In every case of professional learning in education, one must take risks. While many of these risks are imposed by the teaching situation or environment itself, the most challenging risks one can take involve challenges to our own belief systems about pedagogy. Hunt (1987) refers to this process as “beginning with ourselves”. He states that “your common sense ideas and your unexpressed theories provide enormously rich sources of knowledge about human affairs. By beginning with yourself, therefore, you are taking advantage of this rich reservoir”.
At the start of this process, as a teacher of Health and Physical Education at UOIT’s Faculty of Education, I was a firm believer that developing relationships through a variety of activities was a key component to developing a positive learning community.
Face-to-face learning provided elements that could not be replaced online; reading of body language, sharing of humorous anecdotes, reaching the “whole person” in authentic and meaningful ways.
12 Digital Moments/ Oct, 2013
my story