and seeing this practice being used in the classroom has truly shown me the benefits of mindfulness and has inspired me to practice it with my students in my future classrooms.

Sources:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU-JxJKvAio

Staff, M., Staff, M., Jaret, P., Pal, P., Rossy, L., Whitney-Coulter, A., Naidoo, U., Smookler, E., & Kira M. Newman and Janet Ho. (2021, November 23). What is mindfulness? Mindful. Retrieved February 16, 2022, from https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/

The New York Times. (n.d.). Mindfulness for children. The New York Times. Retrieved February 16, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/guides/well/mindfulness-for-children

Xiao, Q., Yue, C., He, W., & Yu, J.-yuan. (2017). The mindful self: A mindfulness-enlightened self-view. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01752

Photo: NeONBRAND Unsplash

Photo: Jared Rice Unsplash

WEEK SIX

On February 16, 2022

This week was somewhat unlike the rest. Since we weren’t in person this week we were tasked with watching some videos about Edcamp as well as communicating with our pods. As a pod, we were able to start talking about ideas for our project as well as think about when we meant to start meeting to complete it. Since this semester is quite loaded at the moment, we decided it would be best to do this project in the latter weeks of this course. As for weekly communication, I think it’s going really well! My pod group has made a great social space where we can talk about whose blog we are commenting on that week and ask questions about course material.

Edcamp logo

I thought this week’s material on Edcamp was really interesting! I loved how at these events, people are pushed to ask questions, communicate about topics they feel are close to them, as well as learn about new topics. I like the idea that it’s completely driven by participants. Because it’s personal, one can vote for what they want to experience that day. This is so cool because the possibilities of that day are endless and the choice is in your hands. I am excited for the day that COVID allows for opportunities like this again. I feel like an experience like this would be so beneficial for student candidates going into the school system! Hearing from other teachers and their experiences is something I feel like I can never get enough of. I feel like in this environment, teacher candidates would get opportunities like that so they can start to grow, learn, and develop as an educator too.

EdCamp: Transforming Libraries (@EdCampVic) / Twitter

Sources:

Wikimedia Commons: Edcamp logo

Edcamp Twitter: post-it board

WEEK FIVE

On February 8, 2022

people sitting down near table with assorted laptop computers — Photo by: Marvin Meyer

This week we focused on what creating resources and graphics look like. In class, I learned about the importance of creating and curating graphics and how it will be a permanent part of my practice as an educator. One of the first things discussed this week was modality in education. Modality refers to how one communicates in terms of timing and location. Reflecting on these past two years, my eyes have been opened to many different types of modalities. From graduating in a semi-online format to completing my first year of university both synchronously and asynchronously from home, and now being back in person in a face-to-face synchronous lecture format, I feel like I have experienced many forms of communication! Education is constantly changing and modality is a big portion of this! One example we discussed in class was the flipped method of education is a perfect example of new ways of integrating technology into our classrooms.

girl in purple and black long sleeve shirt holding black pen writing on white paper — Photo by: Carl Jorgensen

The other topic discussed this week was addressing the question: who is the learner? In class we watched the youtube video “meet generation alpha” to answer the question who is it that we are teaching and who are our learners? This is such an interesting topic to think about because it’s crazy to think that the workforce these students are going into doesn’t even exist yet! Looking at the year 2038, for example, and realizing that that’s the year kids born in 2016 will graduate is insane. The world we are living in right now in 2022 will be entirely different in just over a decade which has made me realize the importance of looking into what these jobs students might lead in. Our cohort recently completed a project called an “Identity map” in our EDCI 306 class. The purpose of this project was to get us to realize the biases and communities we, as future teachers, bring into our classrooms. This project directly parallels what we learned today in terms of asking the question ‘why are we teaching this way’ in our practices. Moreover, going back to the demographic of generation alpha, we discussed how they were raised with technology in their hands (for the most part). Looking at this statement alone, there are so many factors to consider about their education and the world they are being raised in. Looking back on our growth from the 1880s (when the 20th-century school system was created) to today’s day and age, it’s easy to see the astronomical differences between these periods. Simply looking at the question “who did it serve then and who does it serve now” is so interesting, especially as a future educator. Canada’s formalized western education school system is a topic I will never get tired of discussing.

Above is an example using graphic design

Sources:

Photo 1: Marvin Meyer Unsplash)

Photo 2: Carl Jorgensen (Unsplash)

Blog Three: Mindfulness, Reflections, and Progress

On February 5, 2022

I decided to post another 5-minute meditation this week. I really enjoy this particular meditation and recently, I’ve depended on it when I’m feeling stressed. I find it interesting that this guided video gets its audience to reflect on their emotions then observe, accept, and allow however they feel. I think that sometimes these meditations, as helpful as they may be, try to change your mood too much. In the right settings, these types of mediations are helpful but I also like the ones which allow you to simply reflect on your current state of being with no judgement. I’m not alone in getting caught up in the fast pace of life and I’m a person who likes to stay busy. A downside to that is I’m always seeking a sense of control and that can be hard if I don’t take time to allow myself to be present. I find that this meditation speaks to this problem and has prompted me to repeat “let everything simply be” more times than I can count this month. This grounding tool has been so beneficial towards my goal to be more present and in the moment rather than constantly thinking ahead.

