Final Term Reflections

The arrival of spring elicits feelings of newness and beginnings, but in my professional life, the warmer weather reminds me that my time with this group of children is drawing to a close.  I have been looking through photos of the year and remembering all the learning that we have shared together.  I am very proud of how far each one of them has come in their learning journey. 

Here are my thoughts about where I have come in my own professional learning this year.

 

INQUIRY: I have extended my own learning with Project Based Learning 101 and will continue to do so at the Calgary Science School conference this year. Through collaborative work with my grade team, we have been able to design a number of learning projects for our students. We have discovered that capturing students' interest with an meaningful authentic task key to increasing student engagement.

SMART LEARNING: Planning and implementing sequences with my grade level team has been a meaningful experience. Using smart tools with the students such as sending powerful images, partner talk, hidden object, kinisthetic cues for connections, new ideas, wondering have increased engagement and deeper learning in my classroom community.

ACTION RESEARCH: Gender Differentiation: My research on this topic (Gurian & Stevens, 2005) has informed my practice this year. I have been implementing many "boy friendly strategies." For example, we use movement as often as possible within our learning day. We have non-fiction books for students to select from. We have increased light levels and allocations of personal space.

A poignant example of engagement happened early in our school year. One young boy had been struggling to count past ten. One day during center time, he built a large semi-truck out of Tinkertoys. As he proudly talked to me about his creation, he was able to count all 18 wheels without hesitation. I am very dedicated to continuing my learning so that I am able to create a learning environment that is supportive of both genders. I hope to carry this project forward into the next school year.

Reference

Gurian, M. & Stevens, K. (2005). The Minds of Boys: Saving Our sons from Falling Behind in School and Life. San Fracisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

PGP Update

I have just completed my students' progress reports and portfolios and it seems time to reflect on my own progress toward my professional growth plan. 

1. Inquiry: I have been thinking a lot about creating authentic tasks for my students.  I have discovered, through trial and error, that my idea of authentic task does not align well with my early learners' idea of authentic tasks.  I have discovered that play feels very authentic to my students.  I have also discovered that my students' preferred authentic audience is their parents.  I am reflecting on this and looking for ways to connect the dots so that my students' can experience the power of authentic learning.  I think that some showcase of learning for parents might work well for this particular group of children.

2. Smart Learning: We have completed a number of sequences.  I am finding that the students are quite successful at sending and receiving powerful images to their partners.  We have been extending our vocabulary through the literature that we have been using and these powerful words are showing up in our speaking and writing as well.  Hidden object has also been a great connecting activity with these students.  We will continue to expand our repertoire of Smart tools that we use on a regular basis.

3. Gender Differentiation: I have implemented many "boy friendly strategies."  For example, we use movement as often as possible within our learning day.  We have non-fiction books for students to select from.  Still, my number of boys who fell into the approaching and not yet categories for their reading benchmarks was higher that I would like to see.  When we look at the composite reporting for the class for all the outcomes, most of my students of both genders are meeting expectations in most areas.  I still am looking for strategies to help the boys on their reading fluency and comprehension journey.  This will continue to be my main focus for the remainder of this school year.

PGP Update

I thought I would give you a quick update on my progress toward my PGP goals.

 

 

1. Inquiry: The Buck Institute Project Based Learning 101 has propelled me into a new level for inquiry learning.  I am striving to teach and assess both curricular outcomes and 21st Century Leaning skills.  Our Recess Fun Project has come to life with my students.  Just yesterday, a pair of my students told me that they found someone who was lonely on the playground and invited them to play.  They reported that they were all having fun.  Outside classroom application of learning makes my heart sing.  Oh happy day!

 

 

2. Smart Learning: We continue to build our skills by practicing partner talk and thinking about the coaching cards.  We have been working on a Sequence using The Hockey Card.  To my surprise, the students did not have much connections to hockey cards.  They did however have connections to Montreal.  This sequence became a lovely way to tie in Social outcomes regarding rural and urban communities.  I love how Smart learning uncovers prior knowledge  of individual students that can be shared and built upon for the whole class.

 

 

3. Gender Based Differentiation:

 

I have a few male students who are really struggling with literacy and numeracy.  I have seen some exciting "aha moments" for them.  Interestingly, these transformative moments have been happening during times when students have been building or exploring learning in non-traditional ways.  For example, one of my kiddos has not been able to count past 13.  When he built an enormous vehicle during center time and showed me, I asked, "How many wheels does that vehicle have?"  He counted 18 without any hesitation.   Oh happy day!!!  (Oh how I wished that there had been a few more wheels to count).

