2) Personalizing Math Tools for Each Student

My students each have their own personalized bins with manipulatives or tools that they may require for specific whole group or small group activities, games, or stations. They access them whenever they want to and are not restricted to using the same materials as their neighbour.

3) Opening Up the “Help Desk”

While stations are going on and are running smoothly, I always open up the “Help Desk”... my fancy way of saying “come to the back table where I’m hanging out so we can work through some examples together”. This allows me to see the kids who want to see me to review or extend lessons, but also is a place to call small groups who require extra support. 

4) Teaching Whole-Group Lessons in 15 Minutes OR LESS… and Getting Out of the Way! 

Ah, the mini lesson. This took some getting used to considering most of my math instruction last year was entirely whole-group (cringe). I now spend maximally 5-7 minutes modelling with manipulatives while the kids follow along. I follow up by getting the kids up front to share their strategies and solutions to open-ended problems. I see tons of kids strengthening their understandings through these small sessions because they’re: a) bite-sized; b) driven by peer strategies; and c) hands-on. I also do a lot of quick formative assessment at this time; when the kids are in the front, I can tour around, observe, take some quick mental notes on who needs to see me at the Help Desk the next day.

While Daily Five is still likely my "best thing", I am very excited that the Guided Math program I’ve been building up will soon be fit to rival it. And I’m also excited that I no longer dread teaching math in any way.

Until next time, 

Here the little things I offer that might make an impact: 

For the kids:

I have the ability to make small strides in how I support my students. I make a difference by continually encouraging them even when they’re not doing so well. I have opportunities to turn their attitudes around toward an academic concept at school, or to get them to open their views to the world in new and exciting ways. 

For teachers: 

I’ve been working on teaching little tech-tricks to teachers make them more excited about technology. Even when it’s completely about us as educators, we go crazy for new tricks that make us look tech-savvy. And that’s the thing I’m making teachers realize: playing with technology and finding ways to utilize it makes us proud to use it. That, in turn, may motivate us to use it more, to experiment more, and hopefully in new and different ways with students. 

For me:

I’m trying to take better care of myself in 2015. I’ve said NO to so, so, so many opportunities because I need to let myself have more time. I want to dedicate time to my friends and social engagements. I want to watch TV sometimes. Oh, and sleep… that, too. 

So there you have it: I’m not making the entire world a better place by creating massive human movement. But I’m making the worlds of some big people and some little people better by doing what I love and trying to do it well. And I’m glad that I’m taking time to extend that gift to myself, too.

Happy New Year everyone! Okay, so I’m 11 days late, but let’s be honest, blogging wasn’t really my thing in 2014 and I have to start somewhere, right?! 

I NEED to do more with my blog in 2015. So I signed up for  the #YourEduStory blogging challenge earlier this week thanks to the ever-wonderful Jo-Ann Fox. And while I don’t know that I’ll be able to complete the challenge (sanely) every single week, my personal challenge is to do it every two weeks at the very least.

Week 1, which I’m already posting late for, suggests that we write about our “one word” for 2015. Tia Henriksen and Tracy Cramer have also issued a similar challenge for my school district. The basic premise is to choose a word that we try to live by each day for the entirety of the year.

Initially, I began thinking that my word for the year should be “change”. Change is something that is constantly happening as I push myself, my students, and the teachers I support to try new things.

But change didn’t seem like a good enough word. After all, it was the attitude I took toward change that was the important aspect to focus on. With that thought in mind, I landed on the word flexibility for 2015. 

Flexibility works in so many ways for me: 

In the classroom: One of the best things a good teacher can do is roll with the changes and make them meaningful for the students. An authentic sidetrack can become a very powerful learning opportunity and I want to continue getting better at finding strength in this part of my flexibility. 

Mentorship: Having a student teacher means that I need to spend a lot of time mentoring which doesn’t always land at a specific meeting or collaborative time. Often, questions are at “just-in-time” moments that require flexibility and focused attention. 

Coaching: Needs of teachers are so varied across our staff. In order to reach everyone, I need to be empathetic and flexible to each and every skill level.

