This is transformative…

Sitting in a staff meeting… Teachers seated in the audience, a select group of people at the front leading the meeting dispensing information. Information that may be important to know yet an inefficient way to accomplish the task.

That day I remember one statement – emphatically declared that sat like an irritating pebble in my shoe, “It’s about learning, it’s not about teaching.”

This statement was not unpacked at the time and I wondered what it meant for me as an educator. I was annoyed. After all, I am a teacher! Isn’t it my job to teach?

I’ve come a long way since that day and so have staff meetings, which are now opportunities for professional development.

What is the real work of an educator? The following quote is from the book UDL and Blended Learning Thriving in Flexible Learning Landscapes, by Katie Novak and Catlin Tucker which describes the role of today’s educator:

“As educators we have the power and privilege to design learning experiences that help students learn how to learn. The three UDL principals were designed to ensure that all students become expert learners. This is completely transformative because, in the past the main goal of school was teaching content. Through UDL and blended learning we shift our focus from teaching content to teaching learning. Page 149

What is UDL – Universal Design for Learning?

The first chapter of this book explains the 3 principles of UDL and provides three questions to ask as educators.

Universal design for learning aims to provide multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action, and engagement for all students. That is a lot to unpack too! These three questions drive instructional design:

  • What do all learners need to know or be able to do?
  • Based on variability what barriers may prevent students from learning?
  • How do I design flexible blended pathways for all learners to learn and share what they know? Page 39

What is Blended Learning?

With my experience as an online teacher this definition of Blended Learning resonates with me. Blended Learning gives students the opportunity to have control over the time and place, pace and path, of their learning. Technology has become increasingly accessible, devices and online tools have given students greater scope, creativity, and flexibility in the ways they learn. It is this creativity and opportunities for out of the box thinking that hooked me when I designed lessons online.

UDL and Blended Learning Thriving in Flexible Learning Landscapes, by Katie Novak and Catlin Tucker will expand your understanding of these ideas and give you practical examples of how to make this work in your setting. It’s the kind of book that makes me nod in agreement and reflect on my own teaching practices. BlendED Alberta is currently hosting an online book study; we are on week 4 out of 5 weeks. (Tuesday, March 1, @ 7:00 PM. it is not too late if you want to join us.). Check our website.

If that is not an option, there is an even more exciting opportunity. Join us for the 2022 BlendED Symposium April 6th to 9th. All sessions are after school hours and on Saturday morning – no supply teacher required! Catlin Tucker is our Keynote speaker Saturday morning.

“It’s about learning, it’s not about teaching.” might just have been a provocation – it is about learning and it is about teaching. It is about shifting our focus. Join us and learn more, at the BlendED Symposium.

We Are Connected

This photo captured my imagination immediately.

I’m glad it landed in the collection of family photos. I’ve often wondered about these serious and strong looking individuals with their sheepskin vests, beautiful embroidered shirts and well worn work boots.

Hafia, the young woman in the the top left this photo is the great grandmother of our children. I am sure she treasured this one photo, a memento of the family she would leave behind in Lviv, Ukraine.

She came to Canada and married Jacob Kobewka in the coal mining town of Midlandville, Alberta. She did not speak English and a pastor’s wife helped her learn the language. She had 4 children the eldest was our grandpa, Mike Kobewka. I think of her and wonder about all the challenges she faced raising 4 children in this small, rough town. Sadly she had an early death due to medial conditions that were not treated.

However today I am thinking of the descendants of those other people in the photo. Those who stayed to make a life in Ukraine. In some small way we are connected. I grieve for the people of Ukraine and today, and in the days ahead, I’ll pray for peace.

Grade 3 Using My Maps

Grade three students in my online class are currently learning how economic factors shape communities.

  • What are the main goods and services produced by the communities we are learning about?
  • What goods and services do the communities import from and export to other parts of the world?
  • Where, on a globe and/or map, are the countries of Peru, Ukraine, India and Tunisia in relation to Canada?

What better time to use My Maps?

I begin by creating a video using Screencastify, a Chrome extension, to introduce this tool so that students can become familiar with the possibilities. During our regular online class, we explore My Maps together. Students learn how to access and find My Maps and how to begin inserting pegs, photos, and text. Later they can refer to the video to guide them as they try it on their own. After our exploration in an online class and the video in our online course, I will give students this assignment.

When you are ready, go to Google Drive to create your own My Map.

