Lesson's learned

I'm a tad bit taller...

It's been four months since my second teaching placement in a Grade 1/2 split class ended, and I thought it would be a good time to think back about the main things I learned - what stuck out in my mind.

Tableau during reading of
"3 Little Pigs" - the wolf
fell down

Lesson 1 - Have fun! I had so much fun teaching this young age group, and it was amazing how much the students could retain or learn when you made the class as exciting as possible. Whether it was through incorporating drama, art, a little theatre, technology, moving around, or singing/dancing - when the kids were laughing and moving they remembered what we were learning! One example was in dance we played "Show me how you get down!" where you go around a circle asking someone to essentially do a little dance, and then the class repeats that dance. It was so much fun, and the students loved it when I called on the classroom teacher and another teacher who entered the room to "get down".  I also really enjoyed making advertising posters during our Point of View TLCP on how the big scary shark would try sell a home in the ocean to unsuspecting fish. The ideas my students came up with were ingenious - such as a secret trap door on the other side of the advertisement for the shark to sneak in through. There are so many other examples, but I want to try keep this post 'relatively' short..

Lesson 2 - Technology captures their attention unbelievably well! I used clickers, SMART Board, camera's, document camera, and livescribe pens with my class. I remember the first week I used clicker's with my students, and a lot of people thought there was no way it would work with this age group - but it did, and very well! The students were very respectful of the clickers, partly due to my discussion on how we handle them beforehand I suspect. They thought it was a game, and got really excited seeing their responses pop up and the graph results of the class responses. I used Clickers during the first week of my TLCP as a diagnostic check on what they though Point of View meant, or from someone else's point of view how would the world look, or how would they feel, etc. I found it very informative, and was quick and easy. It was essentially an exit card, but digitalized. I kept the questions to 6-10 so it didn't take long, and by the end of the week the students were great using them I only had to bring them out and they knew exactly what to do.

I've used document camera's before and always love how they don't waste so much paper, but also add a little interest to it. Especially when the students come up to interact with manipulatives underneath it during math class.

The class absolutely loved it when I brought in camera's for them to use to take photos around the class from a different POV, such as a bee, or a giant, etc. The class was electric during this, and they were so independent in their groups. The next day I printed off some of the photos, stuck them to chart paper and we walked around graffitiing them up with ideas of whose point of view the photo was taken from. So much fun!

I've used the SMART Board many times before in my first practicum and during teacher's college, so it was natural to want to use it again. However, at my school there was only one which you had to book in advance. This made planning a little more difficult - and when you factor in walking down to it, setting up, and the walk back; your lesson time is reduced quickly. Regardless, I used it in Social Studies, and as I discovered before if you do not have the students interacting with it then you should limit how much you use it. With that said, once you get the students up and going they love dragging, dropping, revealing, etc with it. My favourite lesson I did with it was a Social Studies lesson on transportation where we did an amazing race as a dpa warmup going through the different modes of transport evolution from walking, jogging, biking, canoeing, driving, trains, planes, etc. It was great as I had the music going, a clock ticking down, and used a reveal to show what our next "transportation method" was. Got the students really energized before starting the lesson on comparing Canada to the World.

Lesson 3 - Don't sit back - get involved, interact, and participate in everything you are teaching. Every time I would jump into the game we were playing, become dramatic, act goofy or silly (within reason of course) the students level of excitement and learning increased. An easy class to spot this of course is Gym class. I loved teaching gym! Perhaps because I have always been very active, and it was my favourite class when I was younger. I always got involved in the games, acted silly, would crouch down and run with the students in invasion games. The reaction on the students faces when they saw I was playing was priceless, and they always wanted to tag me out, or the cries of "ahhh Mr. Iles is it!!" were hilarious! The other lesson was never think this they could not handle a lesson you want to teach - especially the younger age group. Trust yourself and your abilities to teach the lesson, and the students will rise to the occasion.