Personally: I have been striving for more social time as I continue to balance the myriad of professional commitments that I have taken on. When opportunities to see my friends have arisen, I’ve been taking advantage of them and letting professional work wait instead of taking rainchecks… and that feels good! That needs to keep going even when I get caught up in the midterm mess.

So there you have it: my first post of 2015, and here’s to many more! Happy New Year!

The most recent Google Teacher Academy was held in Austin, TX on Dec 2-3 and I was one of the lucky participants selected to attend. The badge that comes with this event - Google Certified Teacher - is highly sought after by many educators as they yearn to become a part of this exclusive community.

I have to preface this post with the fact that I am not an advocate for badge seeking. Educational badges do very little to tell about the skills that educators actually possess. In fact, becoming a GCT didn’t really require me to fulfill any particular abilities with Google tools at all. Did I know stuff on my own already? Sure, but I learned all of that from Twitter and from attending various conferences such as CUE, ISTE, and GAFE Summits. So why all the hype then?

For me, it was really about getting into that room with the other 50 or so participants that have also been selected for the event. Big thinkers in the educational world with diverse perspectives from all over North America? Yes, please. I could have spent both days just talking to the other attendees and I would have left happy as a clam.

The event consisted of a combination of design thinking, session-based learning, and group activities. Throughout the academy we were exposed to different people and groups depending on what we were doing. I didn’t get to connect with every member of the cohort - not even close - but I’d say I got to talk to about half of them.

On the  second day, we had an opportunity to actually brainstorm ideas, create “SMART” goals - those which were specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and with a time limit. We got to interact with other attendees’ goals and give constructive feedback on how they could reach them. The room was plastered in colourful Post-It notes all emblazened with endless ideas about how to make positive impacts in education, free to adopt or adapt for our own needs. 

Sessions

The sessions were based around advanced Google tools and tips from our lead learners. The lead learners were an incredible group who had a lot to offer. In fact, I attended some of their sessions at the aforementioned conferences, making some of the sessions a repeat of something I’d already done. But that right there is a personal problem. Every one of the sessions had good things to offer and got us exposed to each of the lead learners and their strengths. I could honestly listen to Chris Aviles talk all day about storytelling and data and I stole an amazing amount of presentation tips from Katie Christie and Amy Mayer.

The issue I had was that the sessions were a bit disconnected from the design thinking process that we had been going through. Because of my previous personal experiences with some of the session content, I wish that we’d had the choice of continuing with our design thinking or attending the sessions. The plus was that we got exposed to different lead learners and their strength areas.

In the End…

The Google Teacher Academy is more than just a badge. I’m coming out from it having consolidated some existing relationships and igniting some new ones. I got to spend a bulk of time discussing some big educational issues with Karl, John, Matt, & Rachel. I got to have a great late-night chat with several others from the cohort, among them Stephanie, Richard, Suzie, James, and Alicia. And most importantly, our cohort finally defined how GAFE is really pronounced (I’m looking at you, short “a” people). For all of you non-believers out there, it’s now called GAFÉ. You will never look at it the same ever again. And you’re welcome.

More seriously, the goals that I set for myself and the design thinking process were the most important aspect of this experience. I can honestly say that these goals are going to be difficult to reach while being enrolled in my Masters program, but as Chris McGee would tell me, I should just say YES. On that note, if someone asked me if I would ever go again, I would say YES!

Thanks to all who supported me in getting to GTA - you know who you are!

In May of this year, I purchased a FitBit Flex - a device to wear around my wrist that would help me to track my daily steps taken, nightly rest cycles, and to give me daily silent reminders through a vibrating alarm. Some teachers use the FitBit or other health trackers to ensure that they are up and moving all day. While my FitBit has certainly reminded me to get up and get moving more, I have found another use for it while teaching.

So, confession time: I am a very forgetful person when it comes to timing, scheduling, and keeping track of items like my keys. I could probably lose my keys while my car is running... it's that bad. So, if a brilliant moment of learning is going on, I completely forget that I am supposed to remind Student X to go take her ADHD medication or for Student Y to go to his small group lesson for Learning Support.  As I have settled into my new class for the year, I have several students who need reminders throughout the day about specific things, whether to check in with me on a behaviour issue, check in at the office for medication, or just to be sent to the Learning Support room for extra assistance with academic or social skills.

