VICTORIA BERGEN
Teacher
Hello, my name is Miss. Victoria Bergen. I started this page in university and have been adding to it as I learn and grow as a teacher. This is a showcase of my teaching experience and philosophies.
terminology
PSI - Professional Semester 1. This is the first of three practicums in the University of Lethbridge's Education program.
PSII - Professional Semester 2. This is the second of three practicums in the University of Lethbridge's Education program.
PSIII - Professional Semester 3. This is the third of three practicums in the University of Lethbridge's Education program.
About
Hello, I'm Victoria. I love art, hiking, yoga, learning, teaching and connecting with people. I went to secondary school and University in Lethbridge, Alberta. After graduating in 2021, I spent a year teaching abroad in London, England. This was an incredible way to jump into my career. In 2022, I moved to Victoria BC to teach in various capacities which has also been valuable professional development.I am passionate about real life Math. Math that requires reasoning and richness contrary to endless calculations. I believe Math is beautiful, living, naturally occurring, and necessary in our world. My goal is to help make mathematics interesting and accessible for all learners. I’m also passionate about Educational Psychology. In university, my favourite classes were combinations of Education, Psychology and Neuroscience. The way a brain learns and remembers informs my planning everyday.
teaching philosophy
A good teacher uses researched based strategies to teach the prescribed curriculum. Understanding and responding to each of her students as individuals makes her a great teacher.
I am a certified Kindergarten - Grade 12 teacher in Alberta and British Columbia.
I am also certified to teach Hatha and Vinyasa Yoga as well as basic Sea Kayaking skills.
Contact
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Thank you
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ReSEARCH PROJECTS
Elementary ell
I created a virtual space to share with teachers the current state of ELL education in Alberta and the ways in which we can go about effectively assessing ELLs. There are many interesting facets to ELL education that I would love to explore and share with you, but for the time being I’ll focus on assessing elementary aged ELLs. I focus mainly on elementary school aged students because that is where I’m interested in teaching most, however many strategies are applicable to the higher grades as well. I’d also like to point out that almost all of these assessments are appropriate for non-ELL students as well!! I hope this site provides some clarity and peace of mind for you in teaching ELL students.Please click the button below to read more.
classroom management
The Professional Inquiry Project (PIP) is a requirement for the completion of the last practicum (PSIII) in the University of Lethbridge's Education Program. For my PIP I decided to focus on preventing and correcting disruptive behaviors in my assigned Kindergarten classroom. A handful of students often exhibited behaviors that are complicated to understand and challenged the learning climate I am trying to maintain. Through this project, I hoped to find corrective strategies that would empower these young learners and help us all have an enjoyable learning experience. The intention of this project was to find strategies that maximize student’s strengths and collaboratively correct problem behaviors.
The question I focused on was: How can a school community effectively prevent and respond to disruptive behavior in a positive, corrective manner?
Controversy in Art Education
Art can be a controversial topic. Historical art and the art we see in galleries and online are made by artists with loud feelings and voices, many times about controversial content. Similarly, any famous artist’s lifestyles are not school appropriate. How much should we be educating students about the insane asylum Van Gogh inhabited or the dramatic life of Frida Kahlo? Historical art is all but a children’s topic. However, art created in classrooms can also be controversial in subject as well as student grapple with life’s challenges. To what extent should we filter what is created in the art classroom? Is it acceptable for students to draw guns at school? Or their interpretations of their grandparent’s death? Allowing for student’s open expression can be controversial.
Resources:
https://www.teachers.ab.ca/News%20Room/ata%20news/Volume%2043/Number18/SpecialFeatureonBill44/Pages/Teachingcontroversialissues.aspx
In this presentations I outline the three main areas in which we see controversy in art education: content, creation, and curation.
Many famous artists and art works are controversial in subject and nature. Teachers must be equipped to facilitate these hard discussions with their classrooms if this work is to be shown. Not all work is suitable to be discussed with our young impressionable artists.
Art is also a very personal endeavor. Some of what children create may not be appropriate in a school setting, it is up to the teacher's and school leader's discretion of what can be made and what then gets hung up in the halls afterwards.
We want to address controversy because it give students tools for addressing it in the future. It fosters critical thinking skills and allows for students to express themselves authentically and safely.
Controversy will always be a part of art education because art’s aim is often to push boundaries and make you think. Art is personal and emotional.
We can support these crucial conversations in our classrooms by being open to discussions about what is appropriate to create and present at school. Celebrate perspectives and teach empathy, Berne Brown has great Youtube videos on the topic of empathy that are appropriate for all ages.
canadian vs uk education system
There are a myriad of ways to teach and learn. I took the opportunity to challenge myself to teach in a school system foreign to the one I grew up in and was trained to teach in. I moved to London, England in August 2021 for one academic school year. This year was full of invaluable professional development and memorable experiences. Their system has similarities to ours however there were numerous ideas to get used to. In many ways I had to adapt my teaching style to fulfill the school’s existing philosophy. I believed adhering to the ethos of school was more important than strictly maintaining my own personal teaching style. Because I was a new teacher in a new system, I wanted to be especially open minded, teachable, and flexible. I agreed with the school’s philosophy in many ways but also yielded to their philosophy many times to maintain a consistent school ethos.
