My Adventure Through PIDP

Embracing Assessment as Learning in the Mechanic Classroom and Shop: A Path to Self-Direction In the rapidly evolving landscape of education, particularly within trades and hands-on learning environments, there is a growing movement toward empowering students to take more control of their learning journey. Central to this shift is the concept of assessment as learning. For students in mechanical programs, adopting this approach can profoundly impact on how skills are developed, practiced, and mastered, leading to greater autonomy and preparation…

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The PID program continues to keep me quite busy, but during some down time, or upon completion of the PIDP, I would like to explore some options for Hybrid/Electric Vehicle training to keep current with industry. SkilledTradesBC has just recently introduced electric drive to our heavy mechanical trades curriculum, but with the direction that transportation seems to be heading I personally believe there will be a huge push to move this way with highway trucks and equipment. In the immediate…

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I was looking around the internet for a tool that could very quickly identify learning gaps. I like the idea of running a backchannel when it can be beneficial, but I can see how a backchannel could become a distraction. I stumbled upon AnswerGarden, which seems to fit what I was looking for! AnswerGarden is an online tool that allows the instructor to post a comment or question, and very quickly build a word cloud based on the feedback from…

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I love the idea of this silent discussion. Rule one being – no talking. I think this really allows all students the opportunity to freely express what’s on their mind without fear of being judged, mocked, or belittled. The second big win is the chalk talks can have so many purposes! Like Jared mentions, he uses them to see what the students know, what they want to know, and what they learnt. The possibilities almost limitless, and quite flexible. The…

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An alternative title I had in mind was “Two things I don’t particularly enjoy talking about”. Joking of course, I just dislike the self imposed pressure of being on the spot, my own spot! Where do I see myself in 5 years as an instructor? A more refined, resourceful, reflecting individual than I am today, while still maintaining my personal demeanor and core values. Three things I hope to actively work on, and achieve on or before 5 years time:

Through reading Brookfield’s chapter on understanding students’ resistance to learning I was blindsided by the vast amount of reasons he highlights that can cause or be reasons for students, resistance to learning. The following video from Thats Easy Learning on YouTube echoes many of Brookfield’s thoughts. Brookfield (2015) also brought a very insightful and obvious (with the benefit of hindsight) point that as teachers, we generally teach what we are passionate about. If we are passionate about what we’re teaching,…

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Brookfield talks of a website called TodaysMeet in his book The Skillful Teacher which caught my eye. He describes it as an area where students can throw out thoughts, ideas, and questions as they occur to them. How he describes his use case, I assume he has students post up in the room as the lesson is happening. While I generally frown on the idea of phones/laptops being used during a lesson, I can definitely see the advantages here if…

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In Brookfield’s book The Skillful Teacher he dedicates a chapter to defining what the power dynamic looks like in the classroom, and how we as instructors can start to rationalize with students the decisions we make with this perceived power we have. He also points out that students have power in the classroom as well. Brookfield (2015) brought up some very interesting points when talking about power. No matter how neutral we believe we are being, we still hold power…

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What can we assume are some qualities of a skillful teacher in adult education? Brookfield (2015) has 4 core assumptions which are: What I would like to offer you is my boiled-down version of the in-depth explanation Brookfield gives of his core assumptions. We need to be able to adapt to classroom conditions, sometimes very rapidly. These conditions could range widely from gender, ethnicity, culture, background, willingness to learn, and so on. Because of this, we as instructors need to…

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Hello new readers, new classmates, and new teachers. I’ve written an autobiography in the past and it is under the about me tab up at the top of this page, but I thought I would take this time to refresh this and reflect on my professional identity as this autobiography was written when I was freshly leaving the heavy mechanical industry and moving into instructing heavy mechanical. Wow – things have changed! My Autobiography Through my life I have realized…

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