I have begun setting my FitBit silent alarms to go off throughout the day to remind me to do those things. That way, when I feel the device buzzing on my wrist, no one else hears it, and I can gently remind the student about what they need to go do, even if it is in the middle of something else important for the rest of the class.

I know this is a tiny tip, but it has already helped me enormously with remembering all of the "little things" that we teachers do to accommodate student needs. I hope it helps you, too!

Each of the sketches, words, and quotes on this sketchnote have held some significance for me in the past two weeks. I fully and truthfully admit: my passionate fire for education is back. While I'm still aware of the deficiencies of our system, no one is stopping me from loving my job anyways.

I think it’s important to continue to have conversations about gratitude in education. In fact, these conversations have already been happening (check out the archive from #bcedchat’s discussion on Educational Gratitude). This has stuck out to me since things have gotten so busy again: if we don’t stop to be thankful and focus on the positive, we can very quickly lose ourselves in the negatives that we all know exist.

Please comment below with some of your moments of gratitude from your job, or better yet, a link to a blog post full of those moments!

This is a post I said I’d never write. I said I’d never include politics in my blog. Ever.

However, the fact stands that my blog is also a place for my reflection on my professional practice, and this is a situation in which I feel I cannot silently sit and merely internalize what is going on. I would actually define this post more as political impact on me as an individual than anything that would define my political views, though. So, here it goes:

This BC Teachers’ Strike defeated me. I say this as I look back on many months of consciously pulling away from social media, from blogging, from doing better work in my classroom. It has pulled me away from trying new lessons with engaging tools, from collaborating with other educators, and from personally feeling gratified with my choice of career. It has, in a phrase, temporarily deflated my passion toward teaching.

This job action experience, which has stretched back since early April of this year, began to highlight the ways in which our government devalued our profession. Now, don’t get me wrong, these were facts that I was already well aware of. So you don’t like teachers? Great, that’s your call... Moving right along.

But when those facts and opinions continue to get shoved in your face day in and day out, or it affects your job every day you start to feel pretty low. Oh, and the whole letting-down-kids, public ridicule, lock-out, not-getting-paid, piece? Yeah. Pretty low.

My biggest problems:

1. I had no control over anything that was happening to my students, my colleagues, or myself.
   
2. I was addicted to reading about it. 
   
   

I read everything I could get my hands on… about all of the things I couldn’t control. The latest move by the BCTF, the latest press conference by the government, opinion blogs, news articles, you name it. I would silently chastise media for focusing so much on wages and signing bonuses (which I could give a rip about) and their lack of focus on class size & composition issues, especially in the beginning. I would be glued to the #bced Twitter feed in all of its disgusting BCTF-vs.-Liberal-troll: Who’s-gonna-win-tonight glory. It was one of those things that you just shouldn’t look at.

But I couldn’t look away.

The things I read silenced me. Mean things. Nasty things. Lumping teachers all into the same, greedy, only-6-hour-workdays, only-work-9-months-per-year, lazy category. The worst part is… I  began to believe them.

Despite working on the professional development of others for much of the summer, I did very little to professionally develop myself. This was unusual for me. I started getting blocks in my thinking patterns every time I tried to imagine new lesson ideas in my head. My motivation for the program design work I had set up for myself at the end of last year began to evaporate, and quickly.

I started to quiet myself. Slow down. I did very little to add value to the online communities that I continue to hold in high regard. The social media outlets that I used to share prolifically to, I do no more. My blog archives became relatively empty when compared to the same time last year. I had nothing more to give, lest I be criticized. False hope pervaded every turn that we would be back again soon. I was hurt.

They defeated me. And I let them do it.

This week, real hope showed its face in BC education. Naturally, things started to change as the need to be prepared for the school year kicked back in. I have started reworking my grand plans that I hatched at the end of last school year. I am becoming excited once again about designing new programs for my classroom. I am cautiously regaining my optimism toward my career choice. The future certainly looks brighter. The time to start healing is now.

