I have been a teacher for the past 10 years.  Like most teachers, I know that my students will come into my class with the basics.  I have never put much thought into the fact that they know their names, can find their classroom, hang their backpacks, and most importantly go to the bathroom … alone.

This year, was the first that I have been out of the classroom and able to help around the school.  I was eager to help the Kindergarten students on their first day.  My eyes were opened to what a different world Kindergarten is.

It became apparent that my expectation of students knowing their own name may be too high of an expectation for Kindergarteners, especially last names.  In fact, I quickly realized that ALL of my expectations may be too much for many of these students. I spent my morning looking into the big, scared eyes of 5 year-olds and doing my best to help them have positive first school experience.  I’ll admit, I never realized how difficult it is to be a Kindergarten teacher. I took for granted that my students raised their hands, could hold a pencil, and could put on their shoes.  I realized that without the patience, time, and expertise of our Kindergarten teachers my job would be much different.  

So thank you to all the Kindergarten teachers who teach our students what school is and make all of our lives so much easier.  We appreciate you.

Sarah Jordan,  learning leader at Brentwood Traditional Learning Centre, she believes in making school a fun, safe place to learn.

What did I learn in school today?

Having just moved schools this year from having the honour of being principal at Keeler School in Forest Heights to having the honour of being principal at Belvedere Parkway School in Bowness, I have met a ton of new students, parents and teachers in the past weeks. The lessons I have (re)learned are that:

Kids all want to learn, feel smart and successful, and do their best…

Parents all want the best for their children, no matter who they are, what they believe or where they come from…

Teachers are in the realm of education because they want to create the best possible learning and future opportunities for students…

Lastly, and most importantly, that the relationships that I create today will build and develop the culture and future of our school community. The more I cultivate positive and generative relationships with students, parents, and teachers, the greater the learning outcomes that will take place!

As well as the fact that kids love building snowmen, even on September 8th!

Keep learning tons!
Derek

Derek Rakowski (@derekrakowski) has been a CBE student, teacher, and principal. He still thinks he has the best job in the world, as he is learning each and every day…    

Over this past summer, our school has had a fresh coat of paint. We're starting the year off with clean blank walls.

If we skipped to the end of the year, we would find many pinholes all over the walls, leaving tell tail signs of the learning journeys that happened throughout the year. 

My goal this year is to make learning as visible as we can in our school. Therefore, our walls will become littered with evidence of learning. With a focus on collaboration, our bulletin boards and learning displays will become interactive and engaging. I hope that students will seek feedback from their peers and teachers and create things that have never even thought about before. 

CBE182 is also starting with blank walls. We hope that our past contributors will share, as well and many new people! We have 1000's of passionate people in our organization and we hope that this blog can share some of that enthusiasm and creativity!

For now the slate is clean, leaving a world of opportunities ahead of us. We are super excited to see where our students' learning will take us. I'm sure there will be many obstacles and speed bumps along the way but in the end we will work through the challenges and come out on top.

Oh the places we'll go!

Steve Clark (@stevewclark) is the Learning Commons Learning Leader at Chris Akkerman TLC in Area III. He is passionate about making learning real and meaningful. 

This year I learned the Google helps make learning more fun. It helps me share my work more easily. I learned that the green screen helps me pretend to be in places that I'm not.

This is a video I made about it. I made it on my iPad and using explain everything.

Charlie is a grade 2 student at Tuscany school. He loves soccer, tennis, minecraft and rainbow loom. He loves being outside playing with his friends even more!

What I learned today….

As we wind down the school year my students and I have been talking a lot about the past and what we have learned during grade one.  Their answers are varied and day to day they come up with something new.  There are a few who hold steadfast to the most important thing they’ve learned in grade one.  One student is committed to his dream of becoming a builder and keeps telling me “math is the most important thing I’ve learned.  I need to know how to measure.”  A second student, quiet yet very reflective shared with me that she really learned that she needed to focus on her work.  “That way you always know what is going on.”  The most common comment is what they appreciate or are thankful for in grade one.

