182 Days of Learning - CBE 182

#CBE182 Day 182: Amber Hartwell, Learning Leader, Midsun School

6/30/2017

Meet Jeffery.

Jeffery entered my classroom in September, a “new kid” who had not experienced many successes in school. He came discouraged and not sure if MidSun would be any different.

Jeffery was talented in ways he had yet to discover – he was a maker. Jeffery gravitated to the Raspberry Pi I had set up, always sneaking over to it when he should be working. On top of this, he was always tinkering.

One day, Jeffery shared with me his new creation – a portable movie player made from a computer screen. This was my opportunity to connect with Jeffery – build that positive relationship.

Jeffery’s journey became ours. As he got stuck, I would try to help. But, then I couldn’t. So I called a colleague, @JackieGroat; she brought up our problem to her kids, which helped Jeffery not only continue, but also see the power in connecting and collaborating.

Then, I proposed the student maker faire @TelusSpark. With support from mom, and lots of arm-twisting, Jeffery went and thrived that night. His confidence emerged, as he realized he did have talent and could succeed.

Jeffery returned to school a different kid. He was happier and more engaged. So how to keep him motivated? I gave him the school’s new toy: JD. Within half an hour, he had learnt how to make JD dab. Now, Jeffery is teaching me.

Jeffery’s future is bright.

For me, I learnt I accomplished something magical –by putting Jeffery first, I had made a lifelong impact. This is why I continue to teach.

@Amber_Hartwell is a wife, mother and teacher above everything else. She works in GPE @UCalgaryEduc and is finishing her last days @yycCBEdu. You can find her at #sd23learns in the fall. She blogs at https://amberhartwell.wordpress.com to share her evolving journey with others.

Please note: This post was published with full consent from the student and his family.

#CBE182 Day 181: Ben Bishop, Learning Leader, Branton School

6/29/2017

Canada150

How will your school celebrate Canada 150? This was the question we heard at #MyWorldConference2017. We left the event with no clear answer. I teach Grade 7 Social Studies, basically the history of Canada. How could I not have a plan!?

I’ve been learning a lot in my new side role as support for learning technologies. One of the many takeaways is there is no reward without risk. Can I learn this new technology? Can it be applied effectively in a new project? Will students be engaged? Can I convince them to share their work with a greater audience? Can we buck tradition and replace a final exam with a project/event that better showcases their learning? If we build it, will they come?

With each question is an inherent possibility of failure. But what is also true is that risk can carry excitement. A contagious excitement.

We built our Canada 150 Virtual Gallery. Each student selected a photo that changed Canada. They researched and inquired. They made connections with identity and citizenship. They arrived at their conclusions and made recordings in both official languages. They built QR codes and Aurasma overlays. Even our late immersion students still struggling with the language took the risk. They’ve been doing it all year. They plunged and resurfaced, stronger and prouder by virtue of the challenge. We invited our community and they came. It was a great showcase, one which demonstrated a journey of perseverance, bilingualism, new technology, risk and reward. Happy 150th Birthday Canada.

Ben Bishop (@bensbishop) is a Learning Leader at Branton School. His wife and daughters reluctantly tolerate his unbridled passion for the Ottawa Senators.

#CBE182 Day 180: Erin Quinn, Learning Specialist, Curriculum & Pathways

6/28/2017

June is a time of transition at the Education Centre just as it is in schools. As teachers, we are lucky to have all these endings that most often turn into beginnings. As I was packing up my cubicle the other day, I reflected deeply about my time as a Specialist and everything I have learned in this role.

Doing this work has been such a privilege. I’ve been invited to peek into countless vibrant classrooms, gleaned wisdom from phenomenal educators, and planned professional learning alongside outstanding instructional leaders. It’s not trite to say that the CBE is a wonderful place to learn because of its people. I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet many of them over the past three years, and learn from them. I’m especially thankful for my incredible team who have pushed me professionally and creatively, and room to make sense of it all.

As I prepare to return to a school in the fall and meet my students, my head is buzzing with ideas. In my classroom next year, we will spend much of our time focusing on our our community and knowing each other as humans and learners. We will design our physical and metaphorical classroom together, creating a place we all feel comfortable, safe, and connected to. We will explore our local place and develop deep connections to it so we may care for its beauty. We will examine history with a critical eye, and wonder how we might redefine Canada in a way that honours all of its peoples, including its Indigenous citizens. We will create beautiful things together. These ideas are a direct or indirect result of the relationships I’ve forged with the people I’ve met along the way over the past three years. If you’re one of them, I thank you for it. I am a better teacher because of you, and because of this work.

