Building Confidence

When I was brainstorming my first HMW question a few years ago, one of my biggest frustrations was with hearing students constantly say “I can’t speak French”. Or even worse… “I don’t speak French so I don’t know how to do this”. Since my first year of teaching I have been working to build students’ […]

Student Voice vs Teacher Experience

George Couros, author of the Innovator’s Mindset, had an interesting post on his blog yesterday about teachers valuing students input on their education while balancing teacher experience and expertise. He commented on another post by Dean Shareski who critiqued the idea of fully-personalized learning where the student makes all of the decisions about learning. Simply […]

That’s a wrap on becoming Cohort21!

That’s a wrap on becoming Cohort21! is a reference to an MTV show I used to love called “Becoming” where an average person could re-make a music video and become their favourite pop singer. In a way, I could compare my experience with Cohort21 to this concept, as I have been wearing the hat at each F2F […]

A work in progress…

Action Plan Update “How might we help boys identify what engages them in French classes so that they are intrinsically motivated for second-language learning?” Ok, so at the end of the 3rd F2F in January, I had decided that my Action Plan was really going to focus more on helping to shift the cultural attitudes […]

A Message From The Highwire

Do you ever feel like you are looking down at the world from the highwire? Tip-toeing across a tiny little wire, attempting to balance your professional and personal lives without coming crashing down on your family, friends, coworkers and students in a heaping pile of failure? I’m sure every teacher feels this way at least […]

Creative Confidence…

I promise to no longer say that I am not creative. I promise to have creative confidence! Creating and innovating does not have to look a certain way, or be perfect whatsoever. It involves trying something new, asking questions and taking risks with the hope of learning something wonderful, which is exactly what I’ve been […]