Inspiring Students

May 13, 2019May 13, 2019 Kelly.McLaughlin 21st Century Learning, Celebrating Success, Constant Learning, Curriculum Planning, Differentiated Instruction, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Learning in a Real Life Context, Making a Difference Through Education, Professional Learning and Growth, Resources, self reflection, Technology in school, Use of Technology, Using technology well

Collaborative Inquiry Celebration

The other day, many teachers from across my school board gathered together to share with other educators how their year long inquiry project went. As I have mentioned in previous posts, mine was about starting our own business as a class and inspiring my students through leadership. I shared with the other educators these successful stories from our project “8A TREATS”:

how many of my less successful students with traditional subjects have been excelling during this project
the success my students had with gathering data from classes around the school
collecting permission forms from the entire school
advertising by making imovies, posters and using a dinosaur mascot to travel around with a fake smoothie
tallying the smoothie results for flavours and sizes with spreadsheets
counting and tracking the money with spreadsheets
find and then order paper straws from Amazon to be environmentally friendly
working with a budget that was donated from the student success foundation
designing logos as a class, voting on the best one and then collaborating with a clothing design company to recreate this on their products
painting and creating a wall in our classroom that will be the location behind our brand
creating a video to explain the project as well as talk about our favourite parts

(<<<our student create wall)

Our next steps with our project:

doing the math to find out how much of each ingredient we will now (plus extra) to make the smoothies
ordering the cups
setting up our classroom as a pop-up smoothie store
making 340+ smoothies on June 6th with our 22 students

It was very exciting sharing this project with my fellow educators. My students were very excited knowing that this project was shared with other teachers. They were proud when I told them how excited other teachers were to find out about this student centered initiative.

There were other educators who shared exciting inquiry projects:

My colleague Lydia shared about her “Community Helpers” project where her grade one students inquired in various ways about the many community helpers in our neighbourhood. She had a guest police officer come by as well as had the students use their hands to explore various jobs. They were able to build, play with food as well as research all of the jobs available to them. The final touch was when my grade eight class came to help them put their thoughts together in an inquiry package. It was great to see her students so passionate about their future. To find out about her project, you can visit her twitter account @AppolonialydiaL. You can also view her project on this link <iframe class=”wp-block-mexp-vimeo hwdsb-tv” src=”//hwdsb.tv/media/grade-one-collaborative-inquiry-2019/?embed=true” width=”560″ height=”315″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
Teachers used a choice board to give students options when creating or completing tasks. These boards are made in collaboration with the teacher at the beginning of the year to go over all of the ways that presenting or completing every day tasks can be done that year. Apps are explored and used in new and innovative ways. I cannot wait to create a choice board in my literacy class next year. There was also a SAMR model student choice matrix that was introduced to us. It’s not the app that makes the project/task, it is how it’s used.
I also heard about makerspaces from one of my other colleagues Cara. She introduces these daily in her library and students are able to create very interesting projects from her instruction cards set up at the tables. They are always able to be creative, explore and build in her library. They also explore media literacy during these creative library sessions.

There were many other projects I could not get to since we only had a half hour to explore and the other half hour was to share about our own projects. Some other apps worth checking out are: seesaw, read&write, book creator, keynote, canva, geogebra, TC studio and pear deck.

May 3, 2019 Michelle Fenn 21st Century Learning, Advocacy for change, Building Inclusion, Coding, Constant Learning, Equity, Gender Equity, Gender stereotypes, General, Genius Hour, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Integration, Learning in a Real Life Context, Making a Difference Through Education, Math, Mentorship, Modern Learning, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth, Resilience, Resources, Robotics, Technology, Technology in school, The Global Competencies, Use of Technology, Using technology well, Women at Work

The Gender Gap in Technology

According to a recent report* by ICTC (the Information and Technology Information Council) Canadian women represent about 50% of the overall workforce but represent only 25% of the technology industry workforce. Of the 100 major tech companies in Canada only 5 have female CEOs and 1 Co-CEO. 26% of the tech companies have no women in senior leadership at all. There is a gender wage gap in the industry of $7,000-$20,00 per year. When I read these statistics I wondered as educators, what can we do about the gender gap in technology? This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a place to begin:

