Dotmocracy

Here is at photo of the consolidation we did for the space debate.

Last Week

This week was awesome! The last few days were a great wrap up of all the work we did over the last month. Teaching about drugs was a highlight. The best was one student's remark during our community circle today who showed appreciation by saying...."thanks so much for introducing us to drugs"...haha. Hope that doesn't get heard out of context.

Another highlight this week was the critical thinking activities we did about Space. Not the easiest topic to formulate critical challenges around but we did out best.

Today we did a task asking the students to choose their favourite image to raise awareness about drugs. Which image is the most Informative, Persuasive and Evocative? We also did a debate last week on whether or not the government should fund space exploration. We consolidated by having students "vote" in a "Dotmocracy". Each student got a sticker dot and placed on the line between pro and con that best represented their view. Along the line were student generated quotes that represented the various opinions.

It was a bit sad to take down our learning wall but it was a fabulous learning experience and look forward to my next visit to the classroom.

See everyone on Monday! Have a great weekend!

Week Three

Last week was exciting. We crammed a lot into a very short time. I've been working hard on my commitment to talk less. The best activity we did last week was a Speed Debate in space. In grade 6 the students are so eager to debate controversial issues. We showed a news clip about funding being cut to the space program and then set up a system to have students discuss one side of an issue for a minute at a time. We also used a great assessment sheet to try and observe all the students in the class and there work during that afternoon.

Another highlight of the week has been teaching Ultimate Frisbee. It is a sport that I enjoy and it has been great to take the kids outside and see them enjoy it too. We are still building skills and doing smaller activities but hopefully in a few days we will work up to a full game.

The Day Before March Break

It has been a sprint to the finish line but the week ended wonderfully. We finished the afternoon with one of my favourite activity of the week! Students consolidated their learning about Phases of the Moon by carving oreo cookies to represent the different phases. It was a lot of fun and with some questioning we really "assessed" the essential learning in a brief fun, hands-on way.

This week was not "typical" in any way. But what weeks are? Many "interruptions" peppered the week including, lice and dental screening, co teaching and planning sessions and school spirit events. Embracing them as just part of school life was one of the important things I took away from the week.

We did a fun poetry lesson concluding in having students choose their favourite title from a list of possible titles and discuss why they chose it. Some students even had time to create their own title. I shortened the lesson to cover 1 poem instead of 2 to accommodate the timing but all the important learning from the lesson were covered.

My commitment for the two weeks after March Break is for me to generally talk less. No matter how engaging what I'm talking about is or how many gagets and gizmos I've included or how many great questions I ask, I realize more and more that meaningful learning must be student driven.

First Week at Owen

It was a fabulously busy and exhausting week.

It has been exciting to co-plan with Harmony...sorry, I mean Ms. Cooper. We remind each other of things and when we are brainstorming we talk at the same time and finish each other's sentence. It has been a great learning experience.

As our 'hook' for our culminating task we made these 2 movies to show the Grade 6s. One is set up as a movie trailer on the topic of the unit, Space:

http://vimeo.com/37484100

And a second one with the help of the wonderful ATs who were at Owen in November. This one is structured as a news broadcast:

http://youtu.be/5D9R8AWi3Rk

It was fun using iMovie. I hope the students liked watching them as much as we enjoyed making them.

One of the best part of the week was having the students teacher Leap Years and why we have an extra day this year on February 29th to grade 3 students. We have great photos of this. The students got really into the assignment because they knew that the grade 3s were counting on them. Ed. Psych had something to say about that. It also felt like an authentic mini assignment because teachers weren't the only audience, and it was relevant to the current reality (Feb 29) so it actually mattered.

Another highlight was Friday afternoon. Harmony and I had been very flexible about planning an alternative lesson because we wanted students to test the sundials they had built but since it had snowed and was stormy on Wed/Thurs we postponed the outdoor component.

Sure enough 11:30am on Friday and it is beautiful sunny weather. We quickly spent our lunch getting the original activity together and getting the kids outside. Thanks to the Kindergarden teacher who saved the day with a bucket of sidewalk chalk. The kids loved the hands-on activity and actually being able to tell time. This was one of our solutions to make "Space" as hands-on as possible. Stay tuned for photos and more examples...

Last Day of First Practicum

It was a sad day to leave my first practicum. I will truly miss the students and so many other aspects of the experience. I loved learning on my feet all day every day.

Even on the last Friday afternoon with a celebration and many good-byes we still managed to squeeze in a math game and a language lesson that incorporated critical thinking.

Of all the advice the main character received in the story, who gave the best advice and why? Justify your answer based on the criteria for judgment we developed as a class.

This turned into a discussion about identity and factors that influence our identity. It was great.

I still need to work on holding the students accountable for their own learning. My class was very motivated by marks. This is great except if you tell them they don't have to hand something in or something will not be marked some of them need another source of encouragement and engagement. I could have done a better job of referring back to the original criteria and the focus of the question to wrap things up.

I'd also like some more tools on how to engage a whole class in discussion when there are the familiar 4-8 hands that always go up? Of course including differentiated instruction is essential but is there a way to make more students feel safe participating?

I'm already looking forward to second practicum when I can tweak these skills and apply some of what I have been learning over the past month.


It was a pleasure reading everyone's blogs.

Some blogs I posted comments on include:
Lauren
Angela
Harmony
Janice
Winzie

Final Week

It is hard to believe I only have 3 days left. It is going to be hard to leave. It is great to be part of a community. It is challenging that it is for such a short time.

I am working on encouraging critical thinking this week. I need to figure out a way to make sure the thinking is not mine but the students'. I did an exercise today trying to get students to come up with their own "criteria for judgement". They got this concept and I had a lot of different suggestions. I think I needed to organize the responses a little better because the list got too long. When I tried to focus it down to 3 points I probably didn't include everyone's ideas.

The great part of having class established criteria is that the teacher can step back as the "final judge" on the issue. The students can start deciding themselves whether or not they meet the criteria.

The fabulous part was challenging students to go deeper in their thinking. How can I ask the right questions to motivate thinking and reasoning?

I am also realizing how powerful it is to hold students accountable to the task. I like the idea of referring back to the original criteria. I'd like to practice doing this more consistently.

3 more days to practice. Better get to it!