Yesterday the Manitoba funding announcement for the 2021-2022 school year was released which will see a 1.56% increase for a total of $1.35 billion; the highest in the history of our province. However, this marks the fifth year in a row in which the funding allocation has failed to meet the rate of inflation or account for the increasing needs of our provinces’ students. What is perhaps more upsetting for those involved in education is that this announcement was coupled with critiques from the newly appointed education minister, Cliff Cullen, who voiced his displeasure over the academic achievement, or lack… Read More
The Inequity of Remote Learning
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced schools around the world to rethink how education is delivered to our youth. It has also placed a magnifying glass on the number of social services provided by schools. No longer is the conversation simply centered on, “how are schools teaching children”. This dialogue opened up an often overlooked fact that schools have become not only centers of education but also that of nutrition, mental health, security, and facilitators of economic participation. On September 8th, four days after a draft version was shared with school divisions, the province of Manitoba published the Manitoba Education Standards… Read More
Whats New With ManACE
Earlier this week I headed into the city to attend the annual planning meeting for ManACE (Manitoba Association for Computing Educators). After serving on the board for the 2013/2014 school year I took a leave of absence to focus on my M.Ed journey. Now that I’ve graduated and am home on maternity leave I thought that this would be a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with this wonderful organization. Here are some of the awesome things you want to know about! 1 ) #MTSPDDay / SAGE Sessions – ManACE is the only SAGE group to offer PD opportunities across the province rather than centralized in Winnipeg or… Read More
mRLC Backwards by Design PD
Today was a division-wide PD day for TRSD and each school was responsible for holding their own unique PD opportunity for their staff based on their school goals. At “S-School” we attended a session on Understanding by Design, sometimes referred to as “backwards planning”, “Universal Design for Learning” or “Planning with the end in mind”. Design. (2011). Uploaded to Tach @ Riverdale by Meg Krause. Available online at:http://blogs.riverdale.edu/techintegration/2011/11/26/understanding-by-design-the-backward-design-model/ The session was divided into two half-day sessions, with the morning organized in a lecture-style format regarding the ins and outs of the planning strategy, while the afternoon allowed… Read More
Summer #EdTech To-Do List Revisited
At the beginning of the summer (oh geez, was that already 2 months ago!?) I shared my Summer #EdTech To-Do List inspired by a blog post by Anthony Vonbank. For the last five summers I have always worked two jobs to pay for the upcoming year’s school tuition, so I always considered myself very busy. This is my first summer since Grade 8 that I haven’t worked at all during the summer! I thought that this would mean that I wouldn’t be busy and was actually worried that I might be bored! HAHA! With the wedding, honeymoon, and planning for… Read More
How I Plan a Unit in 5 Steps
After finding out that I would be joining the “S-School” team as a full-time teacher, naturally, many of my blog posts turned to discussions of planning and sharing of classroom resources. Since that time, I’ve received quite a few emails regarding how I specifically go about planning out my classroom units. Now, I by no means consider myself any type of “expert” in classroom planning. In fact, with the ever changing face of education I don’t think anyone can truly master this task… ever. Furthermore, this is my first classroom, EVER, so everything is completely brand new to… Read More
Summer #EdTech To-Do List
I recently read a post by Anthony VonBank over at his blog, Clouducation, in which he shared some of his #EdTech suggestions for summer. Since I am an #EdTech lover, my Twitter-Tried-It Challenge is still going on, and I’m now on the ManACE Board, I thought it was a perfect fit for me to create my own #EdTech To-Do List too! (Big thanks to Anthony for the inspiration!) Technology is a given. (2013). Uploaded by Scott McLeod to Flickr. Available online at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcleod/8399337241/ While most of us can think of countless things we would like to try/work on/update/etc,… Read More
mRLC Backwards-By-Design Planning
If you are a teacher in Manitoba who is also utilizing backwards-by-design planning then you definitely need to check out the resources available through the Manitoba Rural Learning Consortium (mRLC). My principal shared this with us this week and I am so glad she did because it is going to save me a lot of work in my planning! The backwards-by-design method of planning (sometimes called understanding-by-design, backwards planning, or planning with the end in mind) involves planning out the “big ideas” or main goals for a topic first, then selecting the best assessment options, and finally determing instructional methods… Read More
Web Based Courses in Manitoba
On Thursday we had the opportunity to have Donald Girouard & Sophia Palahicky from Manitoba Education visit our class to discuss Web Based Courses. I personally never participated in a web based course when I went through the public school system but I know that I will be working with them in the future so I was interested in learning as much as possible. Manitoba Education currently has hundreds of distance learning resources which includes over 40 developed online courses that students can take at the Grade 9 through 12 levels. Since I am in a… Read More
Whose Job Is It Anyways?
“…These fall more under the purview of the resource teacher. My focus is on the content material as I am a secondary teacher.”[1]Whose responsibility is it when a Senior Years student is unable to comprehend the material presented in his or her content area courses? Upon reaching Secondary School, there is a more predominant release of responsibility onto our students. More often than not, they are expected to take appropriate notes, read/watch assigned material in preparation for class, study independently and ask for help is they believe they need it. What happens, however, if our students are unable to comprehend… Read More