 

I will share another example from show and tell.  We use a format that has somewhat of an element of competition.  Students hide their show and tell item and give clues to the class.  The students ask questions and try to deduce what the item is.  It has become a prestigious thing to "stump the class."  During show and tell time, I noticed one of my students standing off to the side of the group saying "t, t, t, t".  He had heard an initial sound.  This was already an "Oh Happy Day" moment, but it got better.  I asked, "Which letter says t?"  He thought for a second and replied "t".  I am amazed at how this young man's brain is able to grasp difficult concepts during active learning times. 

Although these students are not "at grade level" yet, I am so encouraged to see them making significant strides toward our learning goals. I am motivated to learn more so that I can facilitate more of these productive learning times for all learners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



One Laptop Per Child?

When I was in high school we played a game that changed my perspective.

The global community was represented in our gym.

Each student was randomly assigned a nation to live in.

 

I honestly do not remember which country I was "living in"

but

I do remember that I was not living

in North America.

 

I remember sitting on the floor with nothing to eat or drink

while watching the kids from North America sitting on

comfy furniture and eating PIZZA.

 

Although I have not yet travelled to any of the "developing nations",

the heartbreak of the injustice has stayed with me.

 

How can I contribute to change?

 

It is easy to turn a blind eye.

After all, there is a lot of need in our own neighborhoods.

But

is there something I can do?

 

I am working on it.

I have been thinking about:

 

One Laptop Per Child

 

because last year I discovered this educational experiment:

 

Can Kids Teach Themselves?

 

Could this be a powerful way to impact the developing world? 
What do you think?

 



Inquiry Resources

Oh my!  I LOVED the Project Based Learning 101 

that I have been participating in 

this week.
This video from High Tech High really explains the process and student progress in Project Based Learning.  This school works with the same training institute that did the Project Based Learning 101. 

There is SO much to share, so this will be my running resource list.  

Alberta Developed Inquiry Resource

Buck Institute Project Based Learning Blog

Elementary Project Based Learning Example: Monarch Butterflies Journey North

Framework for 21 Century Skills

mattering- Nicos Theodosakis

Calgary Science School

I will keep them coming when I have time to link them :)

What do you think about Project Based Learning?  Have you tried it?  Willing to share?

I have a big learning week ahead.  I am spending 4/5 of the days learning about designing authentic learning tasks.  I am hoping that this will move me forward toward my goal of implementing Inquiry Based Instruction. 

 

On Friday, I am privileged to see Nikos Theodosakis. Our superintendent forwarded us the link in September.  I forwarded it to one of my professors from my graduate studies.  She was also inspired and is adding it to the syllabus for one of her undergraduate courses.  Do you have a few minutes to check it out? 

 

What could we accomplish if we could just think outside the box? 

What do you think?

October 16 Reflections

Smart Learning: I have been working on my first sequence.  I have been using the book Prairie Fires in order to cover some Social, Language Arts, and Health Outcomes.  My main focus has been working with the first three boxes on the coaching card (who, what is happening, and feelings).  I want the students to become very familiar with these terms and concepts.  We have been modelling and practicing a lot through this first sequence.  We are also working on making powerful predictions, sharing, and partner talk. 

Inquiry Project:   I am currently building toward a larger project with smaller projects.  We have been thinking about pumpkins in grade one.  We have been learning about life cycles and the needs of plants.  On Friday we made a 3-D pumpkin that shows the stages of a pumpkin's life cycle.  Yesterday, we were able to make the connection that a life cycle is a pattern.  We also thought about other patterns in nature such as day and night.  I am hoping that students will begin to see more and more complex patterns as we continue thinking along these lines.  

There is a pumpkin in our room.  We are going to use our senses to explore different aspects of the pumpkin.  Although we do not have a specific end task product, we are working towards it through our modeled exploration in this first math science project.

Gender Based Differentiation: This goal has been my most challenging to implement of the three.  I really want to explore more active ways for male learners to engage in meeting outcomes, but I need to find ways to balance classroom management with these goals.  We brainstormed a number of good ideas in our Professional Learning Team time last week.  I need to continue to try these.  I also need to find authentic measures of engagement.  I have decided to stick with performance measures as my main method of data (how many letter sounds has the child mastered correlated with the methods of instruction used).   Enjoyment and visible engagement will be things that I monitor as well.

How are you doing with your professional goals?  Willing to share?  

Learning together we all excel :).

Happy Learning, 

Terri