1. Build her confidence in her abilities.

2. Cultivate a community of supportive peers.

3. Provide a STEM/STEAM club for girls.

4. Ensure that access to technology and computer experiences is encouraged and inclusive.

5. Foster interest in computing careers.

6. Be a role model as a LEARNER.

May 11th is National Girls Learning Code Day. If you are looking to encourage coders in your school, why not begin on May 11th? Below you will find links to resources for beginning coding. Many students code on their own at home and may appreciate the opportunity to mentor fellow students. The resources attached will get you started. There is no special equipment or robotics required. Teachers do not have to be expert coders to encourage their students. Teachers can be role models of resilience, risk taking and problem solving by learning alongside their students. Teachers only need to open the door and expose their students to the opportunities.

Girls Who Code Canada

National Girls Learn Code Day

*Cutean, A., Ivus, M. (2017). The Digital Talent Dividend: Shifting Gears in a Changing Economy. Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). Ottawa, Canada.

Elaborated and written by Alexandra Cutean (Director, Digital Innovation Research and Policy). and Maryna Ivus (Senior Analyst, Research and Policy) with generous support from the ICTC Research and Policy Team.

April 14, 2019 Kelly.McLaughlin Celebrating Success, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Teacher Appreciation

Prom Project Hamilton

On Saturday, April 13th at Delta High school in Hamilton, the Prom Project held an amazing event. This event is supported by the same foundation who gave my students our grant for our inquiry project, the Hamilton Foundation for Student Success.

The Prom Project allows students to pick out outfits free of charge to wear to their upcoming school events such as grad or prom. There were thousands of dresses, suits, shoes, accessories, hair stylists, make up artists and even on site seamstresses to help kids who needed their pants hemmed or their dresses taken in. I was able to volunteer at this amazing event along with many other teachers, principals and other adults from around Hamilton. The event was record breaking with almost 500 students walking away with new outfits. These outfits help increase their confidence knowing that they will have an outfit to wear to these events.

Among those 500 students who received outfits were 12 students from my own school. With the help of the prom project volunteers, the boys and girls found outfits that were their size, got these outfits altered and even left with their hair and makeup done. They received a swag bag full of helpful treats for their lives such as soap and other beauty products. It was awesome to see all the community partners there who donated their time, products and style capabilities to make the event the success it was.

You can still volunteer for the May 4th event by visiting http://www.promprojecthamilton.ca/. Follow the hashtags #PPH2019 and #promprojecthamilton for more info about the event. Pictured below is myself along with six students from my school who went home with Copley suits, Michael Kors suits and much more! An amazing event that really benefited so many children in our city!

April 6, 2019April 6, 2019 Kim Cousin 21st Century Learning, Advocacy for change, Advocacy for public education, Black History Month, Building Inclusion, Celebrating Success, Equity, Gender stereotypes, Genius Hour, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Literacy, Math, Science, Social Justice, Women at Work

Social Advocate through Children’s Story

While many are marching to show the Ford Government our thoughts about the budget cuts, I am reflecting on how we can safely ride out this storm. As a Social Advocate for equal rights and positive outcomes for our children and this world, I am with my sisters and brothers at Queens Park today in spirit and via social media. I find myself planning ways to help the education team and students get through this next tumultuous time while supporting each other and focusing on self care. #ETFOstrong

This week I was privileged to be part of an audience engaged by the “beautiful” and talented writer, Helaine Becker. http://www.helainebecker.com/abouttheauthor.html

She presented to our school community to Grades 4-8 and then to Grades K-4. I always enjoy an inspiring hero and artist who can inform and bring all those social justice issues that I am passionate about to the forefront with the power of words and books.

I am a woman science and mathematics teacher. This book excites me. It encompasses so many issues that I am passionate about. “Counting on Katherine” tells the story of Katherine Johnson and the societal blocks she faced through her life. She faced racism and sexism at every turn yet never stopped believing in herself. This story brings the truth to us about how she improved the world. She is one of the many previously unknown hero’s of my time.