Math wall

Creating our Writing Success
Criteria as a class

Our Literacy wall with Learning Goals, Big Idea, and student work

Lesson 4 - Never undervalue being prepared. I cannot stress this enough. The amount of time you spend assessing and providing written feedback to students every week is overwhelming at times, or perhaps I was doing too much? But if you can have your all your lessons planned out two or three days in advance it is the most amazing feeling because you are so much more relaxed and ready, and have the time for all your marking. Not only that, but you then can make the small changes you want to without thinking "bugger I've got to change everything now!" The other maybe not so obvious reason is you can spend more time thinking about your timing, your materials, and your delivery.

Lesson 5 - Your delivery is so important! If you have a great lesson but cannot deliver, then it will fall flat. This is why you have to have some good routines to make sure you get enough sleep, eat well, and stay active. I learned in my first placement how important delivery was because I took what I feared to be a boring lesson and made it into one of my best taught. I remembered that everyday during my second placement and what a difference it made! The other amazing side benefit is a lot of classroom management issues tend to fade away too because they are interested in the lesson - they do not want to miss out.

Creating monsters using 2-D shapes
in Geometry

Our trip to the movies to see
The Lorax in 3-D

Paining butterflies learning
'colour value'

Lesson 6 - For new teachers especially - remember to always give yourself some "me time". Its easy to get wrapped up in how much prep and work there is. But if you're stressed out, tired, anxious, and not eating well - it does not matter how great of a lesson you planned it will flop. Take some time off every day to do whatever, just sometime other than think about your class. It's all about balance, and as tough as that is it will make you a better teacher.

Lesson 7 - As obvious as this may be for some, get to know your students. Know their interests, who their friends are and who they do not get along with. You do not want to make the mistake of pairing them up with someone they will fight with. One student of mine was having a bad day, and after speaking with them they divulged they were not sleeping well at all. So I asked them to let me know in the morning if they slept or not, so I would be aware if they would be a little cranky that day or not. Just gives you a heads up on their behaviour, so you can read them a bit better. The student was very good at keeping me informed, and the behaviour improved. They always talk about differentiated instruction for your students, and all the different learning styles - and for good reason because it's true. It's so important to vary your lessons, content, and themes so that every student finds something they enjoy.

Lesson 8 - Keep the lines of communication open with the parents and respond quickly to any queries. Even though you will not hear from most parents throughout the year, by constantly sending home student work with feedback, classroom letters, announcements, etc. When the parent-teacher night comes along it will pay dividends because that is when you will meet them and they will thank you for it. If a parent writes a note in the students agenda, respond quickly and professionally and the parents will be grateful.

I'm sure there's so much more to say, but for the time being I'll leave it at that =)

A fantastic first week teaching!

Last Monday marked the beginning of my second teaching placement in a Grade 1/2 split class, and right off the bat I feel as though I've found my teaching-niche! I am amazed by how much I am enjoying teaching this level. The students are so eager to learn, and absorb everything like sponges. I started the new literacy unit on point of view on Tuesday and the students are so quick to try and use this new term and apply it to what we are reading and learning. It's only been a week, so it's a work in progress - but I love their enthusiasm. It has been such a thrill reading the read-a-loud's too. Last week we read "Waking Beauty" and "The Jolly Postman" - the students loved how there were actual letters and postcards included with the second book, which worked so well as we were working on our letter writing at the time.

One of my favourite things I tried last week was using Clickers with the students. I used them at the end of our literacy period Wednesday through Friday as an exit card strategy. I found this worked really well providing myself a gauge on how they are grasping point of view as the questions I posed were all related to the stories we read with directed point of view questions. The students had a blast using the clickers as well, and thankfully were very careful and respectful of them too - perhaps my strict guidelines on handling them before, during, and after their use helped. I would highly recommend anyone considering using them to give it a go - I used the Turning Point set which are very basic and perfect for young students. 

Another highlight my first week was the opportunity to teach gym class. My first teaching placement had a dedicated gym teacher so I never got the chance, so I am relishing the opportunity now! It was so much fun playing a few different types of games all designed to encourage 'sending and receiving' - the unit I'm starting. The students were pretty tired at the end, but were laughing and smiling the whole way through - a win in my books! I cannot wait for the weather to warm up so we can start having gym outside!

