A slight confession: I wholeheartedly admit that when I saw the book “The Price of Privilege” on our reading list, by Madeline Levine, I was in part hoping for a book that would pick apart the devastating effects of power and affluence in white communities and how this privilege not only affects those people who are oppressed, […]
I happen to be one of the lucky few who has happened to find herself teaching at a school whose ideologies regularly match her own. I am nurtured and nourished by the idea of reading juicy, provocative, and challenging texts over the summer to push forward my practice as a teacher. I even, dare I […]
I think Ruth said it perfectly when she reflected at the end of the final F2F session that happened this past Friday, that it seemed like we were all just getting to know each other and then this Cohort thing is over. Perhaps it was because we all just went through something challenging together or […]
[youtube]http://youtu.be/0ERX3g7dYLw[/youtube] Initially, at the start of the year, I thought that I would focus on a “21st century novel study”. This is what I tweeted out on the 24th of January: And then I started to consider where the areas of strength and challenges were with my class’s study of The Book Thief: some aspects of […]
This article, about the assessment of deeper learning, helps to put a few key ideas into context that connect to my action plan. Namely… – Students benefit from having a say in how they are assessed – The right feedback at the right time is essential – Reflecting at the end of a learning experience […]
Authentic audiences, student voice / choice, SAMR friendly uses of technology, academic mindsets, thoughtful exhibition of student work, big ideas, essential questions, cross-curricular connections, and critical thinking…it’s enough to make my brain burst! In many ways I feel like going deeper into deeper learning and 21st century pedagogy through the DLmooc and Cohort 21 has […]
I have to admit that I have enjoyed the messiness of my journey this year to uncover and articulate my action plan. I knew that I wanted to explore something related to personalized learning and my English teaching specifically, but it really took me some murky moments to understand what I need to improve and […]
What I Saw The Students Actually “Do”: I am a (new) big fan of the “know, do, reflect” model of assessment that came up during the Assessment panel discussion in the Deeper Learning MOOC. Bob Lenz’s model, I think, could be a new way for me to understand how I can structure my assessment tasks […]
Background: Be it resolved that teaching students how to make deep connections between disciplines, in a limited amount of time, is a ridiculously challenging experience. Thank goodness for March break (and the warm sun of Florida) to digest and make sense of this learning experience. A few weeks ago, I posted about one of the […]
Tagging on to my reflections about mindsets from the DLMooc work, I wanted to share an experience I had as a teacher this past week. Every winter, the Grade 7 class spends three days north of Toronto in the forest, making peace with winter. This was my first time on this particular trip and […]