And it Begins… with Canadian History

Yesterday I had my first day of actual teaching in the Grade 11 Canadian History class. The start of the class was a little hectic as we got called down for picture day as soon as class began. I tried to roll with it, however, and had students fill out short questionnaires on que-cards as they came back. I asked them to include their:
– Name
– Favourite Subject
– Least Favourite Subject
– One thing I love about history is…
– One thing I hate about history is…

I explained that this would help me learn more about them so I could plan my coursework to fit around their needs and interests. Here are some of my replies:

I also took a quick survey to learn more about how easily they could access resources, how busy they were and what kind of learning styles they related to. Again, we discussed how this information would help me plan the course appropriately. Here are my results:

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Not everyone was present (I was missing about 4 students) but I think this information gives me a pretty good idea about what is going on in my students lives and how I can best set up homework assignments and various project options. After I collected all of this information from them, I thought that it was only fair that I shared some information about myself! Here is a Prezi I created and showed the class. Obviously I had stories about each of the photos I included but I think you can get an idea of what I was trying to share:

Next step was to pass out the course outline (which is really actually a “unit” outline since they already have a course outline from their full-time teacher, Mr. O). We went over most it together as a class but I specifically wanted to focus on how to sign up for Remind 101 and how to use the QR codes as an option if they had a Smart Phone (on the last page of the outline).

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Available on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bwf6KR9URrBaZzI2RnNkelBUaWs

One glitch that I was not prepared for, however, is that our classroom is in the very middle of a building made of cinder blocks and tin…. meaning our room has no cell phone service! I never even thought to check this because I never have my phone on me in class and our students don’t usually use their phones in class anyways. Fortunately some of them were able to “find” cell service in the room and showed the others how it worked. I am thinking that if I still don’t have everyone signed up for Remind 101 by Monday that we will just go into the hallway as a group, get signed up, and then return to class.

I would say that the day went really good! On Monday I will be getting into more of the content as well as starting teaching World Issues and Grade 4 Social Studies. 🙂