Happy Anniversary!!

So.  Once again it is time to drag myself out of the abyss of non-blogging.  It's been about a year without a post.  Let's get to it!


Quick Back-to-School Thoughts

After a few weeks off, it usually takes a bit longer than I would like to get back into things.  However, this year felt... different.  I suppose that in a way, I felt a lot less in control than I would have preferred to be.  And I don't mean that as a complaint, but it definitely had an impact on my mindset as I started to put plans together for the upcoming year.

Among the many changes taking place at our school and within our district is a huge re-evaluation of our assessment practices.  There are and have been a great many educators the world over who have been looking at how we grade our students and that discussion has been going on in a big way right here.

'Oh Arrested Development'...

It's difficult to really sum up some of my feelings because I think I'm still processing a lot of stuff.  It's a combination of wanting to retain things that have worked for me as a student and a teacher, a genuine desire to make needed adjustments and changes, and skepticism at some of the things I'm seeing.  And it sometimes feels very personal because it cuts to the core of how I teach and how I operate in my classroom.  It's... very complicated and that feeling grows when you realize that so many within education are going through the same process of trying to figure it out.

Here's a couple points of what I know about what will be happening this year, no doubt grossly over-simplified:

• we will be emphasizing clearly worded outcomes from the provincial curriculum
• we will be shifting towards using a 4-point scale to evaluate performance based on said outcomes
• we will be moving away from practices that don't address actual achievement (i.e. participation, no late marks, etc) 
• we will continue to look for ways to provide community-based support to students through CRM and greater teacher collaboration

There are a host of other changes that will be a part of this whole process.  I expect there will be some bumps along the way but I am always humbled and encouraged to work with the teachers that I do who share many of the same questions but also the same passion for teaching.

More to come...


I Tried Something New!

The first couple of days of can sometimes be a bit of a slog.  For a decade, I began my classes in the same way I imagine most teachers did: we went through the course outline.  However, I really wanted to be able to go over the same material and classroom setup in a more engaging way.  But what could I come up with on my own?

Enter Twitter.

I think I was perusing my feed late one evening when I came across a post from John Meehan (@MeehanEDU) that really piqued my interest.  In essence, he turned his course outline and syllabus into a welcome back game.  He took a lot of the clerical elements that would have been normally addressed and divided them up into separate stations where kids would assemble the supplies that they would need to begin their journey... things like getting signed up on Remind, Google Classroom, and completing introduction surveys.  It was awesome!!

It didn't take too much effort to adapt his great work to what I needed.  When the first day came, I was able to spend WAAAYYY less time going over the important but sometimes boring details and get to some actual fun.

Students busy completing their character sheets.

Some students worked on their own and others formed into groups based on the activity.

I was grateful to be able to bring in some more gamification into my instruction at such a crucial time: that first impression can really set the tone for what the year will be.  Thank you, John Meehan.


My New Ear-Worm

I went with my family to Edmonton over the Labour Day weekend and got to spend some time with one of my best friends who also works in education.  While there, I was introduced to a channel on YouTube that has become quite popular in our home since returning.

Pomplamoose Music.

This one has been one of our favourites.

~Mr.T

P.S.  Obviously, I'm going to try to do a better job posting regularly.  I'm going to try twice a week and see how things go.

P.P.S.  Hi, Mom...  =)