Summer Institute with National Geographic Education

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After completing my National Geographic Certified Educator Course, GeoInquiry course and joining the National Goegraphic Educator Community, I became aware of a summer institute in Jackson, Wyoming. I applied and was accepted and this past July I had the opportunity to connect and learn alongside 50 amazing educators from the United States, Canada and Mexico, as well as National Geographic Education staff.  It was an opportunity to deepen my understanding of the free resources offered by National Geographic Education, learn more about their apporach to outreach, as well as explore the Yellowstone ecosystem. It was a great balance of learning, connecting and exploration in an inspirational setting.

One of the highlights for me was collaborating and meeting many amazing educators from North America.  I had the chance to meet fellow Canadians Sara Black and Janet Ruest from the the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. Sarah and Janet shared many of the resources available to me as an educator in Canada that are provided by the  Candian Geographic Society such as large maps available for schoools to access.

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As well, I had the opportunity to connect with Victoria Obenchain in person who was my mentor during my National Geographic Certified Educator course. I felt really grateful to be able to co-learn with teachers who demonstrated tremendous curiosity and wonder throughout the week and were so eager to learn and share.

Some of my favourite learning at the summer institute was about Bio-Blitz and the app i-Naturalist using an Easy-Macro from Rachael Polmanteer. A Bio-Blitz is an event that focuses on finding/identifying various species in a specific area over a short period of time. We even had the chance to learn about the Bio-Blitz dance from Willy Burford: a great introduction to a unit or just fun for some daily physical activity. i-Naturalist is a free App that allows you to map and share observations of biodiversity acrosse the world. These resources are something that I can see natural connections to in the Ontario curriculum in many areas including language arts, science and geography.

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I also loved hearing Sheree Barton’s students speak about their experiences with the geo-inquiry process and the learning that took place in  their classroom. It was evident how the learning experience and the geo-inquiry process empowered students and how much they had learned not only about the world, their environment but also about themselves. My favourite quote was when Sherree Barton noted how a student said: “The biggest thing I learned was about myself”. The Geo-Inquiry process is such a rich learning experience for students and fits so fluidly with current Ontario Curriculum and inquiry based learning environments. On a deeper level what I loved hearing was how student learned about themselves in the process and how it empowered them to become change agents in their local communities.

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Another highlight was definitely exploring Yellowstone National Park, an area of 3,468 square miles of wilderness atop a volcanic hot spot. We had a chance to visit the famous Old Faithful and my favourite was the Grand Prismatic Spring the largest hot spring in the United States and the third largest in the world.

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On one of our final days we had the chance to visit the Muirie Ranch and I was captivated by Docent Dan as he told the story and journey of the life of Olaus and Mardy Murie, Adolph Murie and his wife Louise. The Muries were committed to creating an ecological approach to wildlife management and conservation in Alasksa and in Wyoming. Their beautfiul story is an inspiration and Docent Dan had me captivated the entire time as he spoke and retold their beautiful story and shared the legacy they have created.

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One of the messages that resonated with me most was that we can all do our part to live harmoniously with nature. In particular, I loved the quote below that hangs in the Murie home, a reminder to keep wonder and curiosity at the forefont of our classrooms and enjoy every second of our lives being open to the beauty that surrounds our world through presence and mindfulness.

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On the last night, we had a chance to hear Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant   a conservation scientist, large carnivore ecologist, nature storyteller, and advocate speak to us about her journey. She is a National Geographic Explorer and her presentation was inspirational and engaging. I appreciated her honesty, authenticity and connection to equity with the amazing work she is doing. She touched on the interconnectedness of the planet and of humans and was an amazing storyteller. In particular, I love the quote by Audrey Lorde that she ended with below.

