mindfully thinking about learning
Dear Mr. Ford, You are a lucky man to have inherited, through no effort of your own, a world-class education system. Through your reactive, reductionist and hasty action around math, sex ed and Indigenous Ed curriculum, one wonders if you actually realize what awaits you in September when our learning communities in schools reconvene –…
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One of my favourite Ontario events is the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (#TLLP) . This program, supported by a partnership between the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Ontario Teachers’ Federation, has just celebrated its 10th cohort of educators engaged in teacher-driven learning and leadership projects–an option available to every school district in the…
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I’ve written before about the power of protocols, particularly the ones from Project Zero’s Making Thinking Visible. One that I find I’m going back to over and over again is used to articulate shifts. Shifts in learning, shifts in thinking, shifts in understanding. We talk about the power of reflection, but how often do we…
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It’s always great to go back to the science of learning to underpin everything we do as educators. A fascination for how people learn led me to an undergraduate degree in Psychology, and this has served me so well as a prerequisite to teaching, but I realize that many other educators may not have had…
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After stumbling upon an interesting post by The School Vlogger, Dr. Mary Hemphill, I noticed she happened to be talking about engaging student voice at her school, and when she began to talk about changing culture and keeping students at the centre, I was really intrigued. The idea being shared was one way that she…
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We hear a lot these days about the idea of INNOVATION. Not to be confused with invention, innovation means to improve upon, to make things better. How do you connect to innovation in your practice? Jennifer Kranenburg is a teacher from Ontario whose story is an inspirational example of how creative educators, focused on responding…
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Sometimes there are moments that bring you back in time to reflect on your teaching practice, and a visit to YRDSBs Quest Conference this week certainly did that for me. Brian Aspinall @mraspinall was mentioning his early efforts in coding with kids in a club that he started while he was a University student in…
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I’m a big fan of using Siri on my iphone and have been ever since I began using speech to text software with students in about 2006. Boy, has the technology improved since then! I now use it to create reminders, schedule calendar events and dictate emails and documents when I have a quiet place…
Read MoreIt was great to visit the York School this week to attend #MakerEdTo. This was a fantastic opportunity to connect the #iicti AQ course members to a network of educators interested in constructivist and constructionist uses of technology. An added bonus was that they got to hear all about Seymour Papert from the Keynote Speaker…
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About 28 years ago, I remember taking some Saturday cooking classes with my Mom. We played around learning to make pastry with techniques and recipes that I still use today, and also played around with a little bit of bread making, something that didn’t really stick with me, not because I don’t love bread, but…
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