It’s been quite a sick week for me. I always seem to get one big cold each winter and somehow I got this one before Christmas. It came at a pretty bad time. I had agreed to do a presentation with Leslie Boercamp’s Hour of Code group. It turned out that she had three locations tapped in and we went ahead despite the weather. It sounded like they had a wonderful learning experience with their Hour of Code event. Activities in coding ranged from “Block programming” to “Javascript programming”. The group had some terrific questions to ask and I croaked back some responses. One of the groups was at the Bruce-Grey Catholic’s Centre of Innovation. I’ve got to weasel my way into a tour someday. When the snow ends! A Storify of their event is available here.
I had another opportunity to see some Hour of Code activity. This time, it was Peter Cameron’s class….
The class used some of the thoughts I had shared earlier this week in a blog post. I followed along on Twitter for a bit and checked out the details in this post. It sounds like there will be more as they close into Christmas holidays.
My thanks to Peter’s class for proofreading my post and helping me get it revised.
Everyone needs to read this post from Tim King. It’s probably the Canadian mentality that we feel like we’re not doing well enough. But consider the source that’s telling you otherwise.
The PISA results for 2015 have been published and Canada is once again top ten (6th) in the world. I imagine this means I’ll once again attend a bunch of Canadian educational conferences with American (30th best in the world) speakers who want to tell us how we need to completely re-imagine our (their) failed system.
Even with this good news, nobody’s saying that it’s time to relax – working on improvement is always the best option.
Take the time to read Tim’s analysis and you’ll feel pretty good about things.
It’s About More Than Beading …
Every now and again, Aviva Dunsiger writes a title for a blog post that makes me go “Wha????”
This time, it was using the term “Beading”. What the heck is that?
After reading this post, I learned more about beading than I thought I ever would.
And, in true Aviva fashion, she tied the activity directly into the curriculum and also got us going by asking questions.
As children bead, they often talk. Sometimes they talk about their bead work, sometimes they talk about topics of interest, and sometimes their talk surprises you. This is what happened on Friday. I overheard some students playing with silly rhymes at the beading table as I recorded another learning moment in the classroom. My attention then turned back to this beading table.
Lots to learn, to be sure, and another confirmation that I’d be joining Aviva in the ever so stressed group!
But I’m sure that her students love it.
Two Thumbs Up for OPSBA’s EQAO Discussion Paper
This graph summarizing survey results kick off Andrew Campbell’s thoughts on the discussion paper on the topic of EQAO.
From the report itself, Andrew provides a list of the recommendations and the launches into his own reflections.
It’s interesting reading; the bigger question will be will it have an impact?
Will something happen now that it’s discussed in this manner from OPSBA instead of Teachers’ Federations?
I know many educators that hope that it will.
A Step in the Right Direction: #DiveIntoInquiry
At times, it’s so refreshing to find a resource that either confirms a philosophy or launches you into a new direction. Colleen Rose found such a resource in the book Dive into Inquiry by Trevor MacKenzie.
His assertion that Trevor’s book could address questions that had been occupying space in my mind was more than enough to keep me interested. The emphasis on authenticity in the school environment, “practical approaches [married] with …theoretical and philosophical understandings“, and a “solid pedagogical framework” promised hope for someone yearning to connect the dots and establish order within my unknown vision of an ideal classroom setting.
What I like about this learning is that it isn’t something that’s laid on for her. It’s something that she’s pursuing on her own.
It’s a wonderful example of showing your learning for the world to see. Hopefully, by posting about it, Colleen will get a few people looking for the same thing.
Colleen follows up with some additional points to demonstrate her growth as a result of the book.
Standing Desks and Other Classroom Micro-environments
Lisa Cranston is taking another run at blogging by rebranding hers and then sharing some of her recent thinking.
Many people are exploring the concept of non-standard learning environments and reporting some successes. For some students, it’s a welcome change and for others, it may be just what they need for self regulation. As she notes:
Having said that, one student was still having difficulty even while he was standing – he was banging his metal water bottle, he was singing, he was bumping into the desks. After a few attempts at redirection, I finally had to say to him, “Adam*, you need to go sit on the carpet for a couple of minutes until you can join us at the game without distracting me so much.” He went to the carpet and sat quietly while we continued to play, then after a minute announced, “I’m ready to come back.”
Lisa correctly notes that many of the examples for alternatives come from elementary school classrooms. But that’s not necessarily the rule.
Even at the secondary school and post-secondary school level, you can expect to see things a little different.
Remember the tour of Peter Cameron’s classroom?
The True Meaning of Educational Leadership
This post, by Sue Bruyns will get you thinking. So often posts like this lecture you on things that may well be something that you could have predicted before reading.
This was a little different and a reminder that it ain’t easy and schools and school leadership is more, far more, than just improving mathematics scores.
The true meaning of educational leadership can’t be neatly wrapped with a pretty bow, nor measured by the number of green vs red markers on a moderated task. It needs to be an honouring of our past as we venture through the present and look towards the future. And one never knows who will inform our leadership ~ we need to be open to the possibility of a trusted friend, with a figurative security blanket, being the best source of inspiration.
It’s a good reminder that we shouldn’t miss the big picture and that we should be prepared for those important moments that may not get to us in the traditional means.
What another wonderful week of great thoughts from Ontario Edubloggers. Please take a moment or two to click through and read the original posts. There’s lots of great content there guaranteed to get you thinking.
doug -- off the record 
Please share your thoughts here. I’d enjoy reading them.