ACPI 2016

Because it's a French immersion conference, it only makes sense to post in French.

J'apprécie et j'aime prendre avantage de toutes opportunités pour apprendre et recevoir des idées et surtout réfléchir sur mon rôle et la qualité de mon enseignement.  Ce fut surtout une merveilleuse expérience en tant qu'opportunité de s'unir comme équipe d'immersion française et de mieux établir ces connections et relations de support.

Mais, honnêtement, j'ai trop appris, donc j'ai pris juste des petites notes ici:

Quelques leçons des métis :)
- L'humilité (le loup)
- L'honnêteté (le corbeau)
- Le respect (le bison)
- L'amour (l'aigle)

Le jeu
Avoir tout accessible aux élèves. Leur faire responsable de leur environnement.

Les enfants ne disent pas: j'ai passé une mauvaise journée; j'ai envie de parler. Les enfants disent: joue avec moi.

Mathématiques et vocabulaire
- Trois niveaux de vocabulaire - mots de base, mots fréquents et mots spécifiques pour les mathématiques.
- Il faut faire des questions ouvertes

Soutenir les lecteurs
- idée: inclure les mots du jour sur le calendrier pour les parents
- étiqueter la classe

La diversification
- 4 catégories où les élèves auront du soutien:
   - comprendre à l'oral et l'écrit

Les meilleures sessions terminaient toujours comme ça:

What will your story be? Beginning Teacher's Conference

As I left my classroom (a mess to finish cleaning up Monday morning :/ ), I started to doubt my decision to come, but as I sat snacking on cheeses and slurping a pepsi to stay awake, the ATA president reminded me of why I came into education in the first place: to make a difference in the lives of today's youth.

Here are some of my thoughts:

What am I doing everyday to give 100% to my students? How can I improve? Sleep! Minimize social media...  How can I make it more fun/engaging? Am I able to change?

Don't dwell on the shortcomings. Fight to be better. Write down the good! Go back and remember the good. There are bad days, yes, but they'll realize you're their positive role model, maybe their only one, and when you establish a great relationship with each student, you've got it :)

Everything is super important, but it's about achieving a balance. Our health and wellness is everything. You take care of you, and they'll be okay. Take time to tell your support group that they are more important than your job.

We had a session where we learned about the ATA and what it is and means for me. As much as I might sometimes whine about how expensive it is to be a part of the ATA, I'm realizing the benefits and how to reap them. My number one highlight was learning about the ATA library! You pick what books you want, they send them to you, and they pre-pay the return postage fees! What?!?! Yes!

Saturday we learned about more curriculum specific material. Because I have never been a fan of social studies, I went to a session on social studies! Probably the greatest thing I learned while there was how it's not about content. It's about developing skills :)

Next, I went to a session on assessment and it was a great reminder to teach the outcomes. I'm guilty of looking at the topics and teaching those, but not looking at the actual outcomes in the program of studies. It's all fine and dandy to do fun activities or have them make something perfectly as they follow the detailed steps I give them, but are they learning the required outcomes? I learned it's less about the perfect final product. Rather, it's the learning that takes them there, whether the final product is perfect or not, and whether they've learned what they're supposed to and can perform the outcomes listed, not just make a pretty project, and then providing them with opportunities to give and receive feedback(!) both from peers and teacher and to be able to take that information and grow from it.

Other things I was reminded of or learned (one liners) :

You have to find out all the students' interests and the little things about them.

Have a lot of fun.

Have a plan to grow over the summer :)

Make mistakes.

Results are not immediate... if you ever even get to see them.

Counter the cortisol with more oxytocin (cuddles! :) ).

Funniest quote of the weekend:
Children are like farts. You can handle your own, but others are unbearable ;p

Video of the weekend :
https://youtu.be/vzrjEP5MOT4
Cuddle hormones ;p

Positivity

Salut!

So... needless to say, this past month has probably been the most stressful of my entire life... between kids being sick, my being sick, my first sub, my classroom having to be organized, parents trying to adapt to my styled of teaching, etc., it's a wonder I'm still composed at the end of each day... so last night as I sat at home in self pity, a friend suggested I should look at the bright side of my day.  I must say, there's always something positive to say, so I thought I'd start with just a few things that have made my life not only bearable, but good in this past month:

- good friends
- new friends and mentors, mostly in staff around the school, but a couple in the community too
- going home to my family on weekends
- hugs from kids when they come in or as they leave
- coming back from being sick or away for a meeting and having kids say they're glad I'm back
- my teacher mentor (and others) giving me any resources she can share
- uplifting messages I read each day
- learning new things

1re journée de 1re année!!!

