Guest post by University of Calgary student teacher, Lisa Nguyen I cultivated a love for poetry at a young age, but for many people it is an inaccessible genre that is tedious to read, nonetheless teach. Although it’s not everyone’s … Continue reading Poetry that Moves
Like many schools in the province, we participate in the “Tell Them From Me” survey designed to get a sense of student engagement. As part of the survey our grade 7-9 students are asked to answer a few open-ended questions about their school. This is a sampling of the types of comments that we received – which were overall very positive and confirming: I love my school! It has enhanced my personality and my understanding of topics. They do an amazing program that is fun and educational. I don’t think I would change anything in my school. I think that … Continue reading Student Comments about our School
By Donna Alden, Teacher Librarian “Books are so …static” noted one of my colleagues, with a general tone of dismissal. Indeed, books are “static”. Books have no hyperlinks to take you further into a topic, interactive options, cross references, or for that matter, advertisements, or any other attractions and distractions. Other than the attractions and distractions, online sources of information are often the best choice because they present various layerings of information-, i.e. true pictures of knowledge and information- complex and fluid, and often, revised for currency, not finite, not static. But is static always a problem? I think for … Continue reading Books are so ….”static”.
by Dan McWilliam This year I am trying a new elective where students use their creativity and engineering skills to create anything they want from two 2×4 pieces of wood. While the final product is up to the students, the goal of the elective is to have students go through the process of planning, drafting, revising and creating a final product. One of the first steps of the elective was for students to create a model of their woodworking piece using Google Sketchup. They did this back in September when the elective started. Recently I have been experimenting with Augmented … Continue reading Augmented Reality in the Wood Shop
by Deirdre Bailey I used to think exclusively in black and white. I have a sincere appreciation for the clear-cut, precise and absolute and have argued that those who are not 100% sure of their accuracy should not be entitled to an opinion. I have spent most of my life infuriated by indecisiveness and I cringe to acknowledge that I have stormed off in irritation at people who would answer questions with questions instead of concrete opinions. I have been an equally harsh critic of my own confusion and have been guilty of rushing a process in order to arrive … Continue reading First Attempts In Learning
by Dave Scott, Grade 8 Humanities Recently I have been working on developing a series of integrated digital inquiry resources to support and enhance my grade 8 social studies and language arts programs. Here is my first attempt at a resource like this: My vision for this resources was to bring together several innovations that digital publishing now makes possible. I think that developing digital inquiry resources would make use of three powerful ideas that have a significant impact on how students learn a topic such as the Italian Renaissance. 1. Links to documentaries and other video clips can bring … Continue reading The Curricular Potential of Integrated Digital Inquiry Resources
By Ivy WaiteSocial networking has revolutionized the way that we interact with those around us, and educational networking is here to revolutionize our classrooms. Rather than networking focused on sharing personal photos and the latest scoop, educational networks provides teachers with a new way to facilitate collaboration among their students, and share in their learning experiences. Enter: Edmodo – Facebook created by teachers for twenty first century classrooms. I first used Edmodo as a student teacher, and researched it’s potential as a classroom tool. The results of reading can be found at this website: Educational Networking – Towards The 21st … Continue reading Edmodo: Social Networking Reinvented!
I was walking down our art hallway today and saw our art teacher, Lorrie Emin, putting up these great pieces of student work. What struck me about these pieces of grade 7 student artwork (beyond the amazing quality) was how the focus was on the student learning – not just on the final product. Each piece demonstrated incredible growth and skill development – made public to the rest of the school. This was done in a simple – yet effective way. Each of the samples had three components: a first draft, a final draft and a short blurb from the … Continue reading Making Learning Visible: Art
By Ivy Waite When my teaching partner Jaime Groeller suggested that we culminate our study ofidentity with a poetry anthology I may have been a little skeptical. I had asked grade 9 students to create and analyze poetry in the past with mixed results, but loved the idea of trying to engage them in some creative writing. We forged ahead with the idea, inspired by Jaime’s own poetry anthologies from high school. We figured, if Jaime could create such amazing work with limited technology, what could our students do armed with their background knowledge and a healthy serving of creativity? … Continue reading Identity Comes Alive With Issuu
By Ivy Waite Walking around CSS today was much like the other days that I have been fortunate enough to spend at this school. As a teacher new to both the profession and the school, I seem to see things through a different lens… Teaching partners working together during their regular, scheduled planning periods; teachers team teaching in the library with 50 students; a lesson study involving teachers from multiple schools; this is incredible stuff! The real power in these events is the impact that they have on student learning. In all instances of collaboration at CSS it is evident … Continue reading The Seeds of Collaboration…