During the very “beautiful” and talented Helaine’s presentation, I found myself and the school population, captivated with her presentation. She spoke of so many subjects which excite me. These topics open opportunities and possibilities for the many I educate. Helaine spoke of how she wrote about feminism, racism and suppression. She included topics of mathematics, science, space, and the “power of the pen”. She introduced the dream of writing to many during her amazing and dynamic presentation of her children’s books.

Thank you, Helaine for introducing me to another hero. I will now share Katherine Johnson’s story with many for years to come.

March 13, 2019 Michelle Fenn Combined Grade Classes, Curriculum Planning, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, General, Inspiring Students, Language Learning, Planning, Start of the year, The Daily 5

Chime and Chant Language Learning

When I was in the Faculty of Education one of my Associate Professors was Jean Malloch, author of “Chime In” and other professional teaching resources. I learned from her the importance of rhythm and rhyme in the early acquisition of language. I also love to read and write poetry. While growing up my sisters shared their own love of the poetry of Ogden Nash and Dennis Lee. These poets formed the beginning repertoire of poetry that I have shared with my students over the years with the addition of poets Shel Silverstein, Ken Nesbitt and Loris Lesyinski to name a few.

At the beginning of the school year when teaching in the primary grades, I would create a ‘Chime and Chant’ duo tang for students with two or three poems about September, fall, school and character. Each week during the school year we would add a new poem. Sometimes it was just because they were fun to read and perform. Other times they were connected to our topics of study. We worked together reading these poems chorally in different ways: call and answer, parts attributed to groups of students, leaving out the last word of the line and having the students chime in as well as reading with actions, different types of voices and dramatic effects. These short poems also provided opportunities for me to teach beginning reading strategies such as word prediction, reading word families and segmenting words. We would practice our poetry daily and often the students would have the majority of the poetry memorized by the end of the week. Sometimes while standing and waiting during a transition time we would chant a familiar poem together without even using our duo tangs. We would take poems apart, mix them up, change the words and use the poems to identify word families, commonly used words and word endings. Students would increase their fluency in reading and add to their vocabulary. We stored our poetry books in the student’s book bags and which ensured that when students went to their independent reading time they always had something that they could read independently. When students partner read they would often choose to read poems chorally. When students read to their grade four buddies they would proudly show off their reading skills with their Chime and Chant books. As some students soared in their reading, they would choose some of the poems that they wanted added to their Chime and Chant books independently or I would provide some new more challenging poems during their guided reading time. As the year progressed, the Chime and Chant books became more personalized. We would still chant some of our favourite poems together and I would still share a poem a week but students but less emphasis was placed on the whole class process as they gained their own reading strategies.

Beginning writing in the primary grades can be daunting for some students. I used poetry writing to provide structures that were easily accessible for beginning writers. Diamanté, list, free form and fill in the blank poetry structures were among some of the formats that we used. When I taught students to write poetry we would create shared poems with the structure for a number of days and generate word charts to provide students with familiar vocabulary to reference in order to scaffold the learning and when they were ready, the students would put their own poems together. After writing the poetry students would then practice reading their poetry, add actions and dramatic effects and then present their poems chorally in front of the class or create a video of their reading. Some went further and created green screen effects to add to their poetry presentations. Poetry generated student evidence of learning for reading, writing and oral communication. It provided a routine and structure to a part of our day that was comfortable for the students and fostered their learning. Poetry provides shared reading and writing opportunities in a format that is comfortable for children and doesn’t overwhelm them.

February 17, 2019 Kim Cousin Assessment, Building Inclusion, Challenging Topics, Classroom Layouts, Combined Grade Classes, Constant Learning, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Flexible Classroom, General, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Interviews, Learning About Your Students, Math, Planning, Play-Based Learning, Questioning, Resources, Students as Teachers

Create Success in Intermediate Math through Play….

“What are you doing in Math today?” the VP inquires of my grade 5,6,7 and 8 students.

“We’re playing games.”

“You’re playing games?”

“Yes, we always play in math.”