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Wyoming was truly a wonderful experience and one of the most amazing opportunities for professional development I have ever experienced! A special thank you to the amazing team from National Geographic Education who facilitated and organized this unique learning opportunity.  In particular I would like to thank: Mary Ford, Melissa MacPhee, Alexandra Perrotti, Dani Davies, Ariel Simons, Carmen Ortiz, Travis Price, Sarah Van Duyn, Kim Hulse and Chris Hines. I look forward to taking more course and continuing to learn form the National Geographic Education community. If you have any questions or want to reach out and learn more about National Geographic Education community feel free to contact me. If you are a part of the commmunity I woud love to hear what you are doing with your students and learn from you.

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Financial Literacy in Grade 7

Over the last few months I have had an opportunity to plan and work with grade 7 students on a financial literacy unit in collaboration with some amazing educators.  The teachers and I had an opportunity to collaborate and put together a cross curriculuar financial literacy unit. We began the unit with students by exploring various career options after taking some peronality tests on My Blueprint. Students chose three possible careers to explore in depth, finally selecting one career to explore in more detail and examine the pathway to that area. Students were also introduced to resumes and created their own on My Blueprint as part of their language arts program.

 

Next students were introduced to and explored saving and investing through a lesson that was adapted and found on Nearpod. Students learned to differentiate between saving and chequing accounts, analyze what is important when creating saving goals, and list the proper steps to creating and accomplishing saving goals.  Students also examined their attitudes in saving for money using a Google Form that asked questions such as “When I borrow money, I re-pay the debt as quickly as possible”.

Following the attitudes survey on money, students then completed a template on Excel that teachers created that asked them to choose if they wanted to buy a home and location, purchase housing, utilities, food, transportation and an emergency fund. In this activity, students realized how fast they money they earned was quickly depleted. One student commented, “Ms., I can’t afford Internet!” and many students realized that they were going to have make trade offs such as renting instead of purchasing a home.

 

The next part of our unit had students compare earnings for the careers they chose with other people around the world.  Students also watched the documentary called: Living on a Dollar a Day and we connected this documentary to the UN Global Goals specifically goal #10 Reducing Inequalities. Since we teach in a Catholic school, we also connected the scripture and our virtues program and students used ScreenCastify to create a reflection on what they learned and what they could do to help reduce inequalities in our world. This led to our next lesson on equity and privilege where I utilized resources from a presentation I attended at the Ontario School Counsellors’ Association conference by presenters Kari Peters and Wayne Loo. We began the lesson with a the privilege throw activity and went into a discussion about how having choice is the hallmark of privilege. We discussed the diffference between the word equity and equality.

The culminating task for the unit was a chance for students to reflect and share what they head learned about in the finacial literacy unit and provide feedback for us as educators. Students presented their findings and reflected on their learning by sharing with classmates what careers they had chosen and why and explain the choices they made financially.  Overall, feedback from students and teachers has been overwheleminly positive on the unit. One of the other teachers, Dorothy Gdyczynski I worked with stated: “The students really enjoyed it! They liked budgeting as they had never done that before and it was eye opening. They had a better understanding of how to look at money that would be coming in on a monthly basis”.  Erika McCharles another educator I worked with noted that: “I think they were surprised at how fast the money goes and that they get a better understanding of all the expenese their parents have that they had never really thought of before”.

 

Students feedback at the end of the unit was overwhelmingly positive and many students want to learn more about investing and how to save up for post secondary education and so the teachers and I are working on having someone to come and speak to them to provide tips and answer questions.  When I asked the teachers why they felt other educators should teach financial literacy Erica McCharles responded: “Financial literacy, like math and language literacy, is a skill that is learned. If we dont teach them how to think about money and be a smart consumer and make wise financial choices how can they go out into the world with their salary and make wise choices. Sabrina Iannicca stated: “We wanted to create a financial literacy unit for students so they could start understanding the importance of planning for the future. Providing them with an average salary, cost of buying or renting a home, transportation, food; essentially the cost of living, really put things into perspective for them at the end of this unit. Our hope was to better prepare them for tomorrow, and I think they have a good stepping stone.”

