Picture This! (Math 8)

As an introduction and review to our Grade 8 fraction unit, I thought that I would try to get the students to see the fractions all around them.  They had to work in groups of four to go around the school grounds and take photos of six different fractions.  The photos needed to show a visual of a fraction that could be reduced.  The students then loaded their photo onto the computer and wrote a "fraction sentence" describing the photo.

The students' fraction sentence for the photo above is:

"Two sixths swings are being used. This can be reduced, or another perspective is that one third of the sections of swings is being used."

This was a very quick and easy intro and reminder to the grade 8's about what a fraction is and how to reduce a fraction.  We spent the following day look at everyone's photos and then they had to guess what the fraction sentence was.  This was met with lots of giggles and laughter in class (which is always great to see in Math), but it was wonderful to see how many different fraction sentences students came up with, and the different perspectives you could take on one photo.

What is your fraction sentence for this photo?

This post is courtesy of Shona Becker.

Social Thinking Taught Through Visual Pictures-Grade 5

For the past few years, I have started the year teaching my class (and other classes throughout the school) about the concept of Social Thinking. Social Thinking is basically teaching kids how to be metacognitive about their social behaviour. It is getting kids to be thinking about their behaviours in various social situations and realizing that others are having thoughts about their behaviours too. This concept of Social Thinking was brought to my attention a few years ago when I attended the Cross Currents Special Education Conference. The keynote speaker was a woman named Michelle Garcia Winner who was toting the merits of using Social Thinking with special needs students. As Michelle explained the core foundations of Social Thinking I immediately thought that this concept would work just as well with my current grade five class. I also considered the broader implications of applying these concepts to a whole school setting and felt that the suggested common language used within Social Thinking would be a powerful tool both class and school-wide. Michelle has written a series of books that help explain the concept of Social Thinking in picture book formats. "You Can Be A Social Detective" is the book that I use to introduce the concept and language of Social Thinking. What appealed to me most when hearing about this concept was the language of "expected" and "unexpected" behaviours. Kids are taught that there is always a set of "expected" behaviours for any social situation. When you do what is "expected"people have good thoughts and feelings about us. When we do the "unexpected"people often have uncomfortable thoughts and feelings about us. What stuck with me about this language is that is not "value" based. We are not judging kids regarding their behaviour and deeming it appropriate or inappropriate.  Any given behaviour is either "expected" (following social norms) for that social situation or it is "unexpected".  

The first year I worked with this concept, I read the book to the kids and then had them work in groups to brainstorm various social situations they find themselves part of within a school day. This is traditionally called "Behaviour Mapping". Kids came up with social situations such as walking down the hallway, standing in line, using the bathroom, etc. We created a series of anchor charts listing the "expected" and "unexpected" behaviours for each social situation and how others would feel as a result. I then posted these anchor charts and  referred to them often in order to pre-teach and remind students about "expected" behaviours   before engaging in different social situations. This activity also gave our class common language to use on a daily basis thereafter. It proved to be very powerful and effective. It allowed me to respond to both expected and unexpected behaviours in a non-emotional way  putting the onus back on the kids to make the correct behaviour choice for each social situation. I was just someone who was pointing out whether their choices were expected or unexpected. I believe it allowed them to become more metacognitive and gave them the power to reflect on their behaviour and see how others were responding to them as a result.


This year I challenged the class to come up with a way that they, in turn, could teach other students in the school about this concept. They liked the idea of visually representing both the "expected" and "unexpected" behaviours using a camera. I divided the class into small groups and then they were given the task of coming up with a social situation and be ready to act it out for the camera. What a ball they had! They loved the idea of acting out the "unexpected" behaviours. It was a great conversation starter for other classes who were watching this all transpire. One of our regular bus drivers even got in on the action and suggested that a group come on to his bus and display both "expected" and "unexpected" bus riding behaviours. Our school principal was supportive of this leadership action the kids were taking and bought the original teaching book for each classroom so that other teachers could teach the social thinking concept to their classes. He suggested that the whole school begin using this common language and he now uses it regularly at school assemblies and other occasions. Our support staff have also begun using this language as well during supervision times. It has been interesting to see how much power that common language can have on a class and school-wide basis if all stakeholders "buy in" to the idea. Having given the reigns over to the kids to promote Social Thinking within the school made all the difference in helping this very worthwhile concept take root and grow.