The assessments gathered from these classes provide me insight of where everyone is in their learning. My experience with assessments are that individual conversations to understand the thinking process provides the most valuable information. The range of each of my classes is from a low elementary level to a low secondary level. This is quite a span. As a school we have been, “Landscaping” these students using; Fosnots– Landscape of Learning. http://thelearningexchange.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Creating-Conditions-for-Learning-Math-Viewers-Guide.pdf This provides an great snapshot of where your learners are on a continuum. Our board has developed some very specific assessment questions for all grade levels which include strategic numbers to help determine the strategies individuals use.

How do I managed this?

It took me a while with the continuous disruptions to the daily routine. The way, I have adopted my assessment sessions this year is similar to how a reading group would be managed. Provide the lesson, give the class expectations, then work with a small group on a rotating basis. The entire class already understands the rules and class expectations which have been familiar routines followed to date.

Now what?

I find creating a growth mindset is most important. This is developed through creating a comfort zone for all, including the teacher. Each year I am challenged to ensure my learners grow and develop forward on the continuum. I use a variety of resources such as Sherry Parrish’s-Number Talks http://www.meaningfulmathmoments.com/number-talks.html This is a great beginning to each class.

I resource Dr. Small’s-Big Ideas https://search.library.utoronto.ca/details?7785153&uuid=5d3e7d21-dfef-4e3a-a3d3-9f33f13418b9 for different activities to compliment the concept of study.

Presently I am using, From Patterns to Algebra, by Dr. Beatty and Dr. Bruce https://school.nelson.com/from-patterns-to-algebra-book/

Play, yes these resources include play which I implement on a regular basis. The students enjoy learning with and from each other while I guide them. During my classes, Play creates a class dynamic for success.

February 3, 2019 Michelle Fenn 21st Century Learning, Classroom Management, Combined Grade Classes, Curriculum Planning, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Integration, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy

Non Fiction vs. Fiction?

The majority of what I read and write daily is non fiction. If I were to attach a statistic to it, I would hazard to say that 95% of what I read and write on a daily basis is non fiction. I like to write poetry and narratives too but I seldom have the time to do that and it is only for pleasure. I read fiction daily too. I read about 2 to 10 pages each night before falling asleep with my kindle on my chest. Many years ago I was introduced to the work of Tony Stead at a Reading for the Love of It conference. It changed my practice as a teacher forever. Tony made me realize that almost all of my classroom library was filled with fiction, all of my class read alouds were fiction and the majority of the writing that my students were doing was fiction in some form or another. I was not exposing them to enough non-fiction text and I was not preparing them for adult literacy. Using “Is that a Fact?” by Tony Stead and “Reading with Meaning” by Debbie Miller I began to create a literacy program for my primary classroom that had a much stronger focus on non fiction. I also began using my Scholastic book order money to augment my classroom library with nonfiction texts whenever possible.

I began explicitly teaching how to not only use, but to create non fiction text. This focus engaged those readers who had struggled most. There is far more information that can be read and synthesized through pictures in non fiction texts which enables all students, including the struggling readers, to contribute to discussions and make sense of text. Curiosity drove students to have a purpose for reading and authentic purpose is everything. We created “Wonderboxes”, an idea from Debbie Miller of small recipe boxes filled with index cards where students wrote down their questions and wonders. It wasn’t labeled inquiry teaching at that point, but in retrospect it is what we were doing. The students also created “Non Fiction Text Feature Notebooks” in which they designed illustrations that demonstrated the function of the various non fiction text features. More recently my grade 4 and 5 students used a screen casting app called Explain Everything in order to create short videos explaining non fiction text features. After learning what these text features were used for, students were able to interact with non fiction texts more efficiently to find what they needed. In addition, they began using these text features in their own writing, especially when uploading to blogs and creating Google Slide presentations.