 

Collaborating and putting together this unit was one of the highlights for me this year and seeing it all come together so successfully, I am hopeful to be able to put together further lessons and encourage more teachers I work with to embed some aspect of financial literacy next year into their lessons.

 

 

 

 

My #OneWord for 2019: Courage

My #oneword for 2019 is courage. With the current political climate in Ontario and some of the challenges facing us a global community, I feel that we will need to demonstrate courage as a moving forward in 2019. The inspiration for my one word this year, comes from having just finished Brené Brown’s book on Dare to Lead.


One of the quotes that really resonated with me was: “Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; it’s choosing what is right over what’s fun, fast or easy; and it’s practising your values; not just professing them.”  Brown’s quotation speaks to me because the year ahead will no doubt prove to be challenging and having the courage to respond in courageous ways is what is needed. For myself, this means having the courage to stay in tough conversations, asking questions and being curious, and as Brown suggests in her book leaning into that curiosity to try to learn about the other person’s perspective. Brown goes onto describe tough conversation in her book and adds “To opt out of conversations about privilege and oppression because they make you uncomfortable is the epitome of privilege.” I feel this is also critical in having real and authentic conversations in education in 2019 around equity and privilege. It means as Brown describes showing up for people in pain and not looking away and choosing to be vulnerable at times.  

MasterMind Groups in Education

“It is important to take time to surround yourself with others who help you keep you focused on the thing that matter, who energize you, and give you hope”.  

Jimmy Casas

Culturize

For the last year I have been a part of two mastermind groups: a group of people that meet to tackle challenges/problems together. Groups are generally between 5-10 people and meeting are on hour and can occur weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.  Mastermind groups a great source of professional development and personal support as well as a place to share connections, and seeks advice.

The inspiration for these group came from Carol McLaughlin whom mentioned she was a part of a mastermind group with people in her district. Carol experienced growth professionally and encouraged me to create a group myself. I decided to give it a try with 10 people in my district and meet about once a month for about an hour. In addition to my district mastermind group, I have been part of an on-line mastermind group of educators as well. Both of my mastermind groups have provided me with tremendous support and I often leave our sessions energized and armed with new information and ideas to try out in my own teaching practise.

For example, last year my online mastermind group became very interested in gamification and through conversation and on-line interactions and web based conversations, I was able to put together a gamified probability unit in my grade 3 class. My group offered me insight, suggestions and coaching as well as valuable feedback.

Both my virtual and face-to-face mastermind groups are highly collaborative and have expanded my networks. In addition, the groups often challenge my thinking and keep me growing professionally. The mastermind groups I have been apart of have also provided personal support as a place of trust and safety where we can share the challenges and be vulnerable knowing that we can get encouragement.

My experience with mastermind groups over the last year has me reflecting on how we these types of groups could be expanded within districts to promote growth and leadership in educational organizations. Given the power of these groups in helping individuals grow and the support they provide, I believe they can provide innovative and successful opportunities for professional development.

Looking for more information? Check out this podcast on the Cult of Pedagogy by Jennifer Gonzalves https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/educator-mastermind/ and also find a toolkit to start your own Mastermind group here: https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind-group-rules/

 

Reflections on ISTE 2018: My Top 5 Moments

It’s been a week since returning from ISTE 2018 and once again it did not disappoint! This year was the biggest turn out at ISTE with over 26,000 attendees and it showed! I returned exhausted, as always, but full of wonderful memories and inspired with new ideas. I thought I would share a few highlights and reflect on some of my learning.

  1. Student IGNITES

Student presenters were once again my favourite part of ISTE and a great source of learning. I love the concept of students and teachers learning together. In previous years I have had a student present virtually with me through Skype, but this year I was lucky enough to co-present with a student at ISTE in person. In fact, one of my former students was able to share an Ignite entitled BYOD=Happy Students along with some other amazing students and she did an amazing job presenting her ideas!