Next week when we return to the classroom after March Break I am looking forward to starting the new Math unit on Geometry, and completing the mapping unit in Social Studies so I can begin my World Communities unit. So much to do, and so little time - I know these next six weeks will fly by!

If anyone has any amazing ideas related to these units that have worked well for them in the past I would love to hear them. I am also hoping to Skype another classroom to learn about World Communities or share stories for Literacy - if anyone would be interested please send me a message. Also, if anyone has had success teaching their students how to tweet about their day and what they learned I would be very interested in how you scaffolded those lessons because I am interested in trying that out. I have a few ideas, but always keen to learn more. Cheers!

My Education Passport

For my Method's class we were asked to create something to depict our philosophy of education. The following is what I created and wrote:

Trying to find a way to describe my philosophy of education in a succinct, yet creatively ‘me’ way was a challenging endeavor. My mind sprang to ideas of creating a painting of some kind because since coming to Brock University my passion for art and creativity has been re-ignited. But I was unsure what to paint, so I started thinking of creating an interactive multimedia representation, as I am part of the Educational Technology Leadership cohort. However, I still felt at a loss for how to encapsulate my personal teaching philosophy. I then began thinking about how much I love traveling, and how it has influenced my life and values. I began sharing these ideas with my friend Adam Childs (Twitter: @adamajchilds )who is a Junior-Intermediate student at Brock in my Cohort who shares a similar thirst for travel. As we talked more about this I came up with the idea of a passport to represent our journey. Then Adam came up with the idea of making actual stamps to reflect our personal development. Together we enthusiastically collaborated in creating our own passports representing our respective journeys through education, and experiences that have influenced our teaching philosophies.

Cooperative learning is one of my principle beliefs in learning, which is why I was so thrilled to work on this project with Adam. Together we came up with ideas on how to create the passport, which individually we would not have been capable of. By working cooperatively in designing the layout with individual responsibilities, we were able to embody cooperative learning whilst creatively creating our passports. This tangible object was created through both artistic and multimedia design (Adobe Photoshop) – both the original strategies I hoped to build upon. Working together made this such an enjoyable experience, and we were able to build off each other’s ideas and enthusiasm. I strongly believe that if you want to ‘talk the talk – you have to walk the walk’. What I mean is if you say you are all for cooperative learning, then you have to want to do it yourself, or else there is no way you will be able to sell it to the students as a learning approach. Students will see right through your transparent motives if there are not authentic. I am honestly over the moon with how the final product turned out. It is far better than I could have imagined, and I absolutely love the feeling of having achieved something, and gone above and beyond your expectations. I owe a lot of this to Adam and to the process of cooperation, as I find when you work cooperatively and succeed, being able to celebrate that accomplishment along someone else is that much more satisfying.

I found it very inspiring creating this passport because it prompted me to take a step back and reflect on what I have learned since arriving at Brock five months ago, and what events in my life have inspired me to be who I am today. One of the strongest realizations I have had is how much of a kinesthetic and visual learner I am. I love getting involved, hands-on, creative environments. This is why I was so involved in sports and the arts as a child. I was speaking to my Mom about this the other day, and she told me that when I was a child I would study by walking around the room; that I was always moving. This reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson’s speech about creativity; and I have set a personal goal to teach with this in mind. I want to teach in a classroom that thrives on creativity, cooperation, and active engagement. I want to create a safe and inspiring learning environment, built around the principles of Tribes and energizers. I want my students to learn through authentic problem solving tasks, which I organize through the input of students. I want my classroom to be a twenty-first century inclusive classroom where students want to learn because they enjoy it – not because they have to. This is what I strive to create, who I strive to be, and the journey I strive to travel on – with my passport in hand filling up with more and more stamps as I continue along my educational journey.

Google+ in the Classroom

On January 27th my cohort put on the Educational Technology Showcase at Brock University in Hamilton. This showcase ran three sessions over the day throughout the school on different ways to integrate and teach with technology in the classroom. It was a fantastic event that attracted more than 400 in attendance. I was fortunate enough to be a presenter alongside my friends Adam Childs and Natalie Gilbert on "Google+ in the Classroom". This was such a wonderful experience, and was so enjoyable. We presented in the Google room where there were six centres set up and the attendees rotated through our tables to get a quick 15 minute introduction to the topic. We decided to focus on three aspects of Google+: Circles, Hangout, and Integration with the Google Family.

