debor002

If you missed my reflection on the MTS Awakening Possiblities Conference, check it out here !       Always wanted to blog with your students but were unsure about how to get started? Did you get started by could not determine how to maintain the blog throughout the year? This session shares an educator's experiences as she introduces blogging to her students for the first time. Topics such as project implementation, purposeful use, and assessment integration will be discussed. Challenges and successes of the project will also be shared. I am very excited I had a "speaker" name tag! All excited, showing off my session poster! Thanks to John Evans for the photo :)      My session took place Thursday morning before lunch and I was so happy with how many people were in attendance! Compared to previous presentations that I had done, this was easily the biggest audience with well over 5x the attendees than I had seen previously, yay!      I st...

     This week was the MTS Awakening Possibilities Tech Conference and my head is still spinning over how amazing it was! Starting on Wednesday the 16th, approximately 600 educators got together to discuss educational technology in regards to: - implementation - policy - potential tools - project options - and much more! Here's an excerpt from the official MTS Awakening Possibilities website:      This conference was exciting for me for a lot of reasons. I remember attending the MTS Fab 5 Conference in Brandon in the fall of 2012 and seeing a banner advertising for an upcoming technology conference. At this time there wasn't any information about presenters, there wasn't even an official date picked other than 2014, but I knew I would want to go due to the theme. Then in the spring of 2013, much to my surprise, I received an email asking me to present at the conference in regards to my work with educational blogging! Fast forward another year and the conf...

    This post is inspired by the stories at the collaborative blog, One Good Thing. - I have a student in one of my classes who is dealing with   many personal issues both at school and at home. As such,   their attendance is very sporadic which results in them falling   behind and feeling left out and frustrated when they are present.   This week they were present for two of our three math classes.   In the first class they were uncooperative and didn't attempt   anything during the hour. In the second class, they not only   allowed me to sit with them, but they even smiled while we   worked together on an assignment. It may seem like a small   accomplishment but it us it was huge :) - I held a 10-station science lab for my Grade 9 class on   Physical & Chemical Changes for out unit on Chemistry.   One station involved mixing corn starch (which I had labeled   as mystery powder) and water together and studen...

     With Spring Break come and gone, we are on our last stretch of school before summer holidays and I know that these next three months are going to go by very quickly! It is hard to believe that at this time last year, I was student teaching here and nervously hoping that a job opening would come up. That time only seems like a few short months ago and it is mind-boggling to think about how it has already been a year!      I didn't write a reflection the last two weeks as it was our Paren t-Teacher interviews and Spring Break holiday. I am trying, however, to finish strong with my reflections so I am back at it again!  Two things that I think went well this week are: 1 ) Completing 3 Labs This Week With Students - While I teach Grade 7, 8, & 9 Science I do not have direct   access to a lot of supplies or our science lab as these informally   fall under the jurisdiction of our High School Science Teacher.   As ...

     “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” [1] Can an individual’s pursuit of knowledge ever truly cease? Educators the world over are diligently attempting to arm their students with the skills and values so that they can become life-long learners; learners who recognize not only that education is not limited to the confines of a classroom, but also that self-guided learning often times provides the most rewarding and valuable experiences of all. In a profession that is built upon the ignition of students’ curiosity, there are many teachers who not only end their formal education with their Bachelors of Education but also take a passive approach to new educational experiences as well. One only needs to listen in on the staffroom conversations prior to a Professional Development session to pinpoint just how high this number can be. I firmly believe that it is our responsibility as educators to not only ignite our students’ curios...

The week before Spring Break marked my Grade 8's introduction to 3D Shapes. This is our 6th unit of the 8 that we will cover this year and, personally, I think it is