Our Coastal Community: An

Integrated Unit
Refl ection for TRB Standard 6 / Lisa Dumoulin
Standard 6: Educators have a broad knowledge base and understand the
subject areas they teach. Educators understand the curricular, conceptual
and methodological foundations of education and of the subject areas they
teach. Educators must be able to communicate effectively in English or
French. Educators teach students to understand relevant curricula in a
Canadian, Aboriginal, and global context. Educators convey the values,
beliefs and knowledge of our democratic society (TRB Standards).

What evidence have I chosen to support this standard?

As evidence for TRB Standard 6, I have chosen to highlight an integrated unit

plan that I created in the fall of 2016. I planned this unit as a self-directed
learning project. My primary goal was to practice backwards design while
grappling with the new curriculum. I created a place-based, cross-curricular
unit plan meant to reflect elements of the First Peoples Principles of Learning,
as well as authentic learning and assessment experiences. Though I knew we
would not have an opportunity to do the unit together, I planned it with my
grade 4/5 practicum class at Departure Bay Elementary School in mind.

What did I learn in creating this piece of evidence?

Planning this unit was a true learning experience for me. For one, it allowed
me to experience self-directed learning for myself. I experienced the power
of creating a learner contract, including defining my own success criteria.
This provided me with intrinsic motivation to create something I valued and
was proud of. I hope to provide opportunities for self-directed learning for my
students and feel that since I have experienced it myself, I will be able to
better empathize with student struggles, and to guide students to choose
and undertake projects that will have real meaning and importance to them.

Second, planning this unit allowed me to dive into the BC curriculum for
grades 4 and 5. One of the biggest takeaways from this was learning how
and where I could go, as an educator, to deepen my knowledge about
specific content areas or curricular competencies that I was less familiar
with. I identified (and catalogued in my cloud-library) teacher supports,
including video channels, blogs, and high-quality content-area websites that I
can return to for future social studies and science planning.
How does this evidence relate to the TRB standard?

In the process of planning this unit, I gained an appreciation for the principles
at the core of Standard 6. I grappled with questions like what does it mean to
understand and teach the curriculum in ways that honour and relate to the
local Indigenous nations? To develop a unit that was very locally-focused and
that tried to weave Indigenous content and principles (experiential, land-
based learning; learning that is reciprocal and in service of the community)
throughout it, I had to search out and become familiar with many of the
Snuneymuxw, Nanaimo, and southern Vancouver Island specific resources
(teacher resources, recorded oral stories and literature). I also organized to
have a captain from BC Ferries come to speak to our class at Departure Bay,
had we been able to do all or some of this unit (unfortunately it was not
possible given the class schedule in the fall). This gave me experience in
accessing human resources in my community to help support teaching of
content that I was less familiar with, and more generally, to organize
authentic learning experiences for students. Finally, I worked hard to
understand Big Ideas and Essential Questions. I practiced writing these
for unit (overall, and for each mini-unit within it). This is something I hope
to continue practicing, so that I can plan units that reach across the
curriculum and draw out key themes and questions that will ultimately help
to foster core competencies like critical thinking and social responsibility for
students.

Why is this standard important to me?

This standard is important to me because it demands integrity of educators.

As an elementary generalist, I do not need to be an expert in any one area.
But I do need to be accountable towards my students to teach the BC
curriculum. This means having a high level of curiosity to learn things new to
or outside of my sphere of knowledge so that I can support students to do
the same. Similarly, I must be committed to accessing high-quality (for
example, vetted by Indigenous education committees and/or based on
research) resources so that both myself and my students can develop new
understandings and skills.

As I mentioned above, my goal in planning this unit was twofold: to get to

know (and use) the BC curriculum better, and to practice planning using
backwards design. By accomplishing these goals, I feel more equipped as a
beginning teacher to effectively plan cross-curricular units that offer locally-
relevant and community-linked learning opportunities for students.