Create, Explore, Digitize, Reflect and Connect - Jay Dubois' Mantra and the Themes of His P3

Jay Dubois is an energetic primary/junior teacher and Instructional Coach in the Thames Valley DSB. Last year, he embraced the power of 1:1 iPads and had a blast transitioning his students from consumers into content creators with authentic learning experiences that connected with the real world. He’s interested in cross-curricular, community-based learning and using technology to uncover and document curriculum in authentic circumstances. Jay co-lead an Ontario Ministry of Education’s TLLP action research program with members of the ‘Listen Louder: Amplifying Student Voice with Technology in Mathematics’ project team. Jay is a Google Certified Educator and Innovator. He was recently accepted into Google’s Certified Innovator Academy and launched an education project that looks to turn up teacher voices and make teacher-to-teacher sharing contagious by leveraging YouTube, Google Hangouts and a nominate-forward strategy. He’s passionate about rubrics and enjoys introducing teachers to the power of using self-assessed single point rubrics in honouring student voice in the assessment cycle.

Jay and I first became connected a few years ago through OnEdChat. We met in person for the first time at the 2017 TEDXKitchenerEd, which was an inspiring experience that I blogged about, and I saw his Ignite Talk the next month at that YRDSB’s EdTechCamp 2017. I was so happy to see him join the OEMConnect team, as well.

Jay was excited about coming on The Personal Playlist Podcast. We scheduled this date a while ago, so he had around 6 months to prepare his 3 songs, but that didn't make the task any less daunting for a music lover like him. “Music is just such a part of life; it’s truly that soundtrack.” Referring to preparing for his P3, Jay reflected saying, “What a fantastic experience it’s been.”

Jay’s nostalgic song actually has the word nostalgia in the first line of the lyric. Jay said, “When it comes to a nostalgia song, I think back to my high school xperience. I had a really diverse playlist back then...I wasn't exactly making that well known...you were in fear of being judged for the types of music you listened to…” he compared that to kids today who he feels get “extra kudos” for having a more diverse playlist. He first listened to this song in university. Although he is a musician and enjoys playing many instruments, he doesn't always recall the lyrics. Jay shared that he most remembers sounds and meaning and how songs make him feel from a “melodic perspective”. Jay expressed that, “...everytime I hear it, it makes me happy. It really captures Canadian rock from the nineties.” He was alluding to those songs that really stick. The ones that transport you back to that time in your life, whatever place or time that it. “I saw them live with my then girlfriend, now wife, when she was at Laurier, and I was at Waterloo. They played at a club called The Turett, and I swear the floor was going to cave in...so many people and the music was so loud.” He has also seen them a few times since. His favourite connection to the song is when he filled in as the base player in his brother-in-las band who played this song during the intermission of a variety show at Althouse, which is the Faculty of Education building at Western, where Jay went to teacher's college (The University of Western Ontario). It was during his first year of teaching, which made the experience nostalgic, too. Jay jams to this song with his 10 year old who has picked up the guitar, as well. Here is That Song by Big Wreck:

Jay’s identity song is one by an artist he first heard at TEDxKitchenerEd in the fall of 2017. Jay took a road trip with some teachers from Thames Valley DSB and, after many inspirational speakers, this artist came out with a guitar. He described his time on this huge Russian icebreaker in the Arctic with Commander Chris Hadfield. The artist had been so inspired by the landscape, that he wrote an entire album’s worth of songs while, “...coasting through glaciers and experiencing this world that so few humans get the chance to actually see in person,” shared our guest. While he played a few songs, this song really stuck to Jay. “Melody pulls me in first, and I had to go home and learn to play that song.” After, he listened to the lyrics more and loved the message such as be who you want to be, love who you want to love and don’t let them hold you down, they don’t make the rules. This really touched Jay as a person, father, and teacher. “Kids might as well believe it could be them,” he said referring to the motivational themes and power to change the world that he tries to invoke in his learners. ay really wants kids to maintain their sense of whimsy and be dreamers. Loving the ideas in the song, Jay wanted to do something with his Grade 3 class. After completing a long application, he was given the chance to take his class to spend 5 days in a forest school, and the class had the opportunity to document the whole experience, sharing their learning on stewardship and conservationism. There are videos, photographs and stop-motion animation that captured this to showcase, and Jay covered and adapted this song to be the soundtrack of the video of the student’s work from their week of immersive learning. Jay then recorded his class.

“It’s cut straight from my classroom floor- just me, an acoustic guitar, a snowball mic and 20 kids sitting as closely as they can on the carpets with lyrics up on the Smartboard…” They tweeted it out, and the artist who wrote this song even responded with praise. All of this inspiration began with Danny Michel’s Nobody Rules You:

Jay’s motivational song really brings him up. While he doesn't know a lot of history about the group, he was watching Jimmy Fallon a few years ago and heard this indie rock band. He quickly downloaded the song and just likes their sound. He described how this song “...really just continues to build to a spacey rock spaz out at the end”. He says that this song touches on so many genres and enjoys how the parts synthesizes to make a “distinctly uplifting jam”. Making teaching parallels, Jay said this song “...throws influences together, and I want my kids to be in classrooms where teachers are taking things from the real world, throwing them together, and talking about influence, and giving kids choice. I want my own children to be in a place where they’re creating and there’s no one right way, and the teacher is an interesting person who does things outside of the school, and they’re sharing their life- to be that inspirational persona and that mentor teacher…” This song represents the mashing together of things that Jay does in his classroom. It’s even featured in the video game FIFA 2012. Here is Givers Up, Up, Up:

Jay is an innovator and risk taker. The title of this post refers to his mantra, and Jay had a bulletin board in his classroom with the words: create, explore, digitize, reflect, connect. “It encapsulated how I wanted learning to look in my classroom and outside of my classroom because we did a lot of community-based learning.” Jay tries to model how tech can be used as more than something to consume as he feels it has to be creative. His believes in de-fronting the classroom and using technology to infuse authentic learning. He had a gradeless classroom last year driven by criteria with choice and justification of the tools that worked best for his students in the context of their work. “Let’s create things, let’s show that tech can be used for good, and let’s make sure that we’re reflective learners that aren't focused on a grade- were’ focused on an experience and getting better.” While Jay explained each of those 5 aspects of his creed thoughtfully this site explains it further. You can find Jay on Twitter or email him at j.dubois@tvdsb.ca.