What's new in September?

I feel like there is a revolution happening in Education and I'm dying to be part of it!!! I'm talking about less and less teacher-led lessons and more and more innovative, creative, relevant, and engaging student-led projects. 

There is a fantastic TedxTalk by Brian Aspinall that talks about the importance of preparing our students for jobs that don't exist yet, since majority of our students will be working in jobs that aren't even created yet today! That really resonated with me - take a look at his video and you'll see what I mean! The following post is inspired by his talk. So here's what I'm going to be adding on in September so that I can try and better prepare our kids for the future. 

I have to admit though, sometimes my heads spin from these constant changes and trying to keep up with them all. I've had to learn to just pick a couple of things I want to read about and look further into or I'll drown in the abundance of info out there!

So here's some basic info and resources on each topic/idea I plan on adding. I hope you like it! Feel free to leave comments with additional ideas or resources!

Coding
I feel like I'm missing out on something - all I hear about is coding!!! I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I have done very little in my classroom with coding. I allow students to do coding during their "initiative period" (a period where they chose a project of their choice and work away at it!). Does that count? :)
I recently tuned into a #PubPD on Twitter where they talked about coding in the classroom. Click here for the link to the "storify" of the conversations had. 
When asked "why code" Scott McKenzie replied "Anyone can play a game, how much cooler and educational is it to design, develop and create your own game through code". (Click here to follow him on Twitter - he's got lots of neat ideas on coding in the classroom).

So, to keep it simple, here are a couple of websites kids (and teachers!) can play around with to learn about coding (for more details on coding, what it is, and how to get started visit my "Coding" page to the left!):

• Code.org & Hour of Code (great for beginners, especially students who can already read and teacher who want to learn more)
• Scratch (a great "next step"; requires basic knowledge of coding, good for students who have had some exposure)
• Coding in the Elementary Grades (a Google Site created by TDSB)
• Watch YouTube videos!
• **NEW**: "Beyond the Hour of Code" - Listen to this outstanding podcast by Sam Patterson to "learn how to use the newest tech tools to support learning in your classroom though programming" (description from podcast)

"Get children familiar to the idea of coding as a way of learning, not just as a video game" - said by Matthew Bernstein. I completely agree!

Makerspace
I've dedicated a separate page (here) just to talk about Makerspace, since, just like coding, it's an incredibly broad idea/topic.
What caught my eye about Makerspace is this idea about giving students a physical space to build! When students have an opportunity to do hands-on learning AND create something that was their own idea, you create permanent learning. Not just learning that they memorize for a test. You are providing students an opportunity to be entrepreneurs - how cool is that! Like coding, the idea of Makerspace is immense and you can do as little or as much as you like with it. You can dedicate a period a day, a week, or a month to it. 
Check out my Makerspace page for more ideas (there's a link to a free e-book there)! 
As for myself, I plan on using one of Sam Patterson's examples that I learned from his amazing podcast (see above). He talks about having students create puppets! So I thought, what a great idea for #BackToSchool! How fun would it be to have students create puppets of themselves then write about how they created them, show them videos perhaps of other students who have made puppets (as model texts/videos), and finally they could also create a video about their puppet and how they made it and publish it for the world to see! That's how I'm going to kick start this idea of a Makerspace in my class! 


Spiraling the Curriculum
Inspired by another great TedxTalk, this time by Kristin Phillips. She talks about how teaching in blocks, or these once/year units, doesn't create "sticky" learning. For instance, teaching fractions for 2 weeks a year isn't going to create permanent learning. The students may do great on a test right after the "block" of learning, but months later, would do they do just as well? And then what if for some reason the following year it isn't taught?
She suggests "returning to key concepts many times over the course of a year, not just in one yearly unit" (a quote from her Tedx Talk). As soon as I heard this, I thought... OF COURSE! DUH!!!! It sounds like common sense when you hear it out loud doesn't it?!?!?! 
So again, I'm not sure what that's going to look like in my classroom, but I'm hoping that the projects that the students will work on in class over the year will be diverse and layered enough that each time they will have to use various Math concepts to create and/or solve their projects. 

Brain Gym / Health & Wellness
Every year I introduce some type of "Brain Gym" to my class. Whether it's practicing sitting still for a minute or two after the bell, doing some gentle stretches or yoga, or doing actual Brain Gym. The feedback that the students have given me is extremely positive about this. In fact, if I forget it one day, they remind me, they ask for it! 
I highly recommend googling some of these exercises (you can get posters that go along with it). Each exercise serves a different purpose. Some are for concentration, others for connecting your left and right brain, others to wake you up, etc. So what I do is at the beginning of the year I teach them all the exercises and then each week we have two new Brain Gym leaders that lead the class in these activities after each break.
I have seen notable difference in children who had great difficulty with fine motor skills and whose writing therefore was very hard to read. Within weeks these students' writing improved significantly! How neat!!!
This year I'd like to incorporate more meditation and journaling of some sort in the class to provide students with some sort of outlet for their emotions. Even providing more class meetings might help as well. What do you do in your class to promote the well being of the kids? Would love to hear! 

