BP A+ For Energy Conference

I just returned from the BP A+ for Energy Conference, which was held in Banff.  It was another fantastic summer learning opportunity, and I'm very grateful that I had the chance to attend!   I was able to attend this conference because two of my coworkers and I applied for this grant back in May, and were successful!  This coming year, we will be working on the past/present/future of the energy industry with the Division II kids at our school, looking at Alberta specifically for Grade 4, and branching out into Canada for Grade 5, and looking at government involvement in Grade 6.  We will be linking this up with a book series, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, which serves as an analogy of a dystopian future. 

The conference was a great chance to meet other people who were granted awards, many of whom have won more than once, to discuss projects, ideas, and plans.  We also took part in some in-depth discussions about the energy sector in Alberta (specifically oil/gas/coal, wind/solar/hydro/geothermal), ate some absolutely delicious food, and enjoyed the scenery in Banff. 

I had a great time with my coworker, Kat, and met lots of new wonderful people that I hope that I get to connect with again soon! 

Spark #SHIFTLab

So, with the usual guilt-and-apologies for the lack of posts for the past four months or so, I'm back.  This year, at the always fabulous ConnectEd Canada conference, which is now called Innovate West, I was fortunate to be able to take part in a session with TELUS Spark Educators to showcase and test drive some activities for their upcoming design thinking/making/tinkering summer intensive session called Spark SHIFTLab.  I had already applied to attend, because it seemed like a really cool workshop, but that session with Steph Nemcsok sold me.

I was, therefore, incredibly delighted to find out that I'd been accepted to attend the July cohort of the summer intensive, particularly when I found out that my new co-teacher and I would be attending together!

It was an absolutely amazing week that I am still fully processing, but I learned about many new things that I am super excited to share with my new class, my coworkers, and my Twitter PLN.  The next cohort is in session in August and then we'll all get together as a big group in November, which will be fantastic.

One thing in particular that has stuck with me is the emphasis on learning from failure.  I am super impressed by how often the staff of Spark will say that they failed at something, and then, this was miraculous, they just learn from it and let it go.  It's amazing to see that actually happen in practice. 

There were a few times that I was stretched to try or do something that I wasn't super knowledgeable or good at (hacking the electrical system of toys, anyone?), and even though I didn't "succeed," I still learned many ways NOT to hack a toy.  I've now concretely connected with that quote about Thomas Edison, which I've always loved.

Macro Structure

I am taking a Coursera course with David Levin of the KIPP schools and our final assignment is to create a Macro Structure project, which is defined as "any structure, system or routine that is designed to teach character."  There are four attributes contained within a macro structure, which are: recurring, proactively planned, active, and aligned with character strengths.

My school has a set of values which are central to our philosophy and each play a part in helping students develop character in various ways.  These include confidence, creativity, global citizenship, independence, peace, leadership, respect, and trust.   Routines to teach character are extremely important in elementary school, as the habits and attitudes developed here have the potential to become lifelong, and character education is a passion and focus of mine. 

A macro structure that I have designed for is reflective journaling based on powerful quotes.  Our classroom is an inclusive environment at an independent school, with 16 students, our classroom aide and myself.  In our model of inclusive education, we do not test for admission to our school, but rather accept a wide variety of students with a variety of exceptionalities, including Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger's, ADHD, and learning disabilities.  We have three streams at our school, including Montessori, Progressive, and Arrowsmith education.  

Each Tuesday, a member of our classroom (myself, our classroom aide, or a student) chooses a meaningful quote for the class to reflect upon and write about in a journal.  In this journal, the children are asked to answer the following questions:

1) What does this quote mean to you?
2) Why is it important?
3) Write about a related example from your own life
4) How can this quote help you in the future?

We follow this writing time with an in-depth discussion of our thoughts, experiences, and ideas.  We connect it to situations in our classroom, playground, school, and life.  We refer to these quotes later to help us remember those character strengths such as grit and zest that are important for learning and for life.

Some of the quotes that we have chosen over the year have included:
"Comparison is the thief of joy" - Theodore Roosevelt
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new" - Albert Einstein 

As Carol Dweck says, it is important to focus on opportunities for growth and the importance of the ability to make mistakes in order to learn and develop.  

A week at Museum School

We are back at school tomorrow after spending a week at the Glenbow Museum School, which is part of the Chevron Open Minds Program.  It was amazing!

The class learned an amazing amount about noticing details, making connections, and thinking critically.   They wrote poems inspired by art, then turned those poems into paintings, they wrote creative fiction inspired by artifacts in the Warrior exhibit, they used their knowledge and abilities to guess the purpose and usage of "mystery objects," they went behind the scenes to look at a variety of interesting objects in the museum storerooms (baby shoes, kitana blades, Patty the Dog, iceboxes, carpet beaters - so cool!), and chance to curate their own "mini-museum" as a completion activity on Friday, using artifacts from Alberta's past.  It was an amazing week and we are so thankful that we were able to attend. 

They enjoyed learning about the history of Stephen Avenue, sketching historic buildings from different angles including from the +15 walkway, visiting City Hall (they thought the old City Hall was much prettier than the new one), and visiting the Famous Five Monument in Olympic Plaza. 

