Geo Cashing

I am enrolled in Teacher’s College at the Faculty of Education at the University of Windsor. As a graduate student, there is an abundance of work to accomplish. Not that I expected Teacher’s College to be simple, from what I had heard all the teachers programs across Ontario overload their students with work. For the most part the work is similar; lesson plans, teaching ideas, group work, case studies, essays …. And so on. Thus far, the previously mentioned has all wrong true.  With that being said, I am fortunate to be in one unique class; Mathematics.  The reason being, the Professor, Dr. Antosz has a different view on how to teach mathematics. One of the different ways Professors Antosz has to teaching is that he assigned us a very unique midterm.  Our midterm was to use Geocaching to locate the exam questions.  When we first discussed this idea in class, to be honest I was a little annoyed. Reason being, I really had no clue what Geocaching was, and my plate was already plenty full at the time.

Given some time to let the Geocaching idea sink in, I realised that this was going to be an opportunity to have a new experience and learn an interesting technique that I may be able to add to my teaching strategies one day. I went into the activity with a willingness to learn and was open to the new experience. Though I had some difficulty determining the co-ordinates; I had a fantastic time out on the hunt for bottles containing the exam questions. I was thrilled to hear that I was the first to locate the set of questions from the Mademoiselle at the Library. It made me proud to know that I was the first to master the co-ordinate questions and find the exam questions. I was beginning to really enjoy this activity.

Upon completion and submission of the exam, I look back on it and realise that this was one of the most rewarding tasks that I had to do during Teacher’s College. Have you ever had an exam where you were outside in the fresh air scouring the grounds of the campus in order to locate the questions for an exam?  A truly unique experience, if I had to say so myself.  Another thing that took from this activity was that it doesn’t necessarily have to be applied to mathematics. The Geocaching could be used with any and every teachable material across the entire curriculum.  

I really would like to thank Professor Antosz for furthering my knowledge of Education. Each and every day we learn new things.  On this day in particular, I learned how to Geocache.