Math
By far my biggest professional goal for September is to revamp my Math program. I will be taking Jo Boaler's Math course (click here to see more info about it), which I've heard will completely change the way I think about Math, and therefore how the students think about Math, which I'm SOO excited about!
Please check out her Ted Talk here to take a peak at where I'm heading. 
I will also be blogging about what I learn in her course, so stay tuned! 

To finish off, I want to leave you with a quote I once saw on Twitter, and I apologize, I can't find who wrote it anymore. But this summarizes how I feel and how I see this revolution in Education unfolding:

"If you are teaching your kids content that Siri can answer, they won't ever move of their parents' house."

A Revolutionary Way to Run a Class

I had the extreme fortune of attending the 2016 Google Summit in Kitchener, Ontario this past April.

WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!!!!!!

I had just returned from mat leave and was so inspired, I thought, I HAVE to get back to my blog and share what I've learned.

I could write a book about the myriad of tips and tricks I learned to improve my teaching and better the lives of the students in my class, but for now I will focus on just one.... drum roll please...

Edu Quest/French Quest, AKA:  Gaming. Differentiation at its finest. Students working at their own pace. No deadlines. No schedule. Engaging projects. Success for all.

This is the future of teaching my friends. THIS.

Talk about inquiry based learning at its finest. Let me paint you a picture: You walk into the classroom and EACH student is ACTIVELY engaged, excited, and passionate about EVERY project they're working on. There is collaboration, creativity, leadership, confidence, all in one place. There are hardly any behavioural problems. Sounds too good to be true? Let me explain.

EduQuest is an educational tool, a platform, that allows students to win badges. These badges can be earned alone, in partners, in groups, however they see fit. For example, in a French class, learning 250 new words on the Duolingo app is worth a badge. The student simply takes a snapshot of their screen, showing their username (proving it's them) and the amount of new words learned, and uploads it into their EduQuest account. Once the teacher sees this, s/he approves it and the student has earned a badge! So fun! So easy!

There are also no deadlines. Only when a project is done (and both student and teacher agree it is done to the best of the students' ability) will it be submitted. Whether it takes a day, a week, or a month. "WHAT!" I yelled out during the presentation at the Google Summit. "How do you assess the students then?" I asked the founder, Erica Armstrong. "It all depends on how much support your students need. If they needed your guidance every step of the way, you assess them accordingly. Plus, you know your students best."

This made so much sense to me! You are setting students up for success! There are no rubrics, no useless feedback (not that all feedback is useless, don't get me wrong, but it has to be done very effectively and in a timely fashion for it to be constructive), no "next time I encourage you to...". There is no "next time". This is it, and because they have chosen the project they're working on, because they're passionate about it, they will do what it takes to make it as good as they can. It will be done according to THEIR personal "best". 

Additionally, there is no daily schedule. Students come in to class, they pick a badge or project they are working on, and get to work. Again, because students are picking projects they want to be working on, there is no "slacking" or "wasting time". 

Carrying out this new, innovative, and exciting platform in a class, while also trying to cover the curriculum, can be a challenge, but it is a challenge that I am willing to face and learn from. 
I would love to hear other people's thoughts, or if you've tried it in your class, please share! What I imagine my class to look like, is that I'd set up guidelines. For example, I may tell students they have to do a certain amount of badges in Math/French/Writing, etc. by the end of the Month. I'm not sure! I will learn as I go! 

What I do know is that this is the future of teaching. Student can literally work on anything they want. Learning is fun and it's real. They can take a passion and bring it to life, whether it's interviewing someone and making a TedTalk about it, then getting it published online, or building the latest app - what an experience! 

The program costs a bit of money, but it something I am willing to pay even out of my own pocket. It is SO worth it. I believe it's $10 a month or $100 for the school year. You can set up a whole class with that. 

To learn more about Edu Quest and French Quest please click on the following links:

• EduQuest.ca
• FrenchQuest.ca
• Facebook link

To contact Erica Armstrong, the founder:

• Twitter: @ms_e_a
• Email: ericaleearmstrong@gmail.com

Please note that everything here is strictly my opinion. I did not get paid to talk about this program. I merely believe in it and what it can do for the future of our classrooms. 