 

  1.  Three in One and Poster Sessions

Trying to plan what to see at ISTE is always very stressful as there are so many amazing sessions and presenters. This is why I gravitate towards the 3 in 1 sessions and poster sessions. Plus, there is usually no lining up for these!

Some of the great ideas and favourites at the poster session were the coding session and making sessions. There is no doubt that coding and STEAM were a huge theme again this year and I obtained some great ideas. One of the things that really impressed me was the link between the environment and coding. I had the chance to see a great poster session on Cyber EcosySTEM  where Bee-Bots were used to investigate local ecosystems by Dr. Maybeth Green and Dr. April Conkey where second graders were involved in an ecological project to explore local wildlife by Bee-Bot Robots. (https://ae-uploads.uoregon.edu/ISTE/ISTE2018/PROGRAM_SESSION_MODEL/HANDOUTS/110763581/Trophiclevelwritingassignment.pdf)

I also learned about Scrath Ed Meet-Ups with Alexandra Kutler project manager  and part of the Scratch Ed Team. The meet-up is something I would like to take part and/or help organize. I could see value in getting educators together to explore and share learning with Scratch as well as best practises. I could see if also being part of an Edcamp or Mastermind group as opposed to an entire separate event on its own.

  1. PLN and Networking

One of the best parts of attending ISTE is connecting with educators from all over the world and meeting new people. This year I had the chance to present and connect with Maureen Asselin and we shared our experiences with coding and making and our TLLP learning.

Some of my best conversations at conferences like ISTE are not found in sessions but in spaces between sessions. For example, heading back one day from the congress center I took an Uber Pool and met two teachers working at an international school in Poland. They shared their learning from the day and shared a great quote from a session they attended in a coaching session: “It’s okay to be where you are. It’s not okay to stay there”. This idea was again highlighted in one of the closing keynotes by Chrsitne Klynen where she quoted Bruce Mau from his work entitled Manifest for Growth:

“Real Growth often happens outside of where we intent it to, in the interstitial spaces—what Dr. Seuss calls ‘the waiting place’.”   This quote has me continually reflecting on how professional development can be more authentic and can we can tap into richer learning experiences such as these.

  1. Empowering All Learners Through Technology

Another area I explored was the use of technology to work with exceptional learners. I had the chance to try out the new Microsoft VR and Immersive Reader and was impressed. It allowed me to block out all the noise and distractions in the very loud and busy exhibitor hall and really be focused and connected to the text presented to me.

 

There was also a great VR and special education ignite called Virtual Reality – US History and Visual Social Stories – Students with Special Needs,  by Diane McClellan where she highlight how she used VR with exceptional learners in her high school class in engaging ways and meet the needs of her students.

Finally, I attended a great poster presentation on Coding for All by Leanne Husk who spoke passionately about coding for exceptional learners.  She had great tips and ideas and ensuring that students were active in learning and not just passive observers.

5. Keynote by Luis Perez

The most moving and authentic speaker for me came on the first day during the Keynote by Luis Perez, PHD from Florida. Perez is a technical assistance specialist at the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials at CAST. He was a keynote to open up the conference and spoke about how he personally used technology to learn as a visually impaired student.  Perez noted the importance of being visible as a person of colour and as an immigrant. Perez’s moving keynote was a message of hope and he received a standing ovation. Perez encouraged us to “Find the humanity in each other and ignore those differences”. I will leave you with a quote he stated during his keynote: “I challenge you to be the spark. To light the path. Give learners the tool they need to be empowered and to achieve their goals”.

***If you are looking for some additional resources here is a great spreadsheet with link to 50 sessions by Tony Vincent https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xdxdIFyqxIIICSeDPW-NTc-jX_eixS2KgGGImvClTU4/preview and resources from Kasey Bell https://shakeuplearning.com/iste-2018/ and a huge binder of resources: https://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=2374612

 

 

 

Power M.E. Up: Student Led Conference

Yesterday, over 300 students from 25 schools participated today in the Power M.E. Up conference which was a student led conference in the areas of STEAM, Coding and Making. I had the pleasure of helping to put together this experience with an absolute amazing team of educators. After months of planning it all came together wonderfully!