Follow the steps in the video to create your own map.

Name your map with your name and the title, Goods from Around the World.

Add a peg for each country, India, Ukraine, Peru, Tunisia.

Your textbook is one resource to find out about the natural resources, goods or technology in each country. 

Add photos of goods produced by the country with each peg you add.

Write to tell more about what the country produces.

Share your map with me.

My Maps is an application that is easy to use and provides so many opportunities for learning and creating.  Imagine the connections to literacy, math, science, history, art that students can make.  I am curious to hear about creative ways your students will use this geo-tool. For more ideas take a look at Bring the World To Your Classroom by Kelly Kermode and Kim Randall.

Online Learning – Connecting Kids

 

 

I am inspired by fellow educators who are busy figuring out ways to continue connecting and working with students. I am grateful to be in a profession such as this.

We’ve had an abrupt and dismaying change in our lives, yet my colleagues are determined to move forward with learning in a new way. Sometimes it just brings me to tears. Which may also be part of my emotional state at the moment.

How to get started with online learning?

You already have the best start ever.  Why?  Because you know your students.  You have had the opportunity to see their faces every day.  You know their quirks, their strengths their interests and nothing, nothing is better than that.

You already have a community of learners.  So take a breath and think, how can I keep that connection going?

What tools can you use?  Start as simply as you can with an online tool that you are familiar with.  Your students need to learn how to use that tool, so begin there. That’s the first step, and if they’re young learners, as mine are, they will need the support of an adult to navigate this way of connecting.

Maybe create a video that shows them how to access and use the digital connection you want to use.  And when it comes to videos – it’s you they want to see. You are their teacher so be yourself and if the video isn’t perfect – great! You will bring a smile to your student’s faces.

When I first began teaching as an online educator I felt that this computer was a barrier to connecting with my students.  It was a challenge to overcome. It’s true, that things may take longer to establish in an online learning environment, but you will once again have opportunities to see the spark of joy that comes when students learn new things.

If there is one thing I have observed, it is that young learners are very capable of using digital tools for learning, and this has changed the way I teach. Digital tools have become more intuitive and friendly, and young learners are also increasingly familiar and adept at using technology in their lives.

 

 

 

 

Co-Creating Learning Stories

Talking , photographing and thinking about our story.

Inspiration!  Once again gathering with my colleagues, participating in great sessions and connecting to new ideas, meant that this was another enjoyable and worthwhile teacher’s convention.

I use photographs in my classroom as a way for students to share what they have learned and as a jumping off point for stories and further reflection. Our lives are filled with stories and each day our learning is a story of its own. Kristy Wolfe’s session, Making Learning Visible: Photographing and Co-creating Learning Stories, had appeal from the start. Kristy Wolf, a woman with a passion for photography and story telling shared her knowledge and her love of kids’ learning through imagery that tells a story.

To tell the story in a meaningful way, begin by thinking about the photos you need, before your eyes look through the lens. Think about the shots that will capture the moment.  Look for opportunities to capture these parts of the story.

  1. Set the scene
  2. Introduce the characters
  3. Process the details
  4. Portrait of the characters
  5. Connections
  6. Final product or creation.

Consider the action, the individuals and the group. What is happening?  Who is interacting with  another or the project?  And even, who is on the outer edges looking in? Composing a photo is always the trick. Just what do I need to include in that image?  What angle?  What lighting? What is the relationship in the moment? What will this image say to viewers? How will the elements of this scene offer new ways of understanding and perspective?

Kristy suggested  using 10 to 15 images to tell the story and to aim for visual variety.

Now imagine that it is not you, it is the students making these decisions about how to tell their learning story. Have students write about the photographs, they chose.  I’ve had fun doing this with my students and just as Kristy mentioned, students don’t chose the photos that you think they might pick. They have their own ideas about what counts. Which makes me think, to whom do we make learning visible? Co-creating learning stories, was the part of her session title that grabbed my attention. It excites me to think of using photography to help students make their learning visible to the most important person of all, themselves.

Inspired, Hopeful and Challenged

Sometimes the contrast between ideas makes you laugh, surprises or disturbs you, or makes you wonder how two ideas can exist in the same sphere. Two of the sessions I attended at the Greater Edmonton Teacher’s Convention (GETCA), did just that. One seemed like a throwback to the past and the other an open door to the future. Let me tell you about the second one.

