During lunch today, I started painting. About five kids stayed inside instead of going out for recess cause they wanted to paint, too. Those 20 minutes were the most chill moments with these kids ever. I learned a ton about them as we talked and worked. When the other kids came back from recess, you [...]
My goal this year has been to give students as much of an active role in their own education as possible. For 2-4 periods each day, students have the freedom to learn based on their own curiosities, interests, and strengths. It's an interesting shift as an educator because I'm consistently battling with myself on how best [...]
Many have enjoyed my previous space - the tech lounge at Fairlawn PS. This year I am at a new school and teaching a grade four homeroom. My goal in moving to a homeroom has been to recreate the type of environment I had created in the tech lounge. Someplace that feels like "home", provides [...]
It has been one of my goals this year to make math authentic, when and where possible. To make it hands-on, active, and practical. To not just be numbers on a page filled with hypothetical situations, but to have the problems come to life. It's not the only way we practice math but it is [...]
What do you think of when you hear play? If a child were to tell you that they "played" at school, what would you think? How do our beliefs about play affect our educational system and the choices we make as educators about how we deliver the curriculum? How does that evolve over time? Play [...]
I am beginning a new journey this year as a grade four homeroom teacher. I have been teaching grade four Core French for many years (and will continue to do so) but after having over 400 students/year, I am loving the chance to have more time to get to know a smaller group of students. [...]
I was inspired by hearing Todd Rose's TEDx talk so much that I just had to get his book to read more. Over the past few days, I have devoured it and it really had reshaped how I look at the historical context of education, the findings of social sciences that I took for granted [...]
There's something that Erica Fox, Google's Director of People Development, said to us that keeps coming back to me. When talking about growing Googlers (aka professional development), she said, "At Google, nothing is mandatory." Wait, what?! Training sessions, even their awesome "noogler" on-boarding process - optional. They will nudge and prompt you to go to relevant [...]
How do we teach in an innovative world? What is our value as educators? It used to be that educators were the keepers and distributors of knowledge and information - that is no longer the case. How do we reshape our ideas of learning and what is important to learn when the world's information is [...]
I recently returned from Mountain View, California, where I was blessed to spend three mind-blowing days at Google's headquarters participating in the Google for Education Innovation Academy. These days were jam-packed with so many takeaways that I've struggled to put it all into words. There will be more blogging to come on various lessons learned but for today, [...]