A must-see documentary

In teacher's college we were always told that one of the most important ideas behind teaching is to let the students do their own learning - that is, it is easy for us as teachers to give them the answers, but it's when they work hard themselves to get to the answer that true and permanent learning will unfold. That is why I encourage any teacher, parent, child, family, to consider watching the documentary "One Clip at a Time". It is an extremely moving story based on the fact that one student, had one question, and his teacher allowed it to be turned into a project that would quickly become international. The story behind the film is about an 8th grade class studying the Holocaust. One of the students asked the question "What does 6 million look like?" This questions turned into a school-wide project of collecting 6 million paperclips to represent every person lost during the Holocaust. 
To me this is an incredibly inspiring story and a beautiful reminder to all teachers of how amazing our job is, and how amazing it is that we have this ability and opportunity to influence young minds, IF, we let them. If you chose to watch the film, please feel free to post any comments below.

Here is the link to the preview and official website
Here is the link to "like" the project on Facebook

Beating Summer Learning Loss

Studies have shown that students lose between one and two months' worth of academic knowledge each summer (see interesting article from Edutopia). How can you beat this? Here are 8 ways to use Edmodo over the summer to keep students engaged and learning, and for some creative ways for teachers to stay connected as well (for the full article click here). 


1. Create an Edmodo summer camp
2. Get involved with Edmodo reading groups
3. Participate in a concept study (for teachers)
4. Create an alumni group
5. Have students create Science projects
6. Engage your new students (if you already know who your students will be)
7. Host Professional Development Sessions (for teachers)
8. Contact new teachers (for teachers)

The debate of course is, do students and teachers actually need the break? Should teachers keep in touch with students over the summer or is it OK to take the break and disconnect? What are the pros and cons of keeping schools open year-round (the above article from Edutopia discusses this in more depth)?
Would love to hear your thoughts! 

What will you do over the summer?

What will you do this summer? I know I started a list back in January already of "will get to this in the summer"... Here is a great article that gives 10 suggestions for each teacher to do over the summer (for the original article click here):

1. We all know the temptation to start planning for next year, but take a break from everything teaching for one week. Two. Maybe an entire month. You’ll be better when you come back to it.
2. Read a book that’s just for grown-ups.
3. If you have your own kids, let them plan one wandering, wild, carefree day. The kind that’s hard to have when there are piles of paper to grade.
4. Whether or not you have kids, plan one of those days yourself!
5. Take this challenge: Go to Target and buy NOTHING for your classroom. Can you do it?
6. Make an investment in your professional life that matters to you. Maybe that’s taking a course on a topic you’ve always wanted to learn about. Maybe it’s catching up on this year’s Newbery winners. Whatever your interests, the summer is time for professional development on your terms.
7. Make it a goal to connect with a colleague you don’t know very well or with whom you haven’t always seen eye to eye. A summer barbecue or coffee outing is a nice opportunity to get to know one another outside of school walls—and established teacher cliques.
8. Work on a “feel good file” that reminds yourself about the good parts of your job. Include thank you notes from students, inspirational quotes, that mantra from your favorite teaching professor—whatever makes you think, “Yes. This is why I teach.”
9. As soon as you get that new class list, reach out to every student on it and say hello. You don’t have to do anything fancy or “Pinterest-worthy”—a simple phone call does the trick. (And may be the most important step in setting yourself up for success next year!)
10. Remember, summer break is like New Year’s Eve for teachers—grand expectations can lead to disappointment. It’s okay if you don’t read every book, finish every house project or cut out every last decoration for next year’s bulletin boards. It’s okay if you don’t have a traditional summer break or are working a second job, too. The next few months will still be filled with small, simple joys. Look out for them!
    
    
    
    
    
    

FREE tutorials for variety of web tools

Are you overwhelmed by the million different types of online tools available to you? Not sure where or HOW to begin? Wait no more!!! Here is a link with fantastic beginner's guides to a variety of common online tools such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and more. My suggestion would be to focus on one thing at a time or you will get overwhelmed. Don't worry about the fact that other people keep track of 10 blogs a day, post 20 tweets by 9am, or have created 8 new boards on Pinterest each week... there will always be someone who does more. So do what works for YOU! :) Enjoy!

Inspiring Stories BY kids For kids

A couple of weeks ago I planned a unit on Biographies (French). Our motto for the unit is "Inspire, and be inspired". The goal of the unit is for the kids to interview someone inspiring in their lives, and to write a short Biography on them. 

To start, I wanted to expose them to a variety of Biographies - not just any kind, but ones that they could relate to as 9 and 10 year-olds. I found an absolutely phenomenal website that does just that! Even though all the stories are in English, we discuss them in French. The website, called Inspire My Kids focuses on a wide variety of topics, such caring, fairness, compassion, responsibility, etc. It contains a wide database of inspiring stories and videos of people from all ages. 

This website, I'm sure, can be used in many, many different ways. Please let me know if you have used it and in what ways. 

Enjoy!