 

The day started with four Ted Talks by grade 2, 3 and 10 students. Following these inspirational talks, we had the chance to break off into a variety of sessions that students had pre-registered for that ranged a variety of topics including crotchet, Ozobots maze challenges, baking for a cause, Ruby Goldberg challenges and coding which were entirely run by students for other students and teachers in our family of schools. I had the chance to spend some time in each of these sessions and see how engaged students and teachers were and it was beautiful to see them co-learning and problem solving together. It was also wonderful to see our elementary and secondary panel working together on this journey. The day could not have come together without the support of the Ministry of Education TLLP and PKE grants that our school has had the opportunity to work with in the two years.

 

All Teachers Need is Time and They Can Do Amazing Things!

This year I have had the opportunity to expand my TLLP learning through the Provincial knowledge Exchange Grant (PKE) with the Ministry of Education. This grant is allowing our team to share our knowledge of the TLLP throughout our school board and province in order to build capacity in the areas of STEAM, Coding and Makerspaces.

 

As part of this grant, I am part of a team of educators who are putting together a Student Led Conference in these areas coming up in April at a local secondary school. Beginning in January, we met once a month to share ideas, and put together this conference that will host 25 schools both elementary and secondary school and approximately 200 students. From the onset of the meetings this group has been tremendously positive, hardworking and inspiring! The meetings are vibrant, engaging and people are really excited about working together. You leave the meeting feeling excited, energized and there is true sense of collegiality.

 

I have been spending some time reflecting on this group and how and why it is effective and I came to the realization that:  All Teachers need is time and they can do amazing things!  When it comes to professional development providing trust and autonomy can result in some pretty amazing opportunities and learning for both teachers and students. I would love for all teachers to leave professional development opportunities feeling as charged up and empowered as I have been in the PKE and TLLP journey.  Wouldn’t it be great to hear teachers saying: “I can’t wait for this staff meeting or professional development day!”  I started asking myself what would need to change for that to happen? Why don’t teachers get the same feelings? What conditions need to change? One of the limitations I believe is that some professional development is generic and being done to teachers, not with teachers. It is often from top down and teachers don’t feel like they are a part of something larger or connected to their learning. Teachers are longing for opportunities to network and collaborate and share authentically the challenges and successes they are facing in the classroom.  The PKE provides this time to connect with other educators and be a part of something authentic. I feel it is purposeful and creates learning by having educators share some of the amazing things they are doing in their classroom to inspire each other.  It empowers teachers to take charge of their learning and take on leadership. The PKE has three secret ingredients that often traditional professional development is missing: time, trust and collaboration.

Student-led Conferences: Reflections of a Convert

A few years ago, I heard about student-led conferences at a professional development session with other teachers and over the last few years I have had the chance to experience them as a parent at my son’s school. I finally decided to take the plunge this year and give it a try with some assistance from my professional learning network and some awesome teachers and I am happy to report feedback from both parents and students was overwhelmingly positive. I thought I would write a blog post to share some resources as well as reflect on my experiences.

What are student-led conferences?

In the past I have had students lead conferences by  having students talk about what they do well, what they want to improve and then I add to their comments. These are often called student-led conferences, however, generally they are still one-on-one interviews with parents in the room. The student-led conferences I tried this year and that I am speaking about in this blog post were very different.

With student-led conferences I am speaking about, one of the biggest differences is that I had up to 3 sets of parents and students in the room at one time for approximately 30-minute interviews. Students were completely responsible for leading the interview and I acted more as a facilitator.  Students must attend the conference in order to it to take place. The focus really is more on the learning and sharing than the physical report card. Parents are much more active participants in these types of conferences. Here is a short video that might assist you to help you see what I am describing and that is useful to get a real sense of how student conferences operate.