Circles are effective in creating literacy learning circles, school council circles, parent circles, student circles, TLCP, etc. By doing so it allows you to control who see's what information, and communicate more efficiently with your students, peers, parents, support staff, etc. An example of how a literacy learning circle could work is to have the students create a circle, where they can share information such as youtube videos, interesting articles, questions, idea's, etc; and all can comment and work collaboratively together through this. The benefit of circles is you control the privacy of the information. This is very important due to the vulnerability of information and students, therefore this added safety allows you to share information with only who you want. For example, a conversation with a parent is a private conversation, and should not be privy to others. To highlight this, if you post something on someone's wall in Facebook, everyone who is a friend of that person can see it. In Google+, you can control this completely. Moreover, no one knows what circles you have - it is only viewable to you as a means of organization.

The benefits and flexibility of Google Hangout allows up to 10 participants in an online video conference. Unlike Skype where you can only chat to one other person, Google+ allows you to chat with up to 10 participants simultaneously. We see this as an excellent way to have students conference on projects, meet with parents outside of school hours (increased flexibility), have school staff meetings (if someone is home sick they can still participate), or discuss questions with students outside of school hours. To be clear with these outside school hours, you would set up guidelines on when you are available with all the stakeholders. This will improve transparency, and will avoid any misunderstandings. Another benefit is you can use screenshare, which allows the other video participants to view your screen to share video's, word document ideas, or anything else you wish to share. There is also the chat feature on the sidebar for those without functioning video camera's to participate with.

Google+ works seamlessly with all other Google products. You can easily incorporate, embed, and link to all other Google products in Google+, for instance add a doc, form, blogger, YouTube clip, or calendar. In our session I focused on discussing the benefits of the Calendar whereby you can create and share multiple different online calendar's with whomever you like. What I like about this is you would not want to share your calendar with colleagues, parents, and students that has your friend's birthday party on it, or a dentist appointment. So by creating say a "School Staff Calendar" and only sharing that with your school staff that calendar could include staff meetings, emergency meetings, school PD days, fundraising days, etc. Moreover, you could create a "Classroom Calendar" that includes when you have a math quiz, a field trip to the library, parent-teacher conferences, sports events, or online availability for additional help. This calendar could be shared with your students, parents, teachers, and administrative staff. This will create terrific transparency for what is going on in the classroom, and help parents be more aware of their child's learning.

It was a terrific experience presenting on this topic, and my co-presenter's and I learned so much. As the day progressed we started thinking of new and creative ways to use Google+ as a home base for all other Google products. An analogy I thought of was Google+ is the parents, and all the other Google products are the children and relatives that come home and share every once and while. So documents, presentations, flickr, blogger, etc, all are independent and grown up living their own lives; but they come home for a great Sunday lunch every week to share their ideas.

The Showcase had such an amazing atmosphere and buzz in the air, and I'm so thrilled I was able to be a part of it. It was fantastic walking around seeing all the different learning and centres going on, and hearing all these new ideas being discussed with such enthusiasm. I'm so proud of my fellow cohortian's who also presented at the Showcase, and cannot wait to take these ideas into the classroom.

If anyone has any other idea's on ways they have used Google+ in the classroom, or experiences on how to scaffold it I would be very interested in hearing about them. Cheers!

Some thoughts on leadership

Last week my cohort discussed qualities of effective leadership in and outside the classroom. A lot of rich discussion resulted because this is one of those topics that runs deep with all of us. We all have strong personal feelings on what effective leadership looks like, and what it takes to be a great leader. I've had some time for our discussions to settle a bit, and am going to try make some sense of it.