This system is effective in standardization. Children are encouraged to be unified in every sense. School work and behavioural expectations on children are standard across the school. There is very little breadth in the assignments children submit due to this expectation. Every child from reception to graduation is expected to wear school uniforms daily, to help maintain unity and limit distraction. They look, do, and behave in unison. Uniforms and standardization isn’t foreign to Canada however they also aren’t the norm. In Canadian schools, children are usually more so encouraged to express themselves and be individuals.
Another aspect that I noticed, particularly in a private school, is that children must apply and be accepted into prospective secondary schools. Once each child has graduated from their primary school, they research their prospective schools: what the school stands for, which subjects they offer, and decide (with their families) if this school is a right fit. Each child will attend open days, apply, sit an exam, and arrange a reference letter for each school they are interested in attending. Because of this difference, UK schools are run more like businesses. Schools must market their offerings in a way that is appealing to new incomers. Secondary schools may even invite primary school administration in to share information about the school in hopes this information gets passed onto families. A government organization, called Ofsted, monitors schools regularly with inspections and visits to create a report for the school and interested families roughly every 3 years. Ofsted's primary role is to make sure that organizations are operating at a high standard at providing education, training, and care services for children in England. In Canada, children typically attend the school nearest them. This means there are no entrance exams or need for reference letters. The transfer process is much simpler.
Also due Ofsted’s governing, is that every lesson taught needs to have physical proof in the pupil’s books along with proof of teacher’s marking of the work: a comment about what they’ve done well and what they can work on. Each school has a slightly different marking scheme. At my school, we used pink pen for achievement, green pen for corrections, and a purple pen for an extension or reflection question. It was essential that each lesson was proved and marked every day as Ofsted could come for an inspection on short notice. If Ofsted finds that teachers aren’t following this expectation, there is a risk of a poor report on the whole school. I found myself doing far more writing and worksheet tasks as opposed to hands-on tasks due to this expectation that all lessons needed on-paper proof. I also found myself doing far more marking and giving more feedback. This was useful in children’s progress; however, it also took away from the ownership pupils took over their work. It seemed to them that work was done for the teacher to be assessed by the teacher. I was taught in Canada to give ownership to the pupil, this is a more natural relationship as the pupil will be responsible for their learning beyond school and has another opportunity to learn responsibility in the process. The final major difference is unions.
Teacher unions in western Canada are very powerful because there is only one union per province. Unions protect all teachers in the province and provide supports in teaching and policy keeping. In the UK, unions are privatized and there are many to choose from. They operate in similar ways however aren’t as powerful because of their divided membership. Unions are less effective in supporting teachers, they have much less resources and programs running to support teachers.
One major similarity between UK schools and Canadian schools is classroom management. Both schools highly value mindfulness and logical consequences. Both systems have taught me to give disruptive children warnings before assigning consequences and consider ways in which I can support the child so this behaviour isn’t an issue moving forward. Both systems recognize that behaviour has a function and isn’t random but likely the child communicating something or struggling with meeting expectations. A behaviour isn’t to be taken personally but monitored and talked about.
Both systems are highly affective in teaching children quality curriculum in a productive manner. I have found that the UK system is more achievement focused and Canada is more whole-child focused.
planning
Long Term Planning
The file above is a long term plan for my 4 month practicum in Kindergarten. It includes a calendar of units by month and an over view of each unit including outcomes, focus questions, and assessments.
The file above is a curriculum Map that I would send out to families at the beginning of each term. This helped families support their children's learning at home.
Unit Planning
This unit plan was created during my final practicum. It includes the target outcomes, essential questions, and the formative and summative assessments I would employ.
The above file is the unit assessment plan I used for a Grade 8 Fractions. It is far more detailed than a standard unit plan. It includes an overview of each lesson with the strategies and resources needed. It also clearly shows how each outcome is being assessed (formatively and summatively), the weightings of each and how it will be graded.
Lesson Planning
The lesson plans include the date and time to be taught, target outcomes, formative and summative assessment, prior to lesson notes, lesson: introduction, body and conclusion, as well as a column on the side for notes about resources, differentiation, and reminders. I will often take time after teaching a lesson to reflect on what went well and what could have been done differently. I find this format to work well for my practice.
instruction
Engaging Learning
In my practice I make it a priority to vary the modalities of expected response by students because I am aware that every student will learn and express their learning best in different ways, I ensure to cover every outcome in the program of studies using a variety of assessments so I can see that the students is successful. It is beneficial for students to have the opportunity to show their understandings in various ways because if they missed an outcome on one task they can make up for it on another, this builds validity in your assessments and fairness because every student has a chance to feel successful regardless of their preferred mode of communication.
In Math and Science, it is common to make worksheets where students are to respond individually in writing about their understandings. While this is a good practice sometimes, I believe it shouldn't be the sole practice. Students thrive when given the opportunity to work collaboratively and express their ideas verbally, virtually, or pictorially. When possible, I like to get my students out of their desks and expressing themselves another way, I have found this to be engaging and a refreshing break from lecture.
Above is an image of some posters Grade 8 students made in the Light and Optics unit I taught in PSII. They were given team mates, a poster paper, and 20 minutes to tell their classmates about a type of light source. This activity went very well and was far more engaging than reading the textbook and answering the questions it prescribed.
The second image is of a Kindergarten student analyzing living worms during our living/non-living things unit.
