Olivia's EDCI 336 Blog

For the final week of EDCI 336, we talked about educational games. My own experiences with gaming in the classroom has been minimal; in elementary school I did a few typing games and in high school I participated in games of  Kahoot in a few of my classes. One point that stuck with me from this week’s discussion was that Ed Games can be really engaging for students, but should be used as an additional resource as they do not provide the highest value of knowledge and education. Games are great to use for fun practice activities or for summarizing a unit, but not for teaching or introducing new material. I would love to use Ed Games in my future classroom as a special activity that students look forward to.

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In this video, I play the chord progression for the verses, chorus and bridge of ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy. It has been quite the journey learning the ukulele, but in the end I have found learning an instrument to be a valuable experience.

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Molly and I presented our Inquiry Project by sharing it with our Learning Pod via Zoom. Below is a recording of our presentation.

Lately, I have continued to  practice the verse and chorus of Riptide, but now I have also started practicing the bridge of the song which has a slightly different chord progression. The chord progression of the bridge is: Am, G, C, F. I’ve found the bridge to be very similar to the rest of the song, and I plan to use the same strumming pattern throughout the whole piece. I am still working on switching my fingers to change chords, especially from Am to G; I find that I can sometimes have troubles with the speed and coordination when switching from chord to chord. Another thing that I have been working on is the fluidity of my strumming pattern, which I have seen improvement in since the beginning of the semester. Reflecting on my learning process throughout the term, I would have liked to have been able to dedicate more time to learning the ukulele, however I am proud of the progress I made considering the fact that I had to navigate my way through online learning and also learn to balance my new workload.

Since the new Covid restrictions have taken place in BC, everyone at synchro practice has to wear a mask while on land. This means that the athletes have to wear a mask while doing flexibility training, making it more difficult for them to self-regulate. As a coach this has challenged me to find a balance between pushing the athletes to become more flexible and playing it safe while wearing masks. I have had to adapt my drills to exclude dynamic drills, like kicking, that increase heart rate. Instead I have focused on more static drills, like split holds, which are easier to accomplish while wearing a mask. I hope that I will be able to find some new drills to include that challenge the athletes while ensuring that they are being safe.

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This week in class we discussed distributed learning. We went through the different components of our learning currently in EDCI 336 and created a chart to visualize how each method of instruction and learning fell within it. We categorized thinks like Zoom  meetings and WordPress sites into a grid that was balanced between teacher or student lead, and synchronous and asynchronous. What I noticed from this was that we had different activities spread out across the majority of the chart, and it clarified the importance of having a variety of activities that require different types of instruction and engagement.

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Over the last little while, I have been practicing what I have learned from the YouTube tutorial that I initially found to help me. Every time I practice, I have the video open and use it for reference. Specifically, I have been working on the verse and chorus of ‘Riptide’, since both those parts of the song have the same chord progressions: Am, G, C. I have found that it was helpful for me to run through the chord progressions with single down strums so I could get the hang of switching my fingers without worrying about the strumming pattern. I have had some difficulty with switching from Am to G, but I have noticed some improvement with this by just simply practicing my finger positioning and also switching the chords with single down strums. Also, I have been practicing the verse and chorus with my strumming pattern (d,d,u,d,u,d); I am not quite as confident with this as I am with the down strums because it requires more coordination, but I do feel that I am making progress slowly but surely.

This week in my EPHE class, we discussed creating assessment tools for different activities. My group specifically chose to make an assessment tool for yoga positions. Having an assessment tool is a great way to check to see if you are meeting certain standards while practicing an activity, and it also is a good way to remind yourself of cues for different exercises. After doing this assignment in class, I realize that when I am practicing yoga or flexibility, that I am assessing myself mentally and analyzing if I am performing the movements correctly. I have noticed that having a mental checklist is a great way to strive towards improvement, and that recording progress helps to create a picture of the journey to becoming more efficient in activities.

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I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture that we had this past week, and I feel that I have learned many new things from the group discussion. In my breakout room, we emphasized the importance of  support and building a relationship with both students and their families to help make a positive impact. We recognized that teachers play such a key role in helping a student to get assessed  for different things, and that the process of getting assessed can be strenuous on the student and their family. Doing small things like regular check-ins and observations can really help to support others that are navigating through the assessment process.

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For my final demonstration of musical growth, I will be learning the song “Riptide” by Vance Joy on the ukulele. I started to learn by searching up tutorials on YouTube, and I found one video for beginners that specifically that walks through progressions to help with learning the song. I am currently focusing on learning the verse and am doing so by practicing switching between the chords (Am, G, C) with just my fingers, switching between the chords with single strums and also switching while doing my strumming pattern. After practicing the verse for a little while, I decided that it would be best for me to tweak my strumming pattern from what is in my musical growth plan; my strumming pattern will now be: d,d,u,d,u,d. I have definitely noticed some progress with my ability to switch chords, and I believe that this is attributed to practice and also applying the corrections I received from my midterm demonstration.