This post comes Teach Children Well and has lots of good advice to offer. Today I am quoting the entire post. I think she could easily have been writing about the staff at St. Anthony. Please note the last line – make sure you take of yourself too!
Be Gentle with Families Posted: 28 Feb 2015 06:52 AM PST Today when I saw a specialist for a very small, but persistent, health issue I thought about the many challenges families face with regard to raising healthy, happy children.
The families we serve as educators bring to us their histories, current issues/challenges, needs, and interests. Children, in many ways, reflect their family’s care and challenges.
Today, the specialist met me with a what-can-I-do-for-you attitude and a heap of compassion. That’s exactly what I needed. He was honest and realistic. He knows that my minuscule issue like any issue big or small profits from an honest analysis, compassion, and a step-by-step resolve.
The same is true for the families we serve and children we teach. They bring to us their strengths, challenges, interests, and dreams. We do our best to help each child develop with confidence and engagement. We work with families with compassion to analyze challenges and create development paths. It’s a thoughtful, collaborative process that serves all best.
So be gentle with families and be gentle with yourself too. Then use your best strengths, experience, and insight to work with families to teach children well.
busy week for our juniors!!
St. Anthony This Week
Monday, March 2
Gr. 6 Grad Photo Orders Due
Hydro Presentations Kindergarten to grade 6 (Learning Commons)
How to create an active classroom experience with technology.
GUEST COLUMN | by Jessica Sanders
The traditional teachingmethod of giving a lesson at the front of the class puts you, the teacher, in an active position but leaves students in a passive role, where they are taught to but don’t interact with the material as much they should. In fact, Edudemic reported that teachers do 80 percent of the talking in class. This format can quickly cause students to become bored and disengaged—students that aren’t engaged have a higher rate of failing. When you use technology, however, the classroom becomes an active space, where you can interact with students and be more hands on. These active, technology-rich classrooms are often referred to as Active Learning Classrooms, and because of their many benefits, they’ve become a popular option for college professors in recent years.
You don’t have to rewrite your entire curriculum or individual lessons. Instead, take a look at what you’ve already prepared and consider how you can supplement with technology.
Creating an active learning environment is also a valuable opportunity for teachers of younger students, who have keep a whole class of inattentive students focused and interested.
While some teachers choose to rearrange their classroom to make them more student-focused, the simple addition of a few tech tools can make immense improvements for you and your students. See how simple it is to make this happen for your classroom.
Step 2: Consider the Learning Curve
Before implementing the tool in your classroom, it’s important that you learn how to use it. Not only will this make you more confident, but it will give you an idea of what kind of learning curve your students will have with the tool. For example, perhaps after setting up your teacher blog you know right away that there are a few students who will struggle with understanding the tool at first.
In this case, plan for a more personalized learning experience where you work closer with those struggling students on the first day to ensure everyone is on the same page later in the lesson.
This is why we are spending March 5 learning more tech.
Here is where we are going to complete work on this year’s SIPsa. We have a focus on feedback that we have yet to work on as a staff. We will be planning another half-day PD session where we will be focussing on some of these Google extensions, especially Kaizena and Read and Write which is a great feedback tool we can all use. Take a look at the Thinglink by Krista Sarginson above – it will give you some ideas on other apps that you would like to focus on for the PD Day.
Please complete the form below – we especially need to know what time you want so we can book your supply.
Thanks
From our SIPsa:
An overall goal for staff this year will be to use digital technology more effectively. We will work on more effective use of iPads, chromebooks and iPods on a regular basis in the classroom.
Our school SEF, EQAO debriefing and professional observations indicate that students are not yet able to read, understand and apply strategies with a necessary degree of independence. We need to use guiding questions (such as “5 Productive Talk Moves”) to provoke thinking and encourage student engagement .
As a staff we will come to a common understanding of descriptive feedback and effective questioning techniques (e.g., Edugains, Ministry Monographs, Fountas & Pinnell’s “Teach, Prompt, Reinforce”, Opening Minds) Participate in World Spelling Day
St. Anthony This Week
Tuesday, February 17
IPRCs for Mrs.Rupnik- Learning Commons Location – Paul and Teresa (AM)
The traditional teaching method of giving a lesson at the front of the class puts you, the teacher, in an active position but leaves students in a passive role, where they are taught to but don’t interact with the material as much they should. In fact, Edudemic reported that teachers do 80 percent of the talking in class. This format can quickly cause students to become bored and disengaged—students that aren’t engaged have a higher rate of failing. When you use technology, however, the classroom becomes an active space, where you can interact with students and be more hands on. These active, technology-rich classrooms are often referred to as Active Learning Classrooms, and because of their many benefits, they’ve become a popular option for college professors in recent years.
