Category: Vocational Education

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Educational Philosophy

During the last few years of teaching at a vocational high school, I can’t recall ever being asked about my teaching philosophy. In fact, in my 10+ years of teaching, I don’t remember another administrator or even fellow teacher asking to describe my teaching philosophy. Because, of this, as you can imagine, I never put a lot of mental effort into working out just exactly what is my philosophy. Essentially, when hired, teachers are often given the keys to a classroom and expected to teach without much help or guidance.

My previous teaching job did not require a teaching license, however, now that I work in a public school, I’ve had to go through a rather tedious process of getting a teaching license – much harder I must say than the architecture license I have, which was quite difficult indeed. The vocational teaching license required necessitates at least 7 college level classes specific to teaching. During some, if not all, of these classes you are  asked about your teaching philosophy, and for me, this was the first time I’ve had to give the subject much thought. 

The other day, a former colleague and friend of mine wrote a short blog post about his teaching philosophy, and since I’ve always admired this teacher for his dedication to creating content and adaptation of new ideas, I wanted to see how his thoughts aligned with mine, and more importantly, what should be included in one’s teaching philosophy.

You can read his blog post regarding his teaching philosophy here, but one point I find most similar to my style of teaching is his paragraph on grading.

“I see feedback, not judgmental grading, as a key to unlocking a student’s willingness to adapt and improve. Grading without feedback turns education into a scavenger hunt for “points.” Feedback without grades primes a student’s growth mindset.”

I’ve never enjoyed grading, and as a project based teacher, my interest is in helping students complete projects and less about curriculum and lesson plans. I don’t tell students how to complete projects or expect specific types of projects from my students. I give guidance and feedback. Some projects are certainly better than others, but my hope is to encourage iteration in an effort to improve. I believe this is where my former colleague and I converge most in our educational philosophy.

Further on in his evolving piece, he writes:

“I am known for planning every minute, experimenting with educational technology, tantalizing students with my own enthusiasm for content, providing differentiated feedback, and embedding contemporary events into the curriculum in real time.”

I know my strengths and weaknesses, and planning every minute of a class day is just not how I like to teach. Better planning each day is certainly something I should inject more into my curriculum, it’s just something I’m not as good at implementing. My day to day in the classroom is more informed by seeing what issues/problems students are encountering with their work and then working out how to help them fix these issues. One difference between my friend’s work and mine, is my students tend to work on a variety of different projects, CAD, coding, plamsa cutting, 3d printing, lasercutting, milling, etc. My students are all having very different problems each day. 

His statement above does, however, hit home with me regarding his enthusiasm for content and sharing that with students. I could not agree more, whether or not students are interested in my passions, I try to share those things with students so they see I have passion for something. Hopefully, they will find something they feel strongly about. This is one reason why we let students choose their own projects. Often students try and choose projects they think I will like. My response to them is that they need to work on a project that excites them, it’s the only way they will do a good job, they must be invested in their work. 

I encourage you to read the full post from my friend, it offers some very good insights, and is a starting point for beginning to come up with your own educational philosophy. I’ve not written mine down yet, but in the next few weeks I expect to create a similar evolving document. 

All for now.

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Routine

With the new year only a few days old, it’s the time of year where we tend to establish new routines, or continue habits from the previous year(s). For today’s post, I thought it might be nice to briefly discuss my own daily work routine. While routines can vary and fluctuate over time, I rather enjoy my current schedule of events.

My alarm goes off at 5am each morning. I’m pretty good at getting up immediately, and never hit the snooze. I wake my Frenchie, Ferguson, and carry him to the bathroom and turn on the shower. Right now it’s winter, so I let the shower run a few minutes to heat the bathroom. I grab my clothes for the day, weigh myself, and then jump in the shower. I shave with a double edge razor and badger brush each morning. I take Ferguson down stairs after I’m dressed and change his diaper, clean his sleeping area, and give him some water and a snack. Because it’s winter, I turn the car on and let it warm up a few minutes while I complete getting ready inside the house. I grab my lunch, a water bottle, and a breakfast bar and place it into my bag. I then go upstairs and help Ash wake up the chihuahuas, they are slow to get ready for the day, and then say goodbye.

Generally, I leave the house by around 5:40am and drive to work. It takes between 10-15 minutes to travel to Medford, and there is little traffic at this time of day. After arriving at school I take off my coat, put on my apron, and sit at my computer. Usually I record a CAD or CAM video via Loom, or do other school related work until the bell rings at 7:40am. I take Advisory period attendance, and then have 1st period as a prep to continue to get ready for the day. Second and third periods we usually have our Freshmen, but only 4 out of every 6 days. For periods 4-6 we have the Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors who have decided to take Robotics and Engineering as a vocational class. We see the same students each day for all 3 periods, which allows us to work on long term projects.

School ends at 2:18, however, vocational faculty are required by contract to stay at school until 3pm. This is never a big deal, as I always have work to do after the school day, usually grading, posting attendance, and troubleshooting student projects. The drive home from school can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour, all based on Boston afternoon traffic. Generally, I am home around 4pm. I take the two chihuahuas out for a quick walk, and then change Ferguson’s diapers and clean up his area. Most days I then spend about an hour in the basement working out on the treadmill, before beginning to think about what to make for dinner. I’ll prep dinner so it’s ready to go when Ash comes home and then read the Boston Globe.

We eat dinner and watch some television, and by 9pm I’m in bed reading a book. I generally read a little bit each night, sometimes its 5-10 minutes other nights its nearly an hour, just depends. By 10pm I turn off the lights and go to sleep, and prepare to do it all again the next day.

Some images of student work from the day to finish off this post

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Toothbrush Fix

"If you can't fix it, you don't own it."

I don't recall exactly where I first heard this mantra, for some reason I recall it may have been after watching the movie Maker, but it also may very well be from using iFixit on several occasions for iPhone repairs. Either way, it resonated with me, and is something I continually remind my students each day.

Reminders without context, however, are often fruitless. Our students tend to recognize and implement the meaning of such a mantra when paired with a concrete example. As luck would have it, yesterday my wife's toothbrush stopped working properly.

Additionally, one of my students has been working on creating a electric toothbrush band, and I have spent some time working with them opening and tinkering with different types of electric toothbrushes.

So, instead of throwing the broken brush away, I began a YouTube search on how to fix the maligned equipment. Turns out, there are thousands of videos online showing you how to open up and fix all varieties of electric toothbrushes. After examining several videos, I was finally able to find one that showed similar symptoms as my toothbrush which you can find here, and was able to safely open up the casing, extract the hardware, and locate the issue, which happened to be a shearing of a metal part.

A few dollars spent on Ebay, and hopefully I will have this toothbrush back to working order in a few days. By exposing my students to real life scenarios of fixing rather complicated objects, will hopefully give them the confidence and curiosity to take on the challenge of fixing an item rather than simply replacing it.

Will post an update once finished. For now, here are a few photos of the opened toothbrush and the broken Tip Linkage, which needs replacing.