mindfully thinking about learning
I’m lucky to have had a big screen added in my kitchen, and while I enjoy my cooking I often travel vicariously along with the experience and antics of Rick Steves on his YouTube channel. Recently, I found out that even before the Covid 19 epidemic, he had edited many of his longer travel documentaries…
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During the teaching of the AQ Course – Integration of Information and Computer Technology in Instruction, I often introduce students to the work of Ron Ritchhart and Project Zero from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. I’ve written more comprehensively about collaboration with colleagues that started my learning, the book Making Thinking Visible and an especially…
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Wow! Many of you will already know the amazing work of Common Sense Media in the world of Media Literacy. They’ve put their heads together with 25 other companies to curate some resources for families and educators and are calling it Wide Open School. It’s laid out beautifully, check it out! https://wideopenschool.org/
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What’s been mulling around in my head, amongst the worry about my family’s health and the pride in how the government and citizens of Canada are handling the Covid-19 crisis, are waves of anxiety about what is to come for all of us. That’s normal. It’s not unusual, or unexpected. Much of the anxiety has…
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It’s the first year since I’ve been 4 years old—with the exception of one September when I was on maternity leave—that I haven’t been a student at, or employed by, a School District. The truth is, I always wanted to be an educator, and began working with students with special needs when I was about…
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I was excited to be able to attend Learning Forward Ontario’s Summer Professional Learning event this past week. The learning was focused on the kinds of resistance we sometimes face, especially in times when the people we serve feel vulnerable and disempowered. Jennifer provided a lot of background information to give us an opportunity to…
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For several years now, I’ve been recommending Exploring By the Seat of Your Pants, and having amazing Ontario educator, Joe Grawbowski (@grawbowskiscuba), at Minds on Media events at the BIT conference and for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation Pedagogy B4 Technology Conference. Like Joe, I’m a big believer that the computer is a portal to the…
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Critical thinking is something that we are striving for in ourselves as educators, and as a goal for our students, but it can be a complex concept to grasp. I am liking this definition from The Foundation For Critical Thinking because it’s one that could be used as is, or paraphrased, for students of a variety…
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The new school year has started, and I’m in a new school as a vice principal. My role at the Ministry of Education has come to a close and I’m grateful for the amazing learning and the wonderful colleagues that I worked with there in the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Branch and the Incubation and…
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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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Learning Zone 