On Saturday I attended an EduCon conversation about the students in our classes who may be introverted and how we can best address their needs in our classrooms. Ever since then, I have been trying to brainstorm some ideas on how I may use whole brain teaching strategies and have them be a positive experience for these students. Tony Baldasaro mentioned a few times throughout the conversation that students who are introverted need time to think and reflect silently on a subject before sharing their ideas with others. He used the example that a student who is… Read More
Resources to Start Off Your Week 2
Its a new week and what better way to start off our week by finding some great new online resources to use in our classrooms. Remember, I will be adding these to my Favourite Websites page so ensure you head over there to check out the full list that I’ve complied so far. 1 ) Classroom 2.0 LIVE– A website used to host online professional development conversations.– Teachers can use this website to educate themselves on new and exciting topics as well as connect with other people in the educational field.– The website maintains a great archive and resource list!–… Read More
My Thoughts on Educon 2.4
Well Sunday is finally here and amidst finishing homework, my parents coming into town to visit and attending a wedding fashion show I am happy to say I was able to attend BOTH of the EduCon conversations that I mentioned on Friday! The entire experience was a little overwhelming but very exciting for me. I had decided that I would try to figure out the online streaming access a few hours prior to the sessions I wanted to attend, and good thing! It seemed to take me FOREVER to actually be able to view the online conversation streams (remember,… Read More
EduCon 2.4
This weekend is the 2012 EduCon conference in Philadelphia! I will admit, before I became an education student I had not heard about this conference before but I am so glad to have been introduced to it through all the great educators on Twitter. They shared it with me and I would like to share it with you! Here is a description about EduCon from their website: “Educon is both a conversation and a conference. It is an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every… Read More
Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday! Class-Yes
One week has come and gone and I’m excited to be writing my second Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday post! I hope that this focus on a specific WBT strategy is helpful to those of you who are wishing to learn more about how a certain strategy may work and what my personal experience with it has been. Last week I highlighted “Teach-Ok”, this week I would like to introduce you to the WBT strategy of “Class-Yes”. (I realize that my introduction of these strategies are not in any specific order). “Class-Yes” is a classroom management strategy that allows… Read More
WBT & Differentiated Instruction
Dr. Carol Tomlinson Today in class we viewed a video on Differentiated Instruction by Carol Tomlinson, (view her website here). We talk about Differentiated Instruction in every single one of our education classes. If you are not familiar with this topic, it centers on the idea that every classroom is going to have students that represent a broad spectrum of learners and, as teachers, we must plan for these differences. We need to keep in mind that our students are going to be coming into our classrooms with different ability levels, different learning styles, different backgrounds, etc and we need… Read More
Resources to Start Off Your Week!
Who doesn’t love expanding their list of educational resources?? I know that as soon as I see a list of resources online my mind immediately starts turning on how I can incorporate and use these new and exciting ideas! Each Monday I will post a list of Resources to Start Off Your Week with at least two new additions that I will add to my favourite websites page. (These may be related to Whole Brain Teaching or just general educational resources.) 1 ) Inclusion Educator Checklist– A great checklist that allows for teachers to gauge their level of inclusion in… Read More
And the Results Are In!
I haven’t posted in a few days as I was at a resort and spa for the weekend celebrating my fiance’s birthday with my in-laws-to-be! It was a wonderful holiday but I’m now back to the world of laundry, homework and a staggering 30+ emails to catch up with. I am happy to report that our first Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday was a fabulous success with several hundred people checking out the post! The WBT website has so many amazing strategies and resources that I will be able to highlight different ones on Wednesdays for quite some time. Thank… Read More
Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday! Teach-Ok
Today is our first Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday, a special post dedicated to highlighting a specific WBT strategy in more detail than I do during some of my regular posts where I discuss my education classes as well. To kick it off our first WBT-W I would like to start with “Teach-Ok”. “Teach-Ok” is a formative assessment tool that allows for you, as the teacher, to gauge student’s comprehension on the topics you’re teaching. This strategy, however, is not your average worksheet that bores your students, requires hours of marking and kills trees! Studies have shown that when the… Read More
New Additions!
The weekend has come and gone and, for the most part, I spent my time working through the Grade 6 social studies curriculum for my social studies method course. I did, however, make time to add some new things to the site! First, after a bit of work, I figured out how to make my very own “button” for my blog. I have a sample picture here on the left (I think it looks pretty cute!) It should appear on the right-hand column. As I network with more people, I am slowly adding other buttons to this blog… Read More