Youtube: 5 Minute Mindfulness Meditation

My Journey So Far:

Wow! January has come and gone. I worked on habit tracking for a whole month and want to dedicate this blog to talk about my goals, how I stuck to them, my experience with motivation, and which habits I started to weave into my day-to-day life.

So, what were my goals? At the beginning of the month, I made a big list of ideas which you can see below;

So, how did sticking to them go?

In all honesty, I am surprised with how well I stuck to my goals this month. One of the biggest factors that motivated me (for a while at least) was the prospect of online school and balancing how to take time for myself. With online school last year, I feel like I got too caught up with school and didn’t give myself much ‘me’ time outside of school. I remember feeling like the days were passing so slowly because I was on my computer for most of it, especially when it was in the middle of winter. Knowing that online school was going to only be two weeks this time around, I wanted to see how I could make the most of the days online. During this period I made an effort to wake up early and get ready for the day as if I was going to go to a physical school. Then, when classes were done I would either go for a walk or run to break up the day and get fresh air. I also took time to not be on my phone and spent it reading and journaling. By the time online school was done, I became so used to my day-to-day checklists and I wanted to keep going! As I got into the rhythm of in-person again, I had to alter some things to balance out my time. Ultimately, I found that these goals have continued to motivate me to make the most of every day. Because of this, I feel like I’ve been able to stay on track with school and my habit building!

I’m currently reading the section on what progress is really like in “Atomic Habits.” Here James Clear talks about the plateau of latent potential which he explains as the line one has to cross to experience change. He uses the analogy of ice melting and I’ll take a snippet from the book and insert it here;

Imagine that you have an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. The room is cold and you can see your breath. It is currently twenty-five degrees. Ever so slowly, the room begins to heat up. Twenty- six degrees, Twenty-seven, …, thirty-one. Still, nothing happened. Then, thirty-two degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one-degree shift, seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked huge potential. Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.
James Clear

I found this week’s chapters to be super inspiring! It’s easy to give up when you don’t see the progress with your goals, whichever they may be. Clear explains that when one is struggling to build habits, it’s not because they’ve lost their ability to improve, they just haven’t crossed the plateau of latent potential. I feel like this is an important lesson to weave into everyday life because at the end of the day, change is inevitable and mastery requires patience. Though I have only seriously been trying to build good habits for a month, I have already experienced ups and downs. Reading about how success can be seen as a compounded factor of effort has made me realize it’s not going to come all together right off the bat and that’s ok. I feel like as a future educator, this plateau of latent potential is something that I can teach to my students to motivate them to achieve their goals! Understanding that progress takes time and that big things come from small beginings is a hard process, especially for kids. This blog will become a great tool for my future self to explain habit building to my students because I truly belive that the impcats of goal setting and following can be life-changing.

Sources:

Photo 1: Bluewater Sweden (unsplash)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssss7V1_eyA

WEEK FOUR

On February 1, 2022

This week we discussed our citizenship online. With Jesse Miller, we covered privacy & safety, bullying, consent, professionalism, digital footprints, and social media.

I found that this lecture was so informative! Like many of my other classmates, I have a presence on social media and have had it for years. It’s interesting to talk about our generation and our connections (and/or addictions) to our phones.

I feel today’s class got me to think about social media in another light. I was raised in a household where I was always informed about safety and social media and my parents and I were super open with what I was doing on my phone/ computer. Same with my school, we had a no-phone policy and all students obeyed and respected those rules. In the grand scheme of things, however, I know that these instances are not the case for most people. Today, I learned a lot about what is considered ‘safe’ for me and my friends online. Looking through some of the examples of inappropriate usages of social media completely shocked me that someone would do those things! I feel like it’s so important for everyone to understand their presence on social media and learn about appropriate usages of apps online. I’m happy we were able to go through what social media looks like in schools from a teacher’s perspective! Especially how we as teachers have resources that can help keep students safe online.

person holding smartphone — Photo by: Georgia de Lotz

One of my goals for this year, which I mention in further detail in my free inquiry, was spending less time on my phone, specifically on social media. I feel like with covid and online school last year, I’m not proud of my screen time and it’s something I want to work on. My 3 hours of daily screen time can be used in much better ways and that’s what I’ve been exploring. Though it’s only been a month, I feel like I have gained a lot of insight into how I view social media. My biggest takeaway from this month at least is how I feel about social media. Most days, I feel like I’m on a fence about how important I view it. For example, I feel like using my phone to stay in contact with family through I-message as well as emails are fine. On the other hand, other texting apps change my mind and I am unsure how to feel about it. Often I feel like I need to check Snapchat to stay in contact with my friends because it’s simpler to communicate there. For example, I am in a cohort group chat and I don’t want to miss what’s happening so I check Snapchat often because I feel like I need to. I feel like I often question how bad that ‘need’ is and will a few hours change anything. Once I’m on those apps, however, it’s hard to not get sucked in and feel the need to check up on everything. It’s crazy to see how dependent I became on those apps and now, trying to step away is hard because I built it into my main methods to communicate with friends. Over that past month, I’m proud of my process of being able to just put my phone down after doing the ‘necessary’ things to catch myself up and stay in the loop.