"Expected" playground behaviour

"Unexpected" playground behaviour

"Expected" drinking fountain behaviour

"Unexpected" drinking fountain behaviour

"Unexpected" bus riding behaviour

"Expected" bus riding behaviour

Post courtesy of Heather Rose

All the Tea In China -Comparative Civilizations 12

After lessons on Chinese culture and history, including the Qin, Han, and Tang Dynasties we muddied our hands today in clay, creating tea cups that we will use in a tea ceremony later this month.

The first step was for students to use their smartphones and search an appropriate Chinese character they will engrave and glaze onto the cup.

The next step was to start making our pinch pot tea cups. Frustrating for some, easier for others, but seemed to be fun for all.

Tomorrow we will continue shaping and carving into the cups then let them dry to prepare for firing in the kiln.

Post Courtesy of Lesley Lacroix 

Reflections on What's Working (Junior French)

Some teaching practices ("traditional" and "non-traditional") I have found to be effective this year:

Relationship building: I haven't followed the 2 x 10 strategy as much this year, but I make sure I check in with students every class. Students often show up early or stay after class so this provides me an opportunity to get to know the students and I try to spend some time talking with (not necessarily helping) quiet students or struggling  students throughout the class.

Daily Quiz to start class. The quiz focuses students and provides students with an opportunity to review previous learning.

Choice on projects: By allowing students to choose what types of projects they do (and how they are marked to a certain extent) I am hoping that it increases engagement in the assignment and builds academic confidence by allowing students choose projects that cater to their strengths and interests.

Tests and Re-tests: Offering re-tests and splitting my tests into sections so students can choose which sections to re-do eases student anxiety and allows students to re-learn sections that they may not have understood the first time.

Reflections: I have had students write short reflections in English on their learning and on different aspects of the course throughout the term. I think it brings awareness to students about their abilities and will hopefully increase self-confidence while allowing students to realize what aspects of the course they need to improve on. I would like to implement more reflection pieces within my classes.

Games: It seems that this aspect of the course gets talked a lot about during Collaboration. It's a great way to spend more time with vocab/verbs in a manner that is enjoyable and engaging. When I asked students during a reflections time about their favourite activities in French many chose games such as pictionary, charades, fly swatter, verb relays, counting games, and card games as their favourite activities in French (especially when done outside).

Post Courtesy of Marcus Krieger

Self Regulated Learning-What is it?

It seems that one of the buzzes around the province these days  is around "self regulated learning".  I have been fascinated listening to the conversations and though I have heard speakers talk about it, and have read some of Shanker's work, I never seem to quite get the whole picture.

This week, I had the opportunity to talk with a professor, (Dr. Nancy Perry from UBC)  whose area of expertise is Self Regulated Learning.  She has a very straight forward approach that I could absolutely understand!  She prepared a handout that is adapted from an article she wrote in The Reading Teacher.  This is her summary:  

Self-regulated learners are:

1.  Metacognitive - they are aware of their strengths and weaknesses as a learner, they are aware of the task demands, and they are aware of strategies that they can use to solve problems and cope with difficult tasks.
2.  Motivated for learning - they engage in learning, they focus on deep understanding and personal progress, they are willing to try new challenges, they persist and they view errors as an opportunity to learn.
3.  Strategic - they have a repertoire of strategies, and they know when to use them.

Wow!  This is great.  Much of this is what we are working on in Through a Different Lens ... without knowing it!  We are looking at helping students become more confident learners... how?  through understanding their strengths, through becoming motivated and engaged, and through thinking about how to apply what they know to different academic and social tasks.  There are many blogs on our Different Lens blog that illustrate teachers using strategies to help kids become more aware.