I still value the world of fiction-especially for read alouds. I know the magic of getting lost in a book or a better yet a book series and I want my students to have that experience too. Being able to connect with another person over the topic of a book that has been thoroughly enjoyed is why book clubs and literature circles exist. However, I am also aware that it isn’t for everyone. A few years ago a colleague admitted to me that she had never enjoyed novel read alouds as a student because she just couldn’t visualize what was happening in the story in her own head. For whatever reason she was unable to provide the running movie that went along with the narration from the teacher. My first reaction was, “How sad!” but then I began to wonder just how many students I have taught over the years that felt exactly the same. My literacy program became a more balanced diet of fiction and non fiction. I encourage you to look through your own classroom library and review the read alouds that you have planned for the school year and take stock of how much of it is non fiction. You just may want to augment your classroom literary diet with something that includes diagrams, labels and a glossary.

February 3, 2019 Kelly.McLaughlin 21st Century Learning, Celebrating Success, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Learning in a Real Life Context, Literacy, Math, Questioning, The Arts

Inquiry Project

As part of a board focus group I am involved with, I am exploring along with a group of six other teachers, the inquiry model in the classroom. Each group that has gathered together to focus on inquiry looks at how it works in their classroom in a different way. My group has selected questioning. We are looking at how and if students select better questions, they will become more successful.

I just recently came back from Disney this Christmas break and I was overwhelmed with the many posts on instagram telling me what cool food I could find at literally every inch of the parks. There were so many options and I had to try them all and take pictures of them all. This has been an interest of mine for some time now, finding a really cool looking item of food and taking a picture with it. I came home from the trip feeling inspired and thinking, I can explore this phenomenon with my class of motivated grade eight students.

At first I posed it to them as a question, what are the most trending items right now on instagram. They came up with a huge list and then I made them create the questions. They came up with a few deep questions: Why do things trend? What makes an item trend-worthy? How can we explore a trending item in our classroom? What item could we produce as a class? It took us a while to get there but we figured out that it would be cool to market a food item as a class and then create it and sell it.

Since we were just finishing up our data management unit, we talked about how can we gather results from our student body about what item would be a hit in our school? First, we asked our office staff for advice about this exciting project. We were given the okay to market and sell an item as long as proper food handling techniques were followed. We then talked about what are the top six trending food items right now? We came up with six as a class: donuts, cookies, cupcakes, bubble tea, smoothies and the Harry Potter beverage. My students paired up, created a google survey and added all these options to the survey. They emailed every teacher in the school setting up meeting times to survey their class.

Before we analyzed our results, on our inquiry wall we came up with ways our project hits every subject we study. We talked about the literacy connections to marketing, advertisements, etc. We talked about art connections when designing logos, posters, maybe even creating a wall that would be a backdrop for a cool photo with our finished product. We talked about math connections when coming up with the cost of the item, the cost of ingredients, the profit calculations, etc. We made large lists for each subject so we can see how wide this one small question covers.

We have now gathered all our results and the top choice for our school was smoothies. We have now created a list of what to do next. It is on our inquiry wall along and our team leaders will check off our ideas as we complete them.

I would love to say we work on this six periods a day, which we very well could since it covers many expectations in each subject, however, grade eight is such a huge year that there is always so many other things that we have to be working on. Currently, we work on this project one period a day. We have 25 entries for logo ideas, 10 entries for company name and probably over 100 smoothie ideas. We will be narrowing down our choices on Monday.

I will keep you all posted on our progress! It is turning out to be a great project and the engagement level is incredibly high. We all sit around the back inquiry board and the hands that go up for ideas during this project are not up for any other time of day. My students are excited about the possibilities that this project presents. It is fun turning over everything to the kids and seeing how it all ends up!

January 29, 2019January 29, 2019 Arianna Lambert Inspiring Students, Mindfulness

Bell Let’s Talk Day – Helping to End the Stigma in Classrooms

Tomorrow is Bell Let’s Talk Day. Through powerful stories and campaigns on social media, now more than ever individuals are working towards ending the stigma surrounding mental illness. When we begin these conversations in classrooms, we start to help students develop empathy and who become more aware and eager to join the fight. It’s during this time every year that I wanted to ensure that if on no other day – and the conversation needs to happen on other days – we spoke about mental health.