Initially when thinking of leadership I think of those who are the leaders in a community, whether that be a school, playground, office, or parliament. We all can associate to those roles, but I do believe leadership takes on many different faces. Sometimes it is simply being comfortable taking a stance, helping and encouraging others, or being the silent rock of the group. Leaders know when to speak up, and when it is beneficial to have some quiet time. I think being comfortable with silence says more than the urge to constantly talk from anxious nerves. Leadership is the ability to provide ideas, or facilitate a group on this. Moreover, it is being a calm persona for others to bounce ideas off of or absorb tension. It is having the ability to rise to the occasion, and turing frowns upside down. Leaders are those who we look up to and admire. Leadership takes on so many different faces it's impossible to peg down one defining characteristic or attribute.

Leadership I believe is a skill and to a degree innate quality. (The jury is still out on this one though!) And like a skill, I believe leadership abilities can be taught and learned. Just recently I ran a workshop in my Methods class on cooperative and collaborative learning. One of the important ideas we stressed is we need to explicitly teach and model for students how to work collaboratively in the classroom. We all learn from observations and experience; therefore if you have never been privy to great leadership demonstrations then it will be more difficult to cultivate your own abilities. With that said, I do believe great leadership is completely subjective, and is influenced by your environment and experiences.

Knowing when to take a step back and let others step forward is a wonderful skill as it empowers others and creates a greater community of partnership, equality, and learning. Being an active participant is just as important as leading, and to be an active participant students need to learn how to actively listen. I strongly feel one of the most important characteristics of effective leadership is the ability to support and develop people. When you succeed at this you empower the individuals, and this will create a wonderful trickle-down effect to all those around. These feelings are as contagious as laughter, and when the school is feeling great the team-bonds grow stronger and greater. This leads to everyone taking on and sharing leadership roles in their community.

Altogether I believe we are all leaders in our own right. Those moments when you witness unexpected kindness, thought, generosity, new ideas or outlooks - those are the moments of great leadership in action. Those 'wow' moments when you stop and think about your own choices and behaviours - the ability to evoke these emotions is something each and everyone of us does every day. As I mentioned laughter is contagious, well so is negativity, and so is positivity! As much as the term "reflect" is started to seem like one of the most used terms I've heard since entering teacher's college; it does seem fitting to say we need to stop and think about what we are doing and how we are affecting those around us. Great leaders understand this dynamic relationship, and practice it too.

Looking back at my first teaching practicum

A little over a month has now passed since my first practicum teaching block in a grade 4 classroom. Since then I have begun a new term at University with some new courses and familiar faces. Over this time I have seen a dramatic shift in the way I am approaching my classes, for everything we are doing I am now thinking "how can I apply this in the classroom?" What's more is my next teaching placement is in a grade 1 classroom, so I am now on the constant lookout for ideas and techniques related to this age group. I am shifting my course work and projects to have a primary focus where feasible as well. In my Language Arts class the past two classes we have been modelling a writer's workshop, which has been a fantastic experience! I haven't written creatively in that capacity since I was forced to in high school! I'm pretty chuffed with the story I wrote - a parody on the Three Little Pigs - my version is the Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig who eat's their den's down. I'm hoping to finish it by next Monday, and potentially use it in my next teaching block.

A mask I created in art class - never
got the opportunity to teach in to
the grade 4's though sadly.

Looking back at my first placement, I think the most important lesson I personally learned was to be yourself. Having your personality come through in the lessons really helps get the children excited and interested. My most successful lessons always had a personal touch to them, whether that be creatively through art or drama, or through connecting personal experiences and stories. The lessons which seemed to lack that "je ne sais quoi" were typically lessons that I adapted from textbooks or I was trying to replicate an idea my associate passed on vaguely. What this taught me was the importance of having ownership over your lessons. One of the most helpful tips I learned from my associate teacher was when he asked me at the end of the day "what did you want the students to know at the end of that lesson?" I had just started the new math unit on linear measurement a day or two prior, so I said "I just want them to know what the five ways to measure something are (length, width, height, depth, thickness)." Seemed pretty straight forward to me, but my associate tactfully told me to just teach to that then because I had also tried to introduce a new concept - decimetres. He told me I was making the same common mistake all new teachers make - trying to teach too much in one lesson. This is such a simple lesson learned, and it really also helped drive home the necessity of backward-design. Even though I had been hearing "backward-design this, backward-design that"; to finally have that 'a-ha' moment about its importance and significance was fantastic. This really helped in the last week and a half of my teaching block in all my lessons, as I feel I achieved a much greater focus and in a way, simplicity.

