PME 800 - Self-Regulated Inquiry & Learning
Distal Goal: To bake a good quality loaf of bread by August 11th, 2021.
I thought that in this course I would solely learn about the SRL process, while I did in fact learn about SRL, I also learned a lot about myself as a self regulated learner. For my inquiry project I had the distal goal to bake a good quality load of sourdough bread by August 11, 2021 (good meaning that it will have a tangy flavour, chewy texture and a crispy crust). I had baked various types of breads before with success so going into this project my level of self-efficacy was high. Soon into the project I hit several roadblocks and realized that this was not going to be as easy as I thought. I knew that I had to look for strategies to motivate myself so that I would persevere past my failures.
I found that having proximal goals and giving myself written feedback on my goal monitoring process document was helpful. Using this document as well as uploading posts to my blog, I was able to build up my capacity to self-regulate my learning which resulted in boosting my confidence. Having smaller proximal goals helped me manage my self efficacy by using goal oriented self-talk. I was often saying things like “today you just need to make this one loaf of bread” or “you are doing this for your class, it is okay if it does not turn out perfect.” Knowing that I was capable of completing these smaller goals gave me the motivation to continue working. As I continued with my project, I realized that my success criteria were changing. My first loaf of bread did not even make it to the baking stage. When my second loaf of bread made it to that stage, I felt successful, even though it was not a great loaf of bread. This made me realize the importance of celebrating small successes with students. Success will not look the same for every student and the idea of what is successful may change, but that does not mean that it should not be celebrated. The feeling of success that I felt from getting my second loaf into the oven, motivated me to keep trying. This is something that transfers to the classroom. Small successes can motivate students to keep going. I couldn’t help but to think of my students throughout this inquiry process. There were many times in this process where I felt very frustrated, uncomfortable and ready to quit. I do not think that I give my young students enough space to feel these feeling while they are learning new things. Learning can be hard and it can be uncomfortable. Self-regulated learners have strategies put in place to help them work through these feelings and to continue to motivate them to persevere and keep trying. Going into this school year, my focus with my students will be helping them put these strategies into place so that they can be successful self-regulated learners.
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I forgot to write about this earlier so it is not in the proper order by date.
I kind of happened upon an expert. I was at the lake and found out that one of my cousins, Anthony, had taken up making sourdough as a hobby during the pandemic. He was up at the lake for the weekend at his family's cabin and was gracious enough to let me spend some time with him while he was making a loaf of bread. Unfortunately, I did not have my phone with me to take photos. It was great to get to see someone making the bread and seeing and feeling the dough at different stages. Anthony used a different process that me but it was still good to see his techniques, specifically how he kneaded the bread, and what his dough looked like when it was done rising. Anthony leant me the book "Tartine Bread" to read through as this is where he learned to make bread from. He also gave me some of his starter to either build up or to compare my starter to. The book was great and was much more organized than the book that I had originally been looking at. It was great to see someone else's process and to have someone to answer my questions. My starter has been much more successful this time around. I am not using the same instructions as my first starter. This recipe is much more exact and goes by weight. I am happy with the bubbling I am seeing and have been waiting for it to double in size in under 5 hours. I think it is close and will be ready to use in the next day or two. One thing that I read was if your starter floats in water it is ready to use, it has passed the float test! Way to go Samson the sourdough starter!
Since Sunday, Walter has not grown much and has become quite smelly. I watched several youtube videos about starters and realized that I have not been feeding/discarding properly and unfortunately Walter will have to be tossed! I called around to a few local bakeries and found out that one called "the Night Oven", sells sourdough starter. The Night Oven is a really neat bakery that mills their own flour in-house and bakes all of their bread in a brick, fire oven. When I went to go pick up some starter, the lady working the till was very helpful. She looked at photos of Walter, gave me some tips for next time and told me about a few helpful blogs. I purchased the starter as well as a loaf of Sourdough to study the end project. Moving forward, I will be using the Night Oven starter to make my first loaf as well as start my own starter to be ready in time for the second loaf. I feel more confident in making a starter after talking to the baker at the Night Oven. I will be reading the blog they told me about and watching a few more videos before making the first loaf- wish me luck!
When I arrived home today, my proofing basket and blades had arrived. I am excited to get to the point in this process where I will get to use these tools. I finished reading this book over the weekend. I chose to use this as my main resource because it is a local author and was written by an artist that I follow on social media. In being honest, it was evident that this was this young author's first book and that it was self-published. It is not organized well, there are several mistakes and at times it is very confusing to follow her process.
I am worried that my starter will not turn out because I started it based off the first few pages that focuses on the sourdough starter. I did not read the entire book before starting and now that I have finished the book realize that there is some key information about the starter that occurs later on in the book. For example, she just says to feed the starter daily, but that is all it says. Then later in the book it says that you should be discarding some of the starter each day as you feed. Moving forward, I will be utilizing other resources and watching a lot of youtube videos! Walter survived traveling over the weekend with me. We had some challenges though. When I woke up on Friday I noticed that Water had separated from the water and was floating on top of the water. A quick google search taught me that the water is called "hooch" and meant that he was hungry. I poured the hooch out, fed him and off we went on our road trip. While away Walter started to bubble and seemed to do well, he was growing and I could tell that he would need a larger jar soon. I noticed that he had developed the sour smell that I read would occur. Today, July 25th, I upgraded Walter to a larger jar and he seems quite happy!
My sourdough starter is well under way! My book said that you need to name your starter as you are more likely to remember to feed something with a name. So let me introduce you to, Walter Wheat! This photo is from day 1 but he is now on his second day. I was able to find this beautiful, fifty year old Dutch oven off of my local, Facebook buy and sell page. It needs to be cleaned and seasoned. I could not find any proofing baskets at any of my local thrift stores so I decided to order one on amazon and it should arrive this weekend.
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I will be using this blog to share my learning and progress, while engaging in the inquiry process.
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