Preparing for Student-led Conferences

Prior to starting student-led conferences there is a lot of preparation, particularly with younger primary students to ensure they are ready for the big day.  I reached out to a friend and colleague of mine, Janina Navarro who has ran these types of interviews before. She Skyped with me to answer my questions and provided me with a letter to share with parents.

I started the process of preparation about a week and half before interviews and I came up with some stations that I wanted to include. With older students, I would actually co-construct these centres. I decided on 5 centres that illustrated a variety of academic areas. Station one was to showcase the podcasts that students created called, Me in a Minute.  Station two was our blog centre to share student blogs and encouraged parents to either comment on their child’s blog or co-create a post together. Station three was a silent reading station where I had students read a book at their reading level with their parents, while providing prompts for parents to ask. Station four consisted of a social studies/art station to showcase the work we had completed with our social studies teacher around some Indigenous Art. The final station was a portfolio goal-setting station where students went through their portfolios, completing a reflection piece on what they were proud of and coming up with a goal for the next term.

Each day in class I went through a new station with the students, having them practise in pairs: one student acted as parent and the other student acted as the student. I created a package for students in case they forgot on the day and to help remind them of what to say. My favourite part was an extension activity at the goal-setting station, where I asked parents to write something they were proud of their child on a sticky note. We posted these on a large piece of chart paper for students to read. Students were so excited to see what parents had read. I was particularly impressed at comments which focused on a love of learning and character education as opposed to grades.  I have since added the chart paper to our prayer centre in the classroom, so students can continue to see the home/school connection and feel that they are supported by their parent(s).

Student-led Conferences: The Big Day!

On the conference day things ran extremely well! I had no more than 3 parents in the room which I felt was perfect amount for privacy. Students were encouraged prior to the day to be at different stations so they had privacy with their parents when discussing their learning. Sometimes some of the interviews overlapped so I would probably try to adhere more strictly the time next time or I would ajust the schedule of interviews having them run 15 minutes apart. I also think that having 4 stations instead of 5 would have been adequate.

I was really impressed at how students took pride and leadership, they seemed to really enjoy the experience of student-led conferences. Some of my students were very nervous and I helped them out to remind them of what to do. I was also really impressed by the parents and how they engaged with their children. It was truly beautiful to see them talking about learning and communicating with their children in authentic ways. I made it a priority to ensure that I touched-base with each parent to talk one on one and answer any questions they had, which I feel is critical to the success of student-led conferences.

Reflections and Feedback and Next Steps

As this was the first time I had experimented with student-led conferences, I created a Google Form for parents to provide feedback. I created a QR code and had an iPad available for parents to complete before they left. The feedback, as you can see below was overwhelmingly positive! I will definitely continue with student-led conferences from now on.

 

What have your experience been like? Do you have any tips? I would love to hear other experiences about student-led conferences.

 

Working with Soundtrap to Create Podcasts

I was first introduced to Soundtrap at a workshop at an EdTeach Team summit two years ago run by Meredith Allen.  During the workshop, I had the chance to experiment with the Soundtrap program and learn how to use the tool in the classroom. I was instantly impressed by how easy it was to use, and as a teacher who is passionate about the arts and global education, I loved the possibility of being able to create a piece of music collaboratively with a teacher somewhere else in the world. My philosophy with any professional development session is to try to utilize it as soon as possible or you will forget what you learned so the next day, so I jumped right into the program with my grade 3 students a few days later. I was already planning to create podcasts with the students called “Me in A Minute”, an idea that I got from another teacher where students create a podcast about themselves discussing their talents, gifts and telling the listener a little about themselves. It is a great project as it connects to our media, language arts, and family life program.

When I begin the project, I usually start off talking about what a podcast is by having students listen to an example of a podcast for children. We discuss how podcasts generally contain music at the start and end and digital audio or video files, which a user can download and listen to. Then students are given a graphic organizer to start planning out their own podcasts on paper. We edit, revise and work on putting together a polished script.