This is an event that will inspire us at school for the entire year, and beyond.  Thanks to Michele and Marnie at the Glenbow and the entire Open Minds/Campus Calgary Team!

First Week of School = Complete!

I've recently begun reading an excellent teacher blog written by my friend Shivonne, and I'm going to take a cue from her.  I'm going to start blogging more often, and if those are shorter posts, at least I'm posting! 

My new class of grade 4 students and I had a great first week of school and I'm excited to dig in to some great inquiry learning as we get to know each other better.  We spent some time working on community building and making good choices.  We've read some great books, including my absolute favourite The Three Questions by Jon J Muth, inspired by Leo Tolstoy.  We also talked about how "Fair isn't always equal" and we watched the classic video Animal School by Raising Small Souls. 

Looking forward to next week!

School starts tomorrow!

I am so excited to be back at school tomorrow!  I've been back for a few weeks, moving things, getting things ready, setting up my temporary classroom, but tomorrow...tomorrow, the kids arrive and things actually get started. 

I like to prepare for school by doing all of my housework, prepping meals and lunches, and making sure that I can completely focus on school and my new kids for the first entire week.  I'm excited to get going - good luck to everyone starting school tomorrow!

And, a flood comes to school.

June 20, 2013 was the last school day of the year for me.  It wasn't meant to be.  We were meant to finish a week later, on June 27, 2013, but that was the day that the Elbow and Bow Rivers burst their banks and flooded much of my city and the outlying towns of Bragg Creek, Springbank, Morley, nearby reserves Siksika, Morley (Stoney Nakoda) and Tsuu T'ina , after already doing damage to High River, Banff, Canmore and later, Medicine Hat.

It had been an amazing day in Grade 4, as it was my second annual Innovation Day, something that will be continue to be an annual event for me, as long as I teach, regardless of the grade or age level.  It, along with Genius Hour, FedEx Day, 20% time, SOLE, etc, are a day in which we as teachers step back and let children take control of their own learning.  Question/wonder/topic/scope, materials, presentation style, outcome, all left up to the kids.  Of course we may ask questions, wonder on our own, provide assistance with technology, answer questions, but really, the entire project is under the auspices of the student.  What do they want to know/do?  How do they want to find out/do it?  How will they show their learning?  This year, I added a second layer to the project and asked kids to document the process of their learning as well, not just the product.  

There were kids baking various kinds of cakes, just to learn how (scratch, box mix, gluten/egg/milk free).  Kids making ice cream in various ways, to discover which method tasted the best (they conducted blind taste tests of their classmates.  A group of girls who wanted to know why Bob, our class betta fish, goes to the top of his bowl to breathe when he has gills?  Another pair reconstructed the classic baking soda-vinegar volcano, because they'd never done it before and wanted to know why and how it worked.  On top of all of that, we also had a 20 metre long marble roller coaster running through half of the classroom.  It's creator wanted to know how to build a course in which the marble would have enough velocity to successfully complete the entire course.  He played with angles, moved things around carefully, tested and retested, until it was perfect.  I've written another blog post on this topic with more detail on an Innovation Week blog.

After finishing the day in a rush, with a few groups needing some time to finish their presentations and conclusions the next day, we headed out for some games at our Parent Committee's annual Spring Fair.  It was held indoors, as it had been raining off and on for a few days and the weather forecast wasn't promising.  The kids had a great time, played a bunch of games in and around the school, finishing up in the gymnasium for a game of tug-of-war. 

It was during this that we began to realize that the lower level of the school was leaking.  Many families went home, other parents and teachers went down to help.  After a few hours of moving things up four feet, moving things upstairs, sandbagging, and the arrival of the fire department, we had to leave.  As we were leaving the school, we began to realize how widespread the flooding was in our neighbourhood.  There were police everywhere, helicopters circling, broadcasting evacuation notices.  It was a little bit frightening, and quite shocking, to realize the extent of the flooding in Calgary.

School was cancelled in the entire city the next day, and by Monday,  it was cancelled for the rest of the year.  Some of the schools in the public boards were able to go back on the original last day of school, June 27th, for clean up, pick up, a small class party.  We weren't, but we are so incredibly fortunate to have such an amazing school community that a farewell party was booked on Monday, June 24th for us.  I was able to say goodbye to most of my students, and see many of the students in other classes as well.  My son was able to have a great day long play date with most of his preschool class and his teacher, which was helpful because he still doesn't quite understand the concept of summer vacation and keeps asking if it's a school day or a home day.  Last week was full of staff and student wrap ups and that measure of closure was so wonderful to have.  It was a really strange way to end the school year, but it's certainly one that the kids will never forget!

Our city is still affected, and our local State of Emergency is still ongoing.  Most of the areas affected have bus service, train service, power and sewer back on.  Our families affected have had the school community wrap around them and offer help. Our Mayor has been amazing during the crisis and it almost seems like things are back to normal.  We as staff and families can't go into our school yet, but the reclamation crew and insurance company have been busy and things are going very well.


So, school is over, we've had our parties and our closure.  People are rebuilding, with lots of community and volunteer help, and things are going to be amazing when they're finished.  I'm taking this time to focus on making this September amazing for all of my new students coming in to Grade 4 in the fall.  It's going to be fantastic.