Dr. Nancy Perry goes on to say that self-regulated learning occurs in classrooms where:

1.  Students have a lot of autonomy - choices, control over challenges, opportunities to collaborate and responsibility for evaluating their own work.  
2.  Teachers provide instrumental support - through establishing routines and consistent participation structures, where they teach and model learning and problem solving, where they guide students thinking and performing, and where they guide student choices, provide information, feedback and encouragement, and where they talk about learning and self regulated learning
3.  Teachers engage in non-threatening evaluation practices - where evaluation is on-going and embedded, where it is a process not just a product, where it focuses on personal progress, and where it encourages learners to participate in the evaluation.  

Again... I see so much of what we are trying to do embedded in her words.  Giving students choice and opportunities to work with others, providing support and modelling learning, and using alternate ways to evaluate progress. 

by Judith King

Sticky Notes + Peer Assessment = Engagement

As a teacher of writing, I am always looking for ways to encourage students to a) get excited about writing b) develop the skills to self and peer assess.  Luckily, I am quite able to steal other people's ideas and adapt them to make them my own. Recently, I used an approach that I learned from Sheila Graham, a literacy helping teacher (recently retired) from our neighours, SD #23.  In this lesson, students are given a bare-bones paragraph, in this case based on a teacher ripping his pants in class. In small groups, students re-write the paragraph focusing on building on the "idea", adding descriptive details, developing the plot, assigning names and adding to the setting, all to create a more engaging, interesting paragraph.  As much as I might think this idea is madly exciting, this is not always so much the case for the kids. Here is where the sticky notes come in! Students are each given 5 small sticky notes (one for each group). Once the paragraphs are complete,  groups are rotated to another desk grouping, leaving their newly-written paragraph behind. Each group reads the work of each of the other groups as they rotate around the room. On the sticky notes, students are to write some form of positive feedback...ie: "I liked the name you chose for the teacher", "Your story was funny!", "You described his pants well."  

What I noticed as students went from station to station is a) they were really engaged in the reading of each other's work  and b) they could not wait to get back to their station to read what their peers had written. 

There was some risk involved in this lesson. What if the students didn't write anything? What if they couldn't find anything positive to say? What if the group wrote something inappropriate?  None of this turned out to be problem, but these questions did cause me pause at the start. 

All in all, a worthwhile activity.  I think next time, now that students know from the start what it looks like, the engagement might be even better! 

This post is courtesy of Andrea Devito. 

Whiteboards in Spanish (Spanish 10)

Today we worked on using questions in conversation by working in pairs on the whiteboards. Each pair made a simple sentence in Spanish, like "I am going to go to the park. " "Voy a ir al parque." Then students rotated around the class making a new question on each board. Where, at what time, with whom etc. The students were also practicing IR+A+Infinitive to make the future. The students had a hard time switching between you in the question and I in the answer.

After the activity I asked the students if they liked the activity. All of them like the movement in the activity and being able to "think" with a partner. Some of the students said they learned a lot. I noticed that the students were engaged and I could  see where they were having trouble. I had also asked the strong students to help the weaker students and not do all the work themselves. They were good teachers!



Post courtesy of Anita Mosher

I want more cell phones (Law 12)

Yep...that's right...I said it...and am writing it.  I love cell phones.  I really love smart phones.

Was trying to teach some basic legal terms - tired of the usual.  Broke the students into groups of 3 making sure each had a phone that could take a photo.  Not hard, as almost everyone had one.

Then, each group randomly got a term from the text - and then had to figure out how to teach it.

Some emailed me photos, one put two videos on u-tube - a few found photos online and sent them to me.

I then put up the photos/videos/links supplied to me onto the projector and each group gave a definition and an example for their term (templated note sheet had gone out before this).

The results weren't perfect - but it was a first - and it worked far faster than I had imagined.  Less than 20 minutes was needed for all of the groups to do their work and when I saw the images from the group working at constructive and direct discrimination I came to the conclusion that computer labs will soon be things of the past.

Don't give me computer labs, give me cell phones.

Post courtesy of Dave Searcy.