As we wait for the results for the potential ratification of an agreement, I can say I have begun to do just that. I know so many teachers in BC are hurting right now and that I am not alone. 

If you are not yet feeling on the road to recovery, join this challenge with me: take note of that first moment this school year where you burst with absolute joy in your classroom, school, or district because of your job. Write down a gratitude list for those moments that remind you why you love your career. Even for just the first week. 

I am using this strategy to heal the wounds; as deep as they have become, they shall heal. I look forward to sharing my list very soon to continue healing with BC educators… together.

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport this morning. As I wait for my delayed flight, I decided it was time to get some thoughts down. At least I was one of the lucky ones who got a seat beside an outlet to charge my devices.

I learned some things from ISTE, but not in the way that you would suspect. Usually people attend conferences to go to every session that they possibly can. The truth is, I've never done really done that at any conference. But then again, I've never been to so few sessions at a conference, either.

I can say going to only a few sessions was one of the best decisions I made throughout the time I spent in Atlanta. Not that there weren't great sessions to attend - the sheer amount of amazing individuals that presented was overwhelming. The point was that the sessions that I would have went to were all people that I'm already connected with on Twitter. The concepts they were speaking about were things that I could learn in my pajamas at home. Why would I waste valuable time that i could otherwise spend actually connecting with these individuals face to face? 

And the cool part? This strategy led to some very cool things. Things like improptu, delicious lunches with great conversations. Things like playing with Little Bits and building awesome stuff in the Blogger's Cafe with Robert Pronovost. Things like actually getting to sleep in a little bit because it was really easy to stay out and talk to people late.

I got to meet A LOT of people. I got to reconnect with A LOT of people. It was super cool just to walk through the conference center, or even downtown Atlanta, and just run into people from your PLN. 

For next year - yes, there will be a next year - I have some recommendations for my future self... and if this can help someone else, then great! 

You cannot be in two places at once... and that's okay.

I struggled a lot with FOMO during my first ISTE. There was so much going on and so many people that I wanted to spend time with that I pushed the envelope on the times that I needed to be in certain places. Needless to say, this plan didn't work out, and it didn't work out a few times. Initially, I had a hard time accepting that I couldn't be everywhere, but what I did get to do was fantastic.

Make time for specific people that you want to connect with further.

If it's important, schedule it. And don't make the mistake of pushing it too close to other obligations like I did. There are people that are on the top of my list to connect with next time for sure.

Blend in some "flex time".

Some of the best parts of the week were those that were unplanned. If someone asks you to go for an impromptu lunch, go. Seriously. The richness of discussions over food and drink was where the magic really happened at this conference. From sharing tech tools to insecurities to bigger picture issues in the edtech world, relationships were built even if there was no expectation to do so initially. That was pretty fantastic. 

Cute shoes are stupid because... walking.

Okay, so stupid is a harsh word, but let's just say I'm sticking with cozy all week next year. ISTE = insane amounts of walking. I wore cute shoes for ONE day - the day of my poster presentation - and experienced my first bl-ISTE-s. And that was Day 2. Oops.

Go to a local sports event or tourist attraction.

I had the opportunity to go to the Atlanta Braves vs. New York Mets baseball game while I was at ISTE. I absolutely adore live sporting events and love checking out different stadiums/field/arenas. I could have done without the Braves fans' Tomahawk chop, though. Seriously... that's messed up.

Do a photowalk.

Photowalks are great for helping you explore the city and all it has to offer. Our group shot some beautiful spots and fabulous architecture in Atlanta. And more than that, we found out where the places we wanted to visit were. I wish we would have had more time to actually do so... I'd love to check out the Aquarium and the Civil & Human Rights Museum.

I'm sure I could come up with many more things to recommend to myself for next year, but my lack of sleep is protesting against my will to write. Until next year, ISTE. It's been a slice!

I’ve always known that I’m NOT the best teacher for every kid in my class. However, I've always been someone who’s worked to be the best teacher that I can be for them. At different times in the year, I've learned that I'm falling short of being the best that I can be for some of my kids. So what can I do? ...It’s not like those kids are going to disappear from my class!

