PME 810 Introduction - Part 1

At the Cup and Saucer Trail on Manitoulin Island!

Hello!

I'm Sarah Bouchard and I'm from Sudbury, Ontario!  Welcome to my PME 810 Blog!

I'm working on an Introduction video, but thought I would get a first blog post up in the meantime!

I graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Laurentian University in 2008 and a Bachelor of Education from Nipissing University in 2009.  I focused on Intermediate/Senior Biology and Chemistry.  After completing my B.Ed., I also completed by Primary and Junior ABQs, as well as my Special Education, Part 1 and FSL, Part 1.

Instead of jumping right into teaching, I went back to school at Laurentian and received a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication.  This program was basically taking difficult science concepts and learning how to communicate them to various audiences.  As part of this program, I completed an internship with Science North's Education and Northern Programs division.  One of my main responsibilities was to review the new K-8 Science curriculum and compare the expectations with science demonstrations and activities that were in our Teacher Guides.  I was able to remove experiments that were no longer relevant to the new curriculum and add new activities that would meet new expectations.

After that, I completed 4 years of teaching.  I first worked as an LTO at an elementary school on Manitoulin Island teaching core French to students in Kindergarten to grade 8.  I then completed 2 years of supply teaching, where I worked at both the elementary and secondary levels.  My most recent year of teaching, in 2013-2014, I had another LTO contract teaching core French at the secondary level.

In my experience with classroom teaching, I've mainly focused on the language curriculum (French) or on the Science curriculum.  I found my on-my-own teaching experiences to be quite different than the teaching experiences I had as a student teacher.  As a student teacher, my experiences were quite guided and many of my learning outcomes were pre-decided by my associate teachers and they were still taking control of the assessment and evaluation portions, to a certain extent.  As a new teacher, it was a definite learning curve to know the curriculum well enough to plan ahead for the year, know what you wanted to teach students in a given time line and how you were planning on assessing student learning.

Currently, I'm working as an Administrative Assistant at a local university.  I work in a department that provides many student supports, such as academic advising, learning skills sessions, tutoring, and writing assistance.  We also offer some faculty support, since we have helped certain programs review their requirements with provincial expectations.  In the long run, I'm hoping to move into a more academic role within the post-secondary setting - though I'm not planning on staying in the classroom teaching role.  (Although I guess there's always the possibility that I will end up back there!)  Specifically, I'm hoping to be able to bring back some knowledge about curriculum, planning and assessment to my department so that I can help with planning the various programs at the university setting. 

 Through my current employer, I am also a seminar leader for a course called "Understanding, Learning and Inquiry."  Students participate in a lecture each week, led by one of my colleagues.  Then, students must also participate in a seminar, where we discuss and apply the concepts learned in class.  As part of my role, I'm more of a facilitator since I'm less involved with planning the lesson.  My seminar must be consistent with the other seminars offered. 

Outside of the class, I enjoy being active.  I've played baseball all summer and have my final tournament this weekend.  I'm also an active member of the Rotaract Club of Sudbury, as well as the Sudbury chapter of Crohn's and Colitis Canada.