My Blog in a Wordle

I thought it would be interesting to take the content of my blog and put it into a worldle......

Teacher Professional Growth Plan

I’ve really been struggling with what I want my TPGP to look like since I don’t know where I will be next year and what I’ll be doing. I really would like part of my TPGP to develop at least one inquiry project next year, but since there is a good chance I might be subbing I may not be able to achieve this plan. If I’m subbing or if I have a classroom I think my TPGP would look very different. What I’ve decided to do is to develop goals from now until the end of August.
Reading:
In February I purchased three books and I have not had the time to read them. My first goal is to read these three books by the end of August.
1. Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level, by Sally Shaywitz
2. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the reading Brain, by Maryanne Wolf
3. Reading Power: Teaching Students to Think While They Read, by Adrienne Gear

Online Course:
At the student led conference I had a conversation with Bill Belsay about his online course at www.bullying.org and I’m very interested in developing an understanding of the causes and practical strategies to prevent and deal with bullying. My goal is to complete this course by end of August.

Work at maintaining relationships:
I have made some amazing friends here in the MT program and as I look at moving back to Manitoba I know that there are many people I will miss. I also know that maintaining friendships are not always easy, especially when you are two provinces away. When I moved from Winnipeg to Calgary I lost a few friends just because we fell out of contact and I don’t want that to happen again. If I do move it is my goal to make time to maintain my Calgary friendships.

The Student Inquiry Projects

Egypt: What's the Big Deal?

For the Student Inquiry project I work with the same group and the Great Task assignment. One of our struggles with the Great Task was how quickly our ideas grew and the "Task" became huge. I think it was really valuable for us to continue on with the task and turn it into a project. We did have some of the some issues with idea overflow. I am not saying this is a negative thing, but we did have to remind ourselves what our objectives were.

One question we came across was how do you find the "end" for a project that involves current issues especially because you can't predict the future with these real world events. I think as a group we decided that it is important to gauge the level of engagement with the students and use that as your guide, and potentially you may need to allow this to be a part of classroom conversation for a significant portion of the school year. I think I need to acknowledge that the thought of that scares me (just a bit).

Another aspect of this process that I need to acknowledge is how beneficial it was to work in this team. I think all of our great ideas came from sharing individual ideas and building on them as a group. I hope that this is something a continue to do well into my teaching career. I think I have begun to establish a relatively strong network of peers and mentors that I will hopefully will be able to collaborate with even I move back to Manitoba.

This has proven to be yet another remarkable experience where I have been able to pull together many of the big ideas we hear able during our time on campus and finally got an opportunity to put it into practice.

Thank you Michele.

Assessment for Student Engaged Learning with Amy Park and Candace Saar

Purpose of assessment:
To find out where learners are
To understand where you need design tasks to develop or build understanding.
To provide ongoing feedback for:
student, parent, teacher
Assessment should be ongoing and informal

Research to investigate further:
John Haddy
Feedback loops can improve student achievement by to 2 grade levels.

A question was asked: How do we avoid students just settling for mediocre work?
Using a rubric on an ongoing basis and not just at the end of a task increases a desire for excellence.
Students hold each other accountable for producing quality work.

“We need to realize important work takes a long time.”

“Engaged students will care more about that work rather than the grade.”

When involving students in peer feedback we should ask if their feedback is hurtful or helpful and how can we make comments helpful.

Rubrics don’t always have to be for big projects.
A rubric could be used for assessing behavior. (eg. carpet behavior)
These rubrics could be used to give students practice at creating rubric and using rubrics for self assessment.


A question that came to me when reflecting on the learning and conversation from this class:
When students are not used to having a choice with their learning how do we guide them when we provide them with a choice?