Another really important lesson I learned looking back is regarding classroom management. Throughout the block I created and taught the Science unit on Light, and I had an absolute blast doing so. I really enjoyed re-creating some of the experiments I remember doing as a kid. The students really enjoyed the hands-on learning that I incorporated into nearly daily science experiments. However, where my own learning as a teacher took place came from a few areas. Firstly, I taught science the final two periods of the day after the second nutrition break. By the end of the day the students often got a bit restless and tired, so their attention started to fade and they began to act out more. This was amplified if it was a black-top nutrition break, which we did have a few of. Secondly, to reinforce the classroom behaviour expectations and safety considerations before beginning the lesson are vital. It was such a fun unit to teach, and to see the excitement on students faces when they learned something new, or saw something they were never expecting in the experiment was wonderful. When I asked the students what colour they thought light was, and we brainstormed a few ideas - the overwhelming consensus was white or yellow. However, when I told them I heard a crazy rumour that it was made up of lots of colours they all became very curious. It was a simple experiment of shining a light source into water which then hit a mirror, that reflected the light onto a white piece of paper. When the students dispersed into groups of three to try the experiment, it was great to see some of the teamwork being exhibited, and the look of awe and excitement when they finally were able to see the rainbow on the white paper was fantastic. Another great science lesson I taught which to be honest was one I thought was going to be a bit drier was on light technology. My idea was to teach the students about the camera, and how it uses some of the ideas we were discussing. I spent so much time researching the camera, when it was invented, etc; and shared it with the class. What made this lesson successful was my delivery of it - I got really excited about it, and that enthusiasm transferred to the students. Then when given the opportunity to research the telescope they jumped right in. Both my associate and I were shocked by their interest, but agreed it was through my delivery that created this learning opportunity. This really taught me the importance of being excited about what you are doing - such a simple thing to say, but you really need to amplify it in the classroom for the students to really get it. 

Probably one the best lessons I taught came on my final day of practicum when I taught a Language Arts lesson on organizing ideas. I told the students a story from when I lived in Australia and went on a road trip with my mate, and one of the exciting events of the trip. As I told the story I intentionally mixed up a few of the details, feigning that I wish I had my ideas in order. Then after the story I asked the students to help me organize my story so I could retell it another time, so i had an Organizational Chart printed off which as a class we completed while using a document camera. Afterwards I had all the students get out their writers notebook, and begin writing about one of their ideas using this organizational chart. I was thrilled at how attentive they were during the story, the details of the story they remembered, and then their silent individual work during their own writing. It felt so amazing after seeing the students engagement and work ethic throughout that language block!

One of the most exciting and rewarding moments for myself as a teacher during this block was teaching everyday using the Smartboard for interactive lessons. I was fortunate enough to have one in my classroom, and having been trained to a level 2 on it in September, I was eager to give it a go. The first week I only used it a few times sadly - to be honest I was more concerned about making sure my lessons worked! But by the final week I was incorporating it into every lesson throughout the day. I thought it was fantastic to teach with for two reasons. First, it really engaged and got the students attention. Even if I was only doing simple infinite multipliers or reveals, they loved it - especially when we played the jeopardy game as review for the Light Unit. The second reason I enjoyed teaching with it so much was it helped keep myself focused in the lesson. I was able to have questions pre-made ready on it to teach and solve with the class, provide visual queues, and even keep it going with instructions for students to refer to when doing individual or group work. It was amazing seeing how excited the students were when I called them up to interact with the board, and I was amazed at how careful they were with it. What I also found very useful was asking students to be my helper for the day with the Smartboard, as it kept them involved throughout the lesson, and minimized acting out.

Student's stainglass lightbulb's on the window.