Erin Quinn is an outgoing Specialist with the Curriculum & Pathways team and an incoming grade 7 teacher and Learning Leader at Griffith Woods School. She writes at www.creativitycollective.ca and Tweets at @luckybydesign.

#CBE182 Day 179: Michael Cutler, Learning Leader, Balmoral School

6/27/2017

Currently, I am packing up my office in preparation for an exciting adventure as Learning Leader in another school. However, through the packing process, it is incredibly difficult not to feel the deep sense of nostalgia as I shuffle through numerous concert programs, rehearsal notes and scores that carried so much meaning to so many students over the years. Music carries such a special place in all of our hearts that, despite all of our differences, as music users, there are moments where our hearts can beat as one and that is within music education. Looking back at my time here at Balmoral, there are fragments of time that will always resonate with me but it has been the opportunity to be part of something greater than myself, that will always stay with me. My blog entry today isn’t necessarily ‘one thing’ that my students or myself learned today, rather, it is the culmination of years within music education that I realize its necessity to our students. Social structures may define cultural creativity but the opportunity we provide, as educators, through the arts for individual creativity may be one of the single most meaningful gifts we can give our students.

Art Blakey said that “Music wipes away the dust of everyday life” and may we as teachers, always provide that opportunity to dust!

Michael Cutler (@cutlermj) is the Fine Arts Learning Leader at Balmoral TLC and a Doctoral Student at the University of Calgary

#CBE182 Day 177: Krista Jensen, Learning Leader, Battalion Park School

6/23/2017

Sometimes it takes me a while to get to things; like writing this blog post. A blog post about how long it has taken me to get around to learning how to use the Green Screen. The Green Screen I tried to avoid noticing, as it hung in the staff room, all big and…well – green. But there is a story here, so sharing it is worthwhile. It is about asking for help and the support and inspiration of others. And those stories are always worth telling.

So yes, the Green Screen – with its high-tech gadgetry, had been in our staff room for more than a year – taunting me, reminding me of things not done, things unknown; lack – of time, of knowledge, of learning opportunities. Ugh.

For this story to happen, I had to admit to my teaching team of Cathy Patrick, Helen Kounougeris, Dorothy Mah and Saralyn Winston that, while interested and curious, I did not know how to do anything with the Green Screen. They created a safe space for me to do this in their willingness to join me in not knowing, and in a keenness to try. Which brought us to the crux of this story – how would we learn without help - without knowing where to start? It looked easy on YouTube, but I am a “Pinterest Fail” expert, so what now? Perhaps we could do it next year – like I said last year. Except…was he serious?

I need to back the story up. The whole Green Screen wonderment was started by Steve Clark (@stevewclark), one of our CBE Curriculum and Pathways specialists, tweeting out an app recommendation. When I retweeted it to my teaching team, he replied with “Let me know if I can help.” Yes. Yes please! And he did. Steve made time in his schedule to come and build the confidence in our grade team that we could do this - this piece of technology WAS as easy as it looked. A few weeks later he came back to our school a few more times and worked with us through the major glitch of iPad care and organization. (“Where’s the camera icon?” “I don’t know how to connect to the internet.” “Mine won’t turn on.” “I can’t find my photo. I saved my photo. Where’s my photo?” Quotes overheard by Steve Clark while trying to help our teaching team).

It was not without troubles and frustrations. The project of bringing Inuit artifacts to life through curiosity, research and imagination was almost kyboshed more than once when the tsunami of the everyday busyness washed over us again and again. But we were in this together. And it did keep getting better. Success created motivation, and we were having successes too! Many of the students had enough experience with Green Screen work that they were excited and engaged. We were learning from trial, error and each other. I was never able to take on the role of expert in this learning experience – I needed help figuring out how to download the app. But others did lead – help was everywhere. Our entire grade two team – students and teachers alike - took this experience over, becoming risk takers and mistake makers who all, in the end, created end products (photos and one brave class even dove right in and did videos!) that showed deeper understanding and motivated student-led learning in the ways we had hoped for at the very beginning of “Hey – I saw this thing on Twitter.”

