During the fall semester of this past year of university I took the course, Teaching of Aboriginal Studies. For my followers who are from outside of Manitoba, this course is a provincially-mandated requirement for all educators in Manitoba as of 2008. Throughout this course I posted periodically about guest speakers we had, projects we completed, and curriculum documents that we worked with. (These posts can be found under the Aboriginal Perspective label). I really enjoyed this course and felt like it opened up my eyes and made me realize how important it is, as an educator, to ensure that… Read More
Resources To Start Off Your Week 63
It is Monday and a kick-off to my busy weeks of substitute teaching! I am officially finished my student teaching placement but have been very lucky to have been booked EVERY DAY for the next three weeks for substitute teaching at various schools in “T-Division” and “M-Division”. I have also started prepping for my first classroom(s) which will start in the fall. As part of that, I’ve been finding some great resources that I feel go towards creating a culture of respect and safe learning environment. As always, I will be adding these to my lists of resources… Read More
Don't Take Credit For Teaching Me
There has been a specific video popping up everywhere online this week: Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. You probably know the one I am talking about: Jeff Bliss, from Texas, telling his teacher how she should be doing her job. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look: When I watched this video I couldn’t help but think of my experiences in the classroom and some things definitely jumped out at me. The first thing was how the teacher handled the situation. The video, unfortunately, doesn’t show the lead up to this conversation but the student… Read More
Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday! Emotions, Memory & Learning
“I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stronger it becomes” ― Vladimir Nabokov Think back to your time in the classroom as a student…. do you remember what you learned on that specific Tuesday of Grade 10, what your teacher wore in June, all the steps in a logarithmic equation or how many assignments you completed during a certain week, probably not. Most likely, you’ll remember the highs, how you scored a 98% on that one exam you spent hours studying for or winning the volleyball championship, and… 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
10-Finger Woo & Culture of Respect
Well week two of semester two is now under way and what I’ve been hearing again and again is how important it is for teachers to establish and maintain a culture of respect in their classrooms. When I’m applying for a job in the spring of 2013 I will probably be asked how I plan to establish a culture of respect in my classroom and what will that look like? Good thing I’ll have WBT in my back pocket! As we talk more and more about it I realize how great the WBT system can be when it… Read More