The session that left me inspired, hopeful and challenged, was presented by Peter Liljedahl a professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University.

This session modeled the very practices that help to create thinking mathematics classrooms. I relay my experience in point form to help me identify some of the processes that made it work so well.

  •  Teachers from various grades levels participated.
  • The question was presented orally and a brief example was drawn on the wipe- off board.
  • The math question we were asked to solve was open-ended, perplexing, and at the same time accessible and challenging to the whole group.
  • At first, it felt risky and I was somewhat anxious.
  • We worked in small collaborative groups around whiteboards mounted on the wall. This enabled us to draw our ideas and easily share our thinking as we discussed the problem. It was easy to erase and change our work as we thought things through.
  • The camaraderie in the group was infectious as we tried different solutions and developed our understanding.
  • There was a lot of conversation from each participant.
  • The presenter challenged, redirected or gave ‘just in time’ support to keep us thinking.
  • The pace of our session felt right. There was time to work together and time look at the work of others.
  • When time was up, we looked at the work each group had done. Solutions were compared, discussed and revised, deepening understanding.
  • 55 minutes passed in the blink of an eye.
  • My brain hurt!

We reflected on the process.  What made this rich?   What were we doing as participants? How do we engage our students in the math classroom so that they are doing the talking, the thinking, and the math?

Want to learn more?  I know that I do. Check out Peter Liljedahl’s website.  There is so much to learn about making the process come alive in our classrooms.

 

Online Courses – What makes them work for you?

Will Richardson’s, thought-provoking questions at BlendEd 2018 Edmonton, Alberta @willrich45, @blendEDAB

If you were asked, “Identify ten ingredients for an effective and meaningful online course.”,what would you include as essential?

Have you taken an online course?  What worked for you?  What were the challenges?  Share your insights, thoughts, and wishes when it comes to online learning. I am curious to hear from students, teachers, parents, and others.

My thoughts are shared here. Some of my essentials have to do with course design, other ideas relate to effective pedagogy and how we learn best.  As a teacher and designer of online learning for a unique and mixed audience, young learners in grades 1 to 3, and their families, I think about this every day. My online courses continually evolve as I learn new things and respond to the needs of my students. This list is not definitive, it’s my free flow thoughts in early January as I think about the remainder of this school year and how to give my students the best I know.

Here you go:

1. Start with in-depth support for students as they begin working in an online learning program and provide ongoing guidance to participants.

2. Ensure clarity of language, ease of navigation and visually appealing design.

4. Provide accessible opportunities for easy interaction and connection with the instructor and with other students.

5. Develop a variety of activities and tasks for learners to meet learning goals.

6. Give students multiple ways to demonstrate learning.

7. Provide opportunities for self-assessment, peer feedback, and goal setting.

8. Give feedback that identifies growth and next steps for learning.

9. Create videos for instruction, demonstrations, and feedback.

10. Always model and teach digital citizenship in each aspect of online work and interaction.

What would you suggest or add to this list?

If there is one thing I have observed, it is that young learners are very capable of using digital tools for learning, and this has made my work more fun and creative. Not only have digital tools become more intuitive and friendly, young learners are also increasingly familiar and adept at using technology in their lives. This opens opportunities for new ways of doing things.  So exciting!

Summer Reading

It’s been a month of intense reading.

The Return by Hisham Matar –  A recommendation from Barack Obama’s reading list. Hisham Matar’s family was exiled from Libya and lived in Cairo where he attended an American school.  Later, both Hisham and his brother attended school in Europe under false identities because of threats to the family from the Gaddafi regime. This book is a memoir of loss, hope, and the importance of family in a land that has a history of tyranny. I was crushed by the cruelty of Libya’s prisons and the many losses. I was touched my Matar’s descriptions of hope and loss and how those we have lost remain with us in so many ways. He states, “ Hope is cunning and persistent.”, a helpful thought as I continued to read other books.

Kingdoms in the Air by Bob Shacocohis  – travel essays from afar. The Nepalese Kingdom of Lo Mustang is remote and high in the Himalayas. The author and his travelling companions return for a visit after 10 years and observe the changes and influences of westernization. The author describes navigating narrow, rocky, trails on high cliffs with no option of getting off your horse because either you or the horse would fall into the deep valley. In a sunny warm Alberta garden, fear and terror course through my brain as I imagine these heights. The author states that “until 1947 Nepal was the yet to be explored by Europeans.  In 1992 almost 95% of Nepal’s energy needs were being met by firewood.”  Democracy, tourism, economic reform, “ lifted the veil from the lost Kingdom of Lo.”  Who could deny these people education, healthcare and access to a wider world? Something is lost and other things are gained in this synthesis of old and new.