One thing that has really struck me is observing the impact of acknowledging and showing our appreciation for the help and support we get from others whether from home or at school.  Since the beginning of the year students have been “filling each others buckets” and recently shared with the class how much they appreciate them or what they are thankful for in their day.  It touches me to witness them sharing what matters most: positive relationships showing connection, appreciation and respect.   Their demonstration of citizenship in their various ways warms my heart and fills my bucket every day.

Tamara (@TDKoach) is an elementary teacher and lifelong learner passionate about creativity and inquiry.  Also a nature lover and coach inspired to help others.

The Monterey Park School Kindergarten team has learned about the power of collaboration. This year alongside the children, we have set upon a journey of exploration and adventure, creating experiences full of curiosity, joy and discovery.

We began the year by coming together as a teaching team and anticipating the road ahead through thinking deeply about our curriculum and creating our learning destinations.  From there we observed and listened to the ideas and theories of the children to build inquiries that were authentic and meaningful.  We co-constructed criteria with the children for everything from classroom expectations to what makes a GREAT story.

In January, the team embarked on a professional learning journey that took us to Opal School in Portland, Oregon. The children and educators immediately welcomed us as equals and invited us to share our perspectives of their work.  We listened to the children’s ideas, questions and inquiries and observed how the teachers intentionally prepared the classroom environment each day.  Questions were visible everywhere, art materials were laid out thoughtfully, and the children’s work and thinking was documented and made visible to the school community and the world.  It was a powerful experience that inspired us to think differently about our practice and the power of collaboration.

This year we've learned that collaboration is more than working together, it's about sharing ideas, building relationships and grounding learning in the collective. When we come together, we inspire, draw strength, create, innovate, discover, invent and learn.

Julie Ramsay (@reggioinspired), Sierra Downing (@SierraLDowning) and Kristine Church (@KristineChurch) are members of the dynamic & collaborative Kindergarten team at Monterey Park School.

The year of  Web 2.014

Our grade three and four students have been using Web 2.0 tools as a way to create, collaborate and share in the inquiry process.  Students have created 3-D storybooks entitled “The Diary of A Grizzly Bear”, a humorous account of the life of a Grizzly Bear in Alberta. We printed off story codes, which enabled us to view our stories using Ipads.  The program allows the story to come to life in three dimensions.   

Next students constructed Glog’s to share their knowledge of the regions of Alberta and the plant and wildlife that live there.  Using the Glogster program students created posters using texts, graphics, animation, attachments and recordings of their own voice. The Glog’s were all assigned a QR code, which could be read using a QR code reader.  The codes created by both the Zooburst and Glogster program allowed our students to easily share their work with the school community and they were thrilled by the positive feedback they received.

The next step in our inquiry journey is to create” Who Would Win Books” using an online storybook creator called Storyjumper. Students have chosen various animals native to Alberta to pit against each other in a virtual fight.  The information presented in the books will allow others to form their own opinion about who would win. Using Web 2.0 tools has been very motivating for our students.

When asked how to describe our classroom students came up with “in Room 5 we are busy imagining, researching and creating.”

Raman and Carla currently share a spirited Grade 3/4 classroom at O.S Geiger School.  They are passionate about fostering a love of learning in their students.

“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”
 ~ James Bryant Conant

Recently, for our grade 9 summative assessment for the immigration unit, my colleague and I asked our students to answer the following question: How does immigration benefit Canada? Instead of the traditional (and safe!) essay assignment, we asked students to use the Aurasma app to share their knowledge. They had to create a target image on paper that visually represented their main idea, and then using the app they connected their image to a videotaped speech where they expressed their views orally. This was a risk for both the teachers and the students … most of us had NEVER even used the app before, but were interested in the idea of augmented reality and wanted to give it a try in the classroom.