“In the end it was the walking that made all the difference. It took arriving, always arriving, to finally understand that is was never about where I ended up, but only how I got there. I hope I never get to where I am going.”
~ Tyler Knot Gregson

Thank-you to my awesome grade 2 teaching team for your sense of constant adventure. Thank-you to Steve Clark for your help, humour and patience. And Thank-You to Ronna Mosher for allowing our students permission to access your personal photos of Rankin Inlet; which provided an authentic and important conversation around digital citizenship and respecting artistic property.

Krista (@MsKikiJ11), Cathy, Dorothy, Saralyn and Helen teach grade 2 at Battalion Park School. (@BattalionParkSc).

#CBE182 Day176: Shannon Salomons, Teacher, Douglasdale School

6/22/2017

How Do You Know That You are a Writer?

How do you know that you are a writer? A big question to ask seven and eight year olds approaching the end of grade two. Most would rather discuss summer plans, demonstrate talent show routines or show off their newest fidget spinner trick. But still, I asked, unsure of what their responses would be, hopeful that the weeks spent planning, writing, editing and publishing stories made a tangible impact on the eighteen faces scattered around my classroom carpet. I knew that they were writers. As I read each of their stories huge smiles spread across my face, I laughed over and over again, and I felt satisfied at a job well done, these kids embodied the writing process! But that’s not the point is it? After all the time and effort put into their stories (and all of the other writing we worked on this school year) did these children believe that they were writers? I hoped they would say yes, I hoped upon hope they would say yes because… and recognize in themselves the evidence that yes, each of them were writers.

“Yes because I now use punctuation like periods and question marks and I didn’t use them at the start of grade two."

“Yes because I am inspired by other writers (*who’s books) we have read this year.”

“Yes because I use more interesting words in my writing now."

“Yes because I can use the dictionary to help with my spelling and I didn’t do that before."

“Yes because I love writing and want to do it all the time.”

“Yes because I can write poems and stories."

“Yes because at the start of the year my writing was chicken scratch and it is much better now."

“Yes because my writing has a beginning, middle and end."

I love writing, spoken by a student who hated writing in September. A student who struggled to put a full sentence down on a page, this child now viewed himself as a writer. All of my students did. Some students’ writing was more polished, longer or more detailed, but each student created pieces of writing they valued and reflected the reasons why each believed that, yes, I am a writer.

That is the point. Students learning, students applying, students growing and students successfully reflecting on the processes they have embodied throughout the year. My success as a teacher is rooted in student success and failure and the reflection we mutually engage in to keep moving forward as learners.

Shannon is one fifth of the gr 2 team at DDS. She’s a wife, parent, avid reader and Whovian. Her students inspired her to write because if they can be writers so can she!

#CBE182 Day 174: Londa O., Katherine C.-M., Teachers, Glamorgan School

6/21/2017

Authentic Task Design for National Indigenous History Month

Part II: Making Thinking Visible

“I think this was the perfect way to end grade nine.” – Tawfiq M.

As a culminating activity, we took the grade 9s to the Glenbow to participate in the program “From Treaty to Reconciliation: Reclaiming a Culture” and to view the Keith Monkman exhibit “Shame and Prejudice: a Story of Resilience”.

Here is a sample of evidence of learning that we observed:

“My views have greatly changed throughout this experience. One major view of mine that has changed is what are we really celebrating as Canadians for the 150th year anniversary?” – Abdel E.

“I would be really upset when people make me sign a treaty without knowing what is being given away.” – Zeyad H.

“I think the reason we were so disheartened by the subject, is because we weren’t being mindful of the actual history. Today, when Sheldon actually spoke to us, and told us his view on the way First Nations have been treated, I’m sure it had more impact than a Social textbook ever could…They are ready and willing to heal, and work together, to not necessarily right all wrongs, but to take a step towards it.” – Tawfiq M.

“My favourite painting was The Iron Horse – by far. The use of the Trojan horse and the meaning of the horse perfectly described Monkman’s view on the relationship between Europeans and First Nations.” – Aayan S.

“At first I believed in the stereotype of First Nations…but now that I have been educated on what has happened to them, I feel disappointed in myself.” – Shayan M.