Another essay in this book, ‘Mount Ararat’, made me laugh.  He attempts to summit the 16,94 5 ft. snow-capped volcano but turns back because of altitude sickness. And did he see Noah’s Ark?  Ha, ha, no. He did, however, meet several women he humorously describes as Noah’s granddaughters.

At the end of the book he states, “… one of the most enduring lessons of travel are inaccessible until you are out there moving and then they are indelible upon the soul.”


Seven Fallen Feathers. By Tanya Talaga, is deeply thought provoking.  A book that you cannot put down and forget, because it was not intended to be that kind of book.  This book is a call to action for all of us. Tanya Talaga tells us of the seven aboriginal youth who leave their communities in northern Ontario to attend high school in Thunder Bay, they lose their way and lose their lives in circumstances that show how alone and overwhelmed they were in a culture of racism. This is a hard-hitting book because of the truths it reveals. The VoiceEd Summer Book Club on Facebook and the weekly podcasts on Sound Cloud have been invaluable as I take in all that this book tells and think about the ways I can take action as an educator.

Tomorrow Will be Different, Love, Loss and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride. This memoir, tells Sarah’s story of coming out, her activism, her marriage, and the death of her husband a short time later.  Her honesty about her life and her willingness to fight for change inspires me.  She is currently the National Press Secretary of the Human Rights Campaign in the United States. Another challenging and hopeful read.

Whew! A lot of deep thoughts as I read these books.  Each one was eye-opening and I am grateful to the writers, an exile, a transgender woman, an indigenous journalist and a traveler who share their lives, their observations and the facts. For me, there is a common thread in these books. Each of us needs to be seen, and acknowledged, whether we are indigenous youth, an exile, a transgender individual, or a remote culture in the midst of change. Sarah McBride states,

 

A Community of Learners, Near and Far

This is a story about some of my favorite learners who live throughout Alberta.  They access their courses online, connect in Blackboard Collaborate sessions, and share in small groups via Google Meet. Once a week, those that can, meet for for a full day of learning and exploring together. These young students know that you can learn wherever you are. They are community of learners.

This particular day was ‘Pumpkin Research Day!’ Curiosity and excitement abounded, and everyone near and far participated.

Notice and Wonder

Look at all those beautiful orange pumpkins in a row.

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

“Will we make a pumpkin pie?”

“Will these seeds grow into more pumpkins?”

“Will the seeds from the small pumpkin grow other small pumpkins?”

“How many seeds are there inside that pumpkin?”

“Does a big pumpkin have more seeds than the small one?”

There was only one way to find out…

First some predictions about the possible number of seeds in our pumpkins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How are we going to count all those seeds?   By ones, by twos, by fives, by tens? The serious counting begins.

Such a great day of exploration, as these scientists and mathematicians were at work.

Students Far and Near

Something more was going on behind the scenes something that made this experience complete. Earlier that day my teaching partner, Susan Sundlie, @128sue on twitter, met with students who live in other parts of the province, via Blackboard Collaborate. They too were engaged in the this inquiry process. Perplexed with some of the same questions and with equal curiosity they were conducting research in their homes across the province throughout the day. They knew that their classmates were work addressing these same questions. Everyone would share their discoveries at the end of the day.

Scientists Share Results and Data

All scientists share data and discuss results, and so did we.

Near the end of the day students gathered on the carpet and in a Google Meet to discuss and report results. Each group presented their challenges, methods and results. Students who worked at home listened and shared their results with those at school.

As students discussed their findings they discovered there were common challenges! Counting by 2’s to 190 was not easy! And then there were still more seeds to count!! One student was pleased to share that she had learn how to count by 10 beyond a hundred. “Now I get it!” she happily reported to her mom at the end of the day.

Meaningful learning, engagement, and a genuine learning community for each student no matter where they were.

As I reflected on the day, my students, and their learning, I realized that this is what normal looks like for them. They are living in a world where learning is not constrained by walls, or distance, textbooks or isolation. Today they were participants in learning sparked by curiosity and inquiry. They are learning about collaboration, sharing information, and connecting with others.