Other risks that were taken during this project:

• Our classrooms became mobile – students came and went between our rooms for supplies, and worked in pairs in the hallway, foyer, conference room, or other quiet spaces to record their speeches on the iPads.

• Students who had prior experience with the Aurasma app became the “experts” or teachers in the room.

• Students quickly got over their fear of oral presentations when they realized they could simply hit delete and then re-record their speech until it was “perfect”.
  

Was doing the assignment this way worth the risk? You bet! Students were engaged, assignment completion and submission was 20% higher than usual and the final products were of high quality and demonstrated understanding.

So, what did I learn today? I was reminded that teaching and learning, or making progress, always involves taking a risk!

Melissa Hopkins (@MN_Hopkins) currently teaches social studies and home economics at Clarence Sansom School. Her interests include fostering critical thinking, literacy, & creativity, as well as exploring the concept of the flipped classroom.

I have a great learning story.

I went into Sra Flor’s grade 2 class to read with the students in February. I don’t speak Spanish, but I can help with technology integration. Sra Flor and her students were learning how to create a class book using a word document. The lesson did not go as planned, however; Sra Flor then had the chance to show me all the amazing student created videos and digital stories that the students had created. She asked me how she could share them more efficiently with parents in D2L. I had given her a copy of Kathy Cassidy’s book, Connected from the Start: Global Learning in the Primary Grades  and Sra Flor showed me, through digital examples, that she had read and examined the book in detail. As a parent, you can’t be more touched when a teacher actually appreciates a gift - and applies it to her own class, which includes my son.

I encouraged Dalhousie teachers to consider some of the CBE PD opportunities that encourage authentic integration of technology - and a bunch of them took the challenge!

Since that day, I attended #EdCampYYC, where I was able to learn with a variety of teachers from Dalhousie as well as with teachers from around the district. I sat in sessions with my son’s teachers and was so proud to be in the room as we engaged in a critical examination of how we teach, learn and engage with our students. I have also helped the school with some Google Apps for Education training as the school transitions into the Google world.

What I learned that day in February, when one technology lesson did not go as planned - is that my child really benefits and learns from watching the perseverance and risk taking of his teacher. I was just lucky that I was included in one of their learning paths this year. Sra Flor's grit and determination is evident every time I am lucky enough to be in the classroom. I truly appreciate her patience and willingness to be transparent in including me in her learning in order to provide opportunities for her students. How many parents can say that they learn with their child’s teacher?

The story does not end as the year ends….next year I will continue to support the school in its new technology adventures, and I look forward to watching Sra Flor and the other teachers support each other to provide choice for CBE students and each other.

Each year, we aspire to foster a sense of wonder and passion within our students. For us, it started when our students forged a bond with a professional athlete, subsequently focusing our learning around the question: “What is the relationship between Science and Sport?”

This mentorship has fuelled our students’ enthusiasm to learn, explore, and grow. They have grilled a World Champion to consider the impact of friction on his bicycle, inspired an impromptu lesson on aerodynamics from an Olympic gold medalist, and challenged a CFL receiver to describe how physics influences his strategy. Others have connected by taking up knitting to demonstrate perseverance or by interpreting principles of of human kinetics through the arts.

The impact on others has been less explicit, but by no means less valuable. The language of fair play has become engrained in their values. Reflecting on their mentor’s experiences will encourage the use of a new strategy rather than giving up when encountering an academic challenge. Some now live the continual cycle of goal (re)setting after witnessing its importance to someone they admire.

A role model is powerful. Seeing that person discover, commit to, and pursue their passion can be everything.

These moments of learning and personal connection always serve to remind us of the power of a relationship and how any small interaction can be a pivotal moment in a shaping the narrative of student experience.

Not all of our students will become scientists – fewer will pursue professional athletics – but we will endeavor to empower each to ask questions, take risks, and pursue their passions, in whatever form that might take.

C. Ware (@shelware) & E. McCrady (@elainemccrady) are passionate Gr. 5 team teachers who won’t stop exploring & are science nerds at heart.