“I just don’t understand how humans can do that to each other.” – Ben F.

Londa Olesen (@ondalay) is a Humanities Learning Leader and Art teacher with a desire to continuously learn and collaborate to improve practice.

Katherine Clarke-Murray (@teachy_kat) is a Task Design/Technology Learning Leader with a passion for innovation, novelty and learning

#CBE182 Day 174: Jill Metcalfe, Teacher, Louis Riel School

6/20/2017

#WeAreLouis

Today I took a moment to reflect, during the busiest time of the year, and was reminded how fortunate I am to be surrounded by a world-class learning community including students, teachers, support staff and families. We are healthier, happier teachers when we are surrounded by people who support us. We realize that our job is more than just what happens in our own classrooms but it’s about what is happening in the entire school. Louis Riel School is a K-9 with 900+ students and 50+ staff. Even with all of these students, every week of the school year is full of events, extracurriculars and field trip adventures which would not be possible without the tremendous support of our staff and parent volunteers. There are many unique benefits to working in a K-9 school. This past Friday, one of my current grade 3 students was thrilled to have her face painted on sports day by my former student who is now in grade 9.

Today I learned that I am surrounded by genuine people who care for and support me. When someone says “no problem” they actually mean it. No one hesitates to help each other at a moment’s notice. Everyone knows each other and supports each other in moments of celebration and heartbreak. We laugh together, run extracurriculars together, play baseball together, socialize together, work-out together and much more. By being connected, we make each other better teachers, which in turn makes our students better learners.

#WeAreLouis

Jill Metcalfe, Grade ¾ Teacher.
Follow along on twitter @metjill and my school @WeAreLouisCBE

#CBE182 Day 173: Allison Handelsman, Learning Leader, Cranston School

6/19/2017

This year I have been learning a great deal about taking risks with the students I have been working with. I knew that in my role as tech learning leader I wanted to teach students from kindergarten through grade 3 how to code.

In order to do so, I needed to learn for myself how to code. Instead of waiting until I had things “perfect” and knew exactly where things would go and how students would respond, I would often include them as part of my learning journey. I let the students know I would also be learning along with them and from them and that I would probably be making some mistakes. As we learned together, students not only learned from me how to “code”, but they also learned from me how to take “risks” and make “mistakes”. Together we “debugged” issues as they popped up.

Through coding, students learned to collaborate, problem solve and work through their frustrations when things didn’t go their way. Students strengthened their literacy, numeracy and comprehension skills when building code as they learned cause and effect from each line of code they created. Coding provided opportunities for students to be creative, to tell their own stories and to build their own adventures. They asked questions and were engaged in learning concepts that were outside of their prescribed grade level and instead of being intimidated by this, they were engaged and eager to learn more!

Allison Handelsman @achandelsman is passionate about learning, books, animals, the outdoors and animals! Currently a tech learning leader @cranstonschool, she loves to learn and take risks with the students and staff!

#CBE182 Day 170: Lianne Jones, Acting Assistant Principal, Cranston School

6/14/2017

I had the opportunity to be the recipient of a $10,000 grant from the BP A+ For Energy program. My grant submission entitled, "The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind" has led me on an incredible journey with my students. Yesterday, our energy team consisting of eager grade 1 to 3 students met for what I thought was the final time this year, to learn about renewable energy produced by wind.

During the course of this project, the students participated in 2 field trips to Telus SPARK’s program, "How the Wind Blows", had a presentation given to our energy team by Blue Energy Renewables Inc. and set up mini wind turbines to conduct experiments with.

What I witnessed is these students’ incredible curiosity as they asked a multitude of questions, and then asked even more questions! Their higher-level thinking and thoughtfulness towards our earth and the environment as such young learners, has been a joy and wonder to behold. Together, we have ALL learned things we didn't know about renewable energy and its importance for our future.

My students didn't limit their learning to the time they spent in the club either. I was sent this photo from an eager student (Caleb P.) who created a wind turbine of his own at home. These eager students have asked to continue the club, not only until the end of the year, but they want to continue again in the fall! I am truly amazed at their passion to seek the answers that are blowing in the wind!

Lianne Jones @LianneSJones couldn’t have done this project w/o the help of Paulette Gates @mrspgates. Lianne loves to spend time w/her Jack Russell #mydogSpot