 I then introduce students to how to use Soundtrap using a short tutorial on the website. With a basic understanding of how the program works, I have the students begin recording their podcasts. They also add musical loops for their programs or create their own in the program. Finally, students publish their recordings. I have them save mp3 files to their Google Drive and create a collage about themselves in Google slides and then import the music file as a link. We celebrate the compilation of the projects by listening to each other’s podcasts in class, getting peer feedback from each other about what works and what they can improve on next time. Students also take the time to self assess themselves on the project.

My next journey with Soundtrap is to try to collaborate with a teacher in another country on a musical composition. I’m excited to see what we can come up with and I hope to link it the Global Goals.

Have you tried Soundtrap? I’d love to hear what you have done with the program.

TLLP Reflections

TLLP Reflections

Our school had the privilege of working on a TLLP project in the 2016-2017 school year with the Ministry of Education. The TLLP is an annual project for experienced classroom teachers with the goal to “Create and support opportunities for teacher professional learning, foster teacher leadership and facilitate the sharing of exemplary practices with others for the broader benefit of Ontario’s students” (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teacher/tllp.html).

STEAM/Makerspace/Coding

Our school project focused on STEAM, Makerspace and Coding in a K-8 school in Mississauga. The project examined the use of these to enhance curriculum for students through a lens of inquiry and equity for all students as we co-learned with one another. Our goal was to provide learning experiences based on student interests that developed critical thinking, creativity and collaboration skills while forming real world connections.

We worked together throughout the year to transform our library into a learning common and with our teacher librarian who collaborated and worked closely with teachers to build knowledge in these areas. We also held in-class workshops for students, and with the help of a parent volunteer continued and built on Coding Club from the previous year, introducing students to Google CS First. I invite you to see our journey on our blog.

What we learned:

We gained an understanding of how to integrate coding into a variety of curriculum areas in meaningful ways and learned that student engagement can be increased with the use of making, coding and STEAM-based lessons that are designed to draw on the interests of students. We learned how to use a variety of new tools (i.e. Makey Makey, Sphero, 3D printing) and that in order to build capacity, teachers need to be given time to collaborate and work together and that building relationships and partnerships with community members and organizations builds further success. We learned that providing differentiated instruction and student choice leads to greater student success. As well, the importance of working with students in a co-learning stance is critical to modern pedagogy and learning in today’s classroom.

Impact on our Teaching/Questions we still have:

The TLLP journey has been one of the best professional development opportunities I have experienced as a teacher. It allowed our team to work collaboratively as a school community in grade-level teams. In addition, it saw the transformation of a library into more of a learning commons. One of the best parts of the TLLP program is that it is teacher-driven professional development. You are able to take an area of interest that you have as a school or teacher and explore it with support for professional learning opportunities and time to support your goal. Additionally, one of the highlights of being part of the TLLP journey is to network and learn about other amazing TLLP projects at the Summit. For example, I connected with Micheal Leonard whose TLLP focused on Google Expeditions and who was instrumental in helping me get my own Google Expedition off and running in my classroom.

TLLP as a Model for PD

The success of the TLLP program has had me wondering lately how this type of a model can be incorporated into our school system. TLLP researchers have found that: “Based on our analyses of a sample of Cohort 9 projects, the majority of TLLP teacher leaders report improvement in their knowledge and understanding (95%), teaching practices (90%) and technological skills (50%)” (Campbell, Lieberman, Yashkina, Rodway and  Alexander, 2017). I believe PD modelled after the TLLP would be more successful than many of the PD that are currently offered to teachers.  It is a PD model that is differentiated, provides autonomy, time to collaborate and opportunity for risk-taking and growth and values teacher voice. The TLLP is most successful in this respect because it places value and trust in teacher-leaders and ultimately results in rewards for the entire system.