Like any effective teacher, I will change my approach for them. I will mold. Adapt. Flex. Find new and exciting projects or activities that will pique curiosity, motivate, and engage those students. We all know that these changes don’t come easily, or even quickly. They take hard work and determination.

But what happens for me when I try these new things… these new pedagogical tricks and strategies? When I give the integration of a new technology a go? When I experiment with passion-based projects and their associated organized chaos?

Well… here’s the long and short of it: It just might not work.

Actually, most of the time it doesn’t work. Sometimes this is because I am a self-proclaimed ‘program skimmer’; I don’t like to read the instruction manual before attempting to build the model. More often than not, it’s because the technology that I’m tinkering with doesn’t work the way I had envisioned it to (the NERVE!). But the bottom line is that I fail in my classroom in front of my kids... ALL THE TIME.

So why am I sharing this? Isn't a teacher's blog a place where shining and celebratory ideas are shared? Where pristine examples of lessons are glowing with positive commentary and reviews?

Umm, nope. Nope, nope, and nope. And if yours is like that, you’re not sharing the hardships. We all have them… And we need to share them.

Just like me, you’re probably not the best teacher for every kid. That’s okay. Remember: that which we share is that which will allow us to learn, grow, and expand. Let’s celebrate and embrace moving out of our comfort zone in teaching. 

Bill Selak and I have been chatting a lot on the topic of modeling innovation and educational risk-taking on Voxer. We both feel that it is important to innovate within your teaching practice, reflect, and have a space to share and feel supported in BOTH your eduwins and edufails. Join us on Twitter by using the hashtag #EdFailFwd as we try to help ourselves and others to deal with the everyday obstacles we encounter in our jobs and move forward. Let’s #EdFailFWD together! 

The inaugural EdCamp35 was held in Langley, BC at R.E. Mountain Secondary this past Saturday. I had a lot of fun preparing for this event with the rest of the EdCamp35 planning team, who dedicated countless hours to ensuring that the event would be a success. 

I have to admit that leading up to the event, I was extremely nervous for the day to come. This was the first edcamp that I'd really had a hand in planning (I did a tiny bit of work for EdCampWest Online last year) and of course, I wanted it to be a progressive and useful day for the attendees. The planning team worked very hard to emphasize the adoption of suggesting and voting for professional development that you wanted and/or needed, of open conversations rather than presentations, of voting with your feet, and of building empathy and networking with different educational stakeholders in order to find alternative perspectives on education.

There were plenty of registrants from our own district representing all areas in education - teachers, administration, support staff, student teachers, parents, students, school trustees, and district leadership. (When your District Leadership Team shows up AND sits in sessions to listen, you know your district is headed in a good direction!) We also had incredible representation from all over the Lower Mainland, the island, the Sunshine Coast, and we even had an international showing! 

So, the actual day? It rocked. The honest truth is that any edcamp is driven by the participants in it... of which, as I mentioned earlier, we had a lot of awesome ones. Here are my awesome eduwins, thanks to those folks:

Getting to hang out and throw together the details with an awesome planning team? Check.

Meeting the #bcedchat mod team face-to-face -- the first time all four of us were ever in the same room? Check.

That feeling when all of the technological workflows that you set up for the day actually work? Check. (Okay, so this was a personal win for me, though my PLN did get involved a little bit. Also, see our shared documents here.)

Having awesome conversations that expanded my thinking? Check.

Getting to meet so many members of my PLN that I had talked to extensively online? Check.

And now, 2 days later, there has been a particular influx of poetry on social media (yes, poetry - you know who you all are) in reflection on the EdCamp35 experience, so here is my little contribution:

I would like to end this post by thanking the planning team for EdCamp35. Events like these would never be made possible without the amazing support that we received in our district. A special thanks goes to Magdy Ghobrial, Ngaire Leaf, Nick Ubels, Chris Wejr, Shawn Davids, and Katherine Mulski for their devotion, attention to detail, sense of humour, and pure awesomeness that you brought to this experience. I can't wait to work with you all again next year.

Thank you to all that attended EdCamp35! I'm loving the incredibly reflective blog posts, emails, and feedback that our team has been getting from the attendees.  Keep 'em coming!