The final thing I wanted to mention was how great it was to incorporate art and drama in the classroom. I had the class create stain glass pieces out of construction paper and tissue paper for one of the science lessons on translucency, opaqueness, and transparency. It was fantastic to teach, and the students absolutely loved it. I taught the lesson my first week, so the cleanup took a bit longer than anticipated; but well worth it!

The eyeball I created for science class,
and my stainglass lightbulb example.

I also came back after block to volunteer one day before Christmas, and taught an art lesson where the students painted a winter holiday theme and then applied glue and glitter to create a fantastic effect. For one of my science lessons on the human eye, I created an eyeball by cutting in half a large styrofoam ball, and painting on the parts of the eye. The students were so fascinated by what I created that the next day I brought in a smaller styrofoam balls for them to recreate themselves. We also got to do a fun drama exercise one day to learn about rhythm, tone, and pitch. Again I had done this exercise at University, but had such a great time with it I shared it with the students. They had an absolute ball with it as they clearly did not have drama regularly when one student asked "what's drama?" when he saw it on the daily agenda! This lesson was so much fun, and really taught me the importance when teaching to really put on a show for the students. They respond so well, and really enjoyed just playing as they saw it. Luckily for me though this did hit many curriculum expectations!

I think one of the most special experiences I had throughout my first teaching block was seeing the academic and personal growth of one of my low IEP students. This boy was so lovely, and it was amazing to see him start talking more and make great strides. We gave him the academic award for the month of November, and to see his beaming smile walk across the stage during the assembly was really special.

My associate teacher (left) and I (right) posing with great mustaches! Eek!

One of the amusing moments during November was my associate teacher and I participated in "Mo-vember". What an experience that was. It was hilarious seeing the reactions of students in the hallways, and hearing them whisper "Why does he have a mustache?" and "I think it's for Mo-vember".  Nevertheless, it was a relief to shave it off at the conclusion of the month.

Despite how much work it was during this first teaching block, and how I never saw any friends outside of a few who I lesson planned with; or how I was incredibly tired and fell asleep thinking about my lessons, and woke up thinking about how my lessons would go - I am amazed how much fun and how much I relished this experience. Now more than I ever I truly know how much I want to be a teacher. From doing prep work to walking down the hall chatting to students, to helping coach the girls volleyball team during nutrition break and staying late after school to score keep; there is nothing else I would rather be doing. Simply amazing! And now only six more weeks until my next teaching placement beings - this time in a grade one class! For those of you who took the time to read this and are fellow teachers, I would be very interested to hear how your first teaching experiences relate, and how they have changed over the years?

My first PD - Project Wild

On October 22nd I attended the Project Wild professional development at Brock University's Hamilton campus. I was provided with fantastic information and resources on how to effectively teach and link the environment to Ontario's curriculum objectives (including cross-curricular) across all grade levels. We had a series of energizers to break the ice involving meet and greets, and fun facts. The session leaders were effective in their instruction illustrating how to effectively teach about the environment even if you are at an inner city school. What I took away from this is you do not need to go out into the mountains, or the Niagara escarpment to have an effective lesson. Moreover, I was amazed at how many different ways you can teach cross-curricularly when you incorporate the environment.

Our afternoon was devoted into breaking off into teams with whom we collaboratively created a lesson plan to teach the rest of the session attendees. My group taught "Quick Frozen Critters" to our class which was a great deal of fun, running around, and laughing. It was great to see 5 different lesson plans completed during the afternoon, as it really demonstrated the effectiveness and ease of combining the environment to our daily lesson activities.

We are so fortunate with the environment and landscape we have in Canada, and I feel it is incredibly important for us to share this with our students, and teach them to respect and appreciate it. This being my first PD I have attended as a teacher candidate, I feel it was a very worthwhile experience; and have come away from it with many new ideas, lesson plans, resources, and teaching strategies. The only negative I found about this PD was its location being at the Brock University campus in Hamilton. I strongly think this PD would be best facilitated at a conservation area, in the natural forests, mountains, lake; any natural outdoor habitat where we could discuss the changing environment due to human presence as well as gain a greater appreciation for its beauty.

I have attached a group photo of my colleagues and I from Cohort D at Brock University with one of the PD's facilitators Linda.