Well, it's been a long time coming, but I've finally landed my first full year, full time contract! I am teaching grade 1 French Immersion and SO excited (and terrified! haha!)

I had my first day with the kids on September 1st, and I am probably among the luckiest teacher of 25  (now 24) students :) No, they're not perfect, and yes, it is a lot of work, but I love them!

It has always been a huge part of my education philosophy that students need to feel loved, and that without a genuine love for their students, teachers don't accomplish as much as a teacher who does.

The first couple weeks of school I was told I was not going to be teaching much of the program of studies, but more routines and expectations.  I feel I have slipped some in my expectations, and, as usual, I'm struggling with my classroom management.   It'll be one of my goals this year, and my teacher mentor has already given me some great pointers which I am trying to set in order, so I can improve.  For starters, I need to stick to my guns (and remember where I point them too!).  I don't want to be known as the pushover, so I need to set how I need them to act :)

The other goal I've decided to focus on right away is in how I deliver the material... I feel I need to work on better engaging the students... One of the perks with teaching in the 21st century is the fact that I have this wonderful thing called the internet! and to add to it: Pinterest :P

Needless to say, I think I will always be working on improving my teaching... so here's to 2016-2017! May it be better than I think it will be! haha!

PS:

This was my classroom on the first day, not perfect, but definitely looking better than 3 days before school started!

Online Presentations

This week's assignment gave me a good taste and even better appreciation for the flipped classroom idea!

I loved it because I know that in my classes as a student, I hated being the last kid to write down the notes that everyone was waiting for just as much as I hated being the kid who writes point form notes of the important stuff and having to wait around for the slow poke.  Online presentations, even if it wasn't an inverted classroom, but just posted again later, would go miles in k-12.  In university I have professors who will post their notes after class or provide their power point just before class, and that helps a lot.  My favourite thus far was a professor who posted his notes along with a recording of his voice and the writing he did on the electronic board every week!  I still have access to those I think... and I remember a lot about the vectors, etc that I was easily able to go back and review with "him".

The Powtoon presentations can even appear as though it follows my writing! :)

Also, a quick note: As I mentioned in a comment to my post on social media, I've almost grown fond of twitter now! This week, being able to see what others thought of each others' presentations was great :)

Communication is key... so how do we do it?

I am torn about this one to be honest... For myself, I love that with my phone, I am able to communicate with friends that I've made all over the world.  I have a plan that allows me to text internationally, and I have apps that let me talk to my friends for free!  I'd say that's torn down walls, wouldn't you?

However, I have also recently noticed how much it annoys me when I'm in the presence of someone and all they do is "play" with their phone.  Yes, they could be doing something useful, but aren't I worth spending some time with and some attention? It's the same as if I was talking to someone and suddenly they turn away and talk to someone else without even acknowledging that we were conversing.  I must confess I'm guilty of doing this both in person and on my phone, but does that make it okay? I don't think so.  There's some things that are just common courtesy.

Perhaps the best way to do it is by making sure people around you are aware of what you're doing.  Treating the phone as another person, one could put the conversation they're having in person on hold momentarily, excusing themselves from present company to answer/reply to messages.

So, what about in the classroom.  It's something I know I've already had struggles with... Some teachers don't want cel phones in the classroom at all.  Some want them visible at all times.  As a languages teacher, I have to admit the ease of looking up a word in your pocket size dictionary vs having to find a big dictionary and look it up (and I truly do enjoy looking up words in the dictionary, but one cannot deny the ease and time-saving advantage of the technology)

New Favourite Tool:
Google Forms! Who knew? I mean, I was pretty fascinated when Facebook made it possible to ask questions there, but this is better :) I do have to admit, I'm hoping they will soon find a way to limit responses to one per person and to know who is responding. Although I really enjoy it, I'm hesitant to use it with students or parents without having a way of knowing who gave which response.

