So today was my second day student teaching. Our day consisted of staff meetings, individual meetings with the principal and prep periods alternating throughout the day. I am going to provide an update tomorrow, as my student teaching schedule has changed DRASTICALLY (in a good way). In the mean time, I have exciting news!! Our principal, “Mrs. R” has told me that I should be able to film my class when I come back to student teach in October! 🙂 Our school has a letter that goes home to all students at the beginning of the year for… Read More
Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday: Final Evaulation Meeting
Being that it is my last week of student teaching I met with my Faculty Supervisor yesterday for our final meeting. I am happy to report that everything went amazing, as it has throughout my time here at “C-Shool”. We went through the observations that had been completed by my supervisor as well as my cooperating teacher and we also went through my weekly goal summaries that I completed over the last 7 weeks. What I am left with is a “Final Evaluation Report” that I am very proud of (and good thing because it is added to our… Read More
1st Reaction to Whole Brain Teaching
I had to share this story with you because it just made me laugh. Every few days our students have art class with the other 5/6 split teacher while my teacher and myself teach the other class gym. While a few days ago the 5/6 split teacher had to leave early to attend an appointment so she asked me to supervise our class during art for the last 10 minutes of the day (they were just finishing up an assignment so there was no work involved). The last class of the day, however, is always pretty chaotic for our… Read More
Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday: "C School" Update
After patiently waiting for more science classes (we don’t have science everyday) I am finally able to give you all an update about how whole brain teaching has been going with our Grade 5s. Compared to my last student teaching placement in the fall I am teaching much less, but spending more time with our group of students. In the fall I was teaching more than one subject (Grades 10-12 for hour long classes) but only had a group of students once per day. In contrast, I am now just teaching one subject (Grade 5 for 25-30 minute… Read More
Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday! All Systems are Go
I can’t believe that spring break is almost here! I feel like I’ve only just gotten the hang of everything in our classroom and now we are leaving for an entire week! The exciting news, however, is that my eighth Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday post is about introducing WBT in our classrooms! I hope that this focus on WBT 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 “Mind Soccer“, and while this week isn’t about… Read More
WBT & Manitoba's "Towards Inclusion" Document Part 2
Yesterday I started blogging on how WBT strategies might fit in with the criteria set out by the Manitoba government. I found the Towards Inclusion: Supporting Positive Behaviours in Manitoba Classrooms document and decided to focus on Section 6: Positive Reinforcement (pg. 53) and Section 7: Fair & Predictable Consequences (pg. 58). I quickly realized, however, that this was not a one-post topic and decided to split it into two parts by covering Section 6 yesterday and covering Section 7 today. SECTION 7: FAIR & PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCES The document summarizes that a teacher must establish consequences for inappropriate behaviour BEFORE… 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
You Can Start Using WBT by Monday!
Friday is finally here and Friday the 13th at that. I won’t sugarcoat it, we know that Fridays can sometimes come with some management concerns. Your students are ready for the weekend and that means that it can be easier for them to get off-task and sometimes this can snowball into even larger issues. When I was student teaching, Fridays also meant assemblies, sports tournaments, hockey games, etc and sometimes it could be so challenging to keep everyone on task and focused in the classroom! With this in mind, I want to share with you a great new resource from… Read More