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.