In years past, as a class we worked towards understanding different strategies that help to improve our mental health and wellbeing. And while particular strategies worked best for some, each person really needed to work on identifying what tools or strategies worked best for themselves. By exposure to a variety of tools – mindful colouring, journaling, emotion check-ins, meditations, and more – students were asked to consider how each of these tools or strategies made them feel and whether or not they found them useful as a means of helping them through challenging situations. The strategies that worked, they were asked to keep and the others could be discarded. Through conversations, students were able to understand the importance of mental health and that sometimes without being aware of our levels of stress and/or our abilities to handle the stress, we are all susceptible to experiencing challenges with our own mental health.

With this background knowledge, I found that students were the ones who would often initiate the work we did in the school and classroom to support initiatives like Bell Let’s Talk Day. Using some of the resources in the Toolkit, students: hung up the posters and created their own; modified the PSAs and included facts that they found; used the template to create powerful poems and other writings in support; and with my help used this template to draft tweets that we posted.

Students want to have a positive impact on the world. Using issues that are current and relevant as part of the learning happening in the classroom allows them to have a platform to share their thoughts and ideas with others and to see themselves as real change makers. Tomorrow is #BellLetsTalk. How will you and your students get involved in this very important conversation?

January 2, 2019 Michelle Fenn 21st Century Learning, Coding, Constant Learning, Inquiry, Inspiring Students, Inspiring Teachers, Integration, Learning in a Real Life Context, Modern Learning, Resilience, Robotics, Technology, Technology in school, The Global Competencies, Use of Technology, Using technology well

Coding with Microbits

Twice I have attended the Ontario Teachers’ Federation “Pedagogy before Technology” conference in the summer. This year I attended a design workshop that the InkSmith company provided and would never have been able to predict the chain of events that would follow. In the workshop we were grouped with people at our table to come up with a design concept and present it in the manner of a “Dragon’s Den” pitch. As we discussed the concept and made diagrams on chart paper, I put the visuals together in a small Google Slide presentation and added an entertaining video. I have my drama specialist and I’m not afraid to ham it up in front of a crowd. When it came time for the presentation we wowed the InkSmith team and ended up presenting to the entire group. We then went to lunch and I didn’t really think too much more about it. However, because I had so loudly and visibly put myself out there in an entertaining way, I was contacted by the team at InkSmith and then connected with kidscodejeunesse team. Kids Code is a federally funded program that helps students learn to code. They provide free workshops to classrooms across the country using handheld, programmable micro-computers called micro:bits. The coding program is web based and is in the blockly format but can also be switched to html for more advanced coders. When a workshop is provided to a classroom, the teacher is provided with ten microbits for the class to use and keep. You can visit the website kidscodejeunesse to sign up for a workshop for your classroom.

This is the microbit connected to a battery pack.

Kids Code Jeunesse provided me with training and as part of my job as an innovations consultant, I now go into classrooms within my school board to deliver workshops to students. The only coding that I had done up to this point was with Spheros and Ozobots which was quite rudimentary. I am now immersed into the coding culture. Which means that sometimes my kitchen counter looks like this:

It was a little out of my comfort zone to be sure. As I have gone into classrooms I have admitted to students that I’m not an expert on microbit technology and I have learned from some of the students that have been engaged in complex coding on their own time. With a quick conversation with the classroom teacher I can usually make some decisions around differentiating the program to keep students engaged.

You might be wondering what it is these little computers can do. The LED lights on the front can be programmed to light up in patterns which create animations. Students can create dice or rock, paper, scissors games and with a few alligator clips and a small speaker or headphones, microbits can be programmed to create music. With a little innovation and some adaptation it can be programmed to water plants automatically or become a pedometer. It can also be paired with a robot called K8 which can be purchased from Inksmith and assembled. The microbit website itself is where the coding takes place and it has easy to follow tutorials and ideas for projects to code.

The initial workshop is only the beginning. The only limit to these little computers is the limits of your student’s imagination. Microbits would be incredibly useful in a maker space or genius hour environment. The students develop design and critical thinking skills and problem solving techniques as they create and de-bug programs. It is an amazing way to introduce coding to students-especially if you are a teacher who is brand new to coding. Be warned: coding is extremely engaging and you and your students may have an inordinate amount of fun while learning.