Sources:

Photo 1: Adem AY (unsplash)

Photo 2: Georgia de Lotz (unspash)

WEEK THREE

On January 25, 2022

Finally being back in a classroom this week feels so great! This week we learned about screen recording and interactive videos! I found this to be super informative and I can definitely see how these skills will benefit me in the future. I have always wondered how professors made videos interactive. What I never thought about was how hard it is to find the exact timing and allowed time for the question.

I filmed a video of me selecting a video from unsplash and how I uploaded it to my website. After some editing on both open portfolio as well as windows video editor, BOOM! All done!

The video is attached below:

Sources:

Photo by Samuel Ferrara on Unsplash

Blog Two: One Habit at a Time: Why Small Habits Make Big Differences

On January 19, 2022

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/meditate?q=meditate

woman walking down the hill at daytime — Photo by: Holly Mandarich

First off, Before you read this post I encourage you to take 5 minutes to watch this youtube video. Even just 5 minutes of meditation can allow you to pause, clear your mind, reflect, and express gratitude.

So why did I make you watch that video? In this second post, I want to discuss what it means to be 1% better every day. One of the biggest things I learned this week was the impact small changes can have on your day-to-day life.

First off, I want you to think small and reflect on the things you do every day. Whether this is how much you workout in a week, how many healthy meals you have had today, or even your mood when you wake up. I encourage you to think about the impact those actions have on your day. What if you wanted to change those seemingly mundane tasks for the better? I’m not talking about going from 0 to 100 overnight but one small change, 1% to be precise.

I reflected on this and it got me thinking about what I could do to be 1% better every day. Some of the things I wrote down were starting to journal some goals and gratitude for each day, taking time in the morning for myself, meditating, and moving my body more. It felt good to get some of these ideas down on paper, yet these ideas still felt really big and I wasn’t sure where to start. I broke them down even further and decided to list them so I can focus on building one at a time. When I say I broke them down I really mean it! Down to a point where the task itself is barely noticeable. In the long run, as that 1% builds up every day eventually they’ll make a difference.

In James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” he expresses how when someone strives to get 1 percent better at something for a whole year, they can end up 37 times better than they were at the beginning! As clear states;

“habits are the compound interest of self-improvement” I think something to take away from this is that even though you may see it as a small win right now, it counts and helps bring you towards your goals.
James Clear

One of these small small changes was wanting to practice meditating more. As the Oxford dictionary explains, meditating is to “focus your mind, usually in silence – in order to make your mind calm.” With that in mind, I started small. By taking an extra few moments in times when I felt like I needed to focus and calm my mind. Meditation had been a new year’s goal of mine and over the past two weeks, I’ve made an effort to build it into my routine. Upon learning about the impacts small changes can bring, I’ve decided to take that as an opportunity to weave into this journey. Right now I’m still in those beginning stages but the fact I can start to build a routine in which I feel like I’m working towards something, is both rewarding and motivating. Change can be daunting but breaking goals, habits, or tasks down into small steps can be a way to face a challenge in a way that works for you!

Sources:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inpok4MKVLM

Clear, James. “Atomic Habits”

WEEK TWO

On January 19, 2022

Copyright Character Protected - Free image on Pixabay — Photo by: David Wees

I feel like I have learned so much since last week! I suddenly have a functioning website (how cool is that!) and have realized that there are a lot of rules that come along with that. One of these topics was copyright. From what I understand, having a copyright on something means that you have the power to authorize who uses it.

“Copyright refers to the legal right of the owner of intellectual property. In simpler terms, copyright is the right to copy. This means that the original creators of products and anyone they give authorization to are the only ones with the exclusive right to reproduce the work.”
investopedia.com

Based on what we have covered in class, I feel that I fit into the k-12 category that didn’t have any kind of awareness about copyright. The extent of my schooling in technology goes as far as video making and tux paint. I feel like these first two weeks have been eye-opening for me about what I perceive technology class as. Before this class, I felt out of the loop with what skills I had on a computer but with each class, I’m gaining more and more confidence.

The other topic I want to discuss this week is FIPPA, Privacy, and Consent Resources. Like I mentioned above, I don’t know much about technology and I think, for me at least, with that comes worry about privacy. This may be due to my mother drilling into my head that anything I opened online would give my computer a virus. With that being said, privacy is something I’m in the dark about. This week’s class was super interesting as I had never thought about individual school districts having different processes about media laws. Now knowing that as new teachers we must be aware of and follow OIPC, FIPPA, and the Cloud Computing Guidelines, I am so glad I am taking a course that educates me on what I need to know about technology going into this profession.

Sources

Photo 1: David Wees (Flickr)

WEEK ONE

On January 18, 2022