I must take a moment to just contemplate Facebook in education.  To be honest, and perhaps it's just me being naive, but I would love to be able to put my students on my Facebook friends list... It's true, I would probably categorize them all as students and would thus put certain restrictions, but in general, I'd say it's easier to get a hold of them and, more importantly, get to know them through social media.  Not to mention, their parents are more than likely to be on there.

Kindergarten teacher, Matt Gomez, shares his experience and reasoning behind using Facebook again in his classroom on his blog!  He tells of how he set up a closed Facebook group to share with parents what he does in the classroom.  In another post, he shares comments from parents who voiced their opinions on the effects of the group.  Some of the general themes that stuck out to me included:

• giving parents peace of mind.  As a teacher, I feel it's imperative for parents to know that their child is having fun and learning... especially if they don't give big answers to questions like: How was school today? What'd you learn at school today? etc.  As a parent, I'd want to know what's going on in the classroom, and, especially today, parents just don't seem to have enough time to go and participate in the school very often. One parent states:
"I was very concerned about how my child would do all day in school, your Facebook page has given me peace of mind to know that she is having a fun day filled with learning and growth..."
• the facilitation of communication between parent and child.  A few comments mentioned that while parents usually got short answers from their student about what they did at school, because they knew what was going on, they were able to ask specific questions and get excited answers from their students
• the building up of a classroom community.  I know that when I was in school, my mom participated quite a bit for the amount of things she had to get done, but my youngest sister got the short end of that stick.  Typically, parents only know the parents of your best friends.  Through the use of social media, one parent commented :
  "... it was a great way to interactively get to know some of the other students and parents from the class..."

Exciting advancements overall! 

Discussion boards and listservs can contribute to student learning?

Mailing Lists :
I think we can all agree that when we're automatically subscribed to a mailing list and then check our email to find 20 messages from something you don't remember subscribing to, it's a little annoying.  For this reason, I can't see a listserv fulfilling the purposes we want, especially if we're using them to communicate with parents.  On that same note, I'm grateful for the emails from stores that I actually enjoying shopping at, so I can know when I can go in for a sale.  I also appreciate it when, at the retail store where I work, people trust us with their emails and come and take advantage of the many sales and promotions that go on.  It's almost the beginning of bringing together a community.  It also makes sure that everyone gets the message.  I don't have to make a point of going to the websites of these stores to get the updates!  In the case of education, students wouldn't have to go to a class website or moodle to check on things, it'd come to them, and in most students' cases, to their phones!  I have forwarded my university email to my more commonly used email account because it comes to my phone! and I get updated on it regularly.  Before I did this, I missed an online quiz because the professor had put it up on Moodle and then emailed us.  No more missing quizzes for me! 

Discussion Boards :
I like the idea of being able to have students ask their questions in a discussion board.  I know as a student, I've discussed with my peers when we've all sent the professor the same question, and I'm sure he/she would have benefited from a discussion board from questions.  In fact, I also had another professor who encouraged us to ask questions to each other about our assignments through the discussion board on moodle.  It was very efficient, and students would start a discussion on any particular question in the assignment.  They'd help each other out on there.  However, recently I heard of a case in Ontario where a student was facing expulsion because of helping his peers through a facebook study group*.  I suppose the key here is in the moderator - monitoring the discussion.  This is something my professor could do thanks to moodle.  I've found that Moodle has a demo mode! It's a great way to explore exactly what one can do as a teacher :) instead of simply what we experience as students.  

Other ways? 
Perhaps my favourite tool I've found so far as a teacher is Remind101.  It allows you to make a "listserv" via text messaging! (students that don't have texting capacities can still get it in an email)  I, for one, check my texts more than my email even when I get both notifications on my phone!  I currently am part of a community where we get reminder text messages almost daily.  Even my phone company alerts me of my bill via monthly text message!  It's a receive only listserv, so it does not allow for two way communication, but it also keeps everyone's emails and phone numbers private.  My students/parents don't have to worry that I will be contacting them individually (you can only send out to everyone), and I don't have to worry about them having my personal phone number or about getting a secondary phone.  I'm not sure this is the way to communicate all information, but it'd be a good reminder or could even encourage parents to get in touch with you.

*"Ryerson student fighting cheating charges for Facebook study group." CBC News Toronto. CBC, 06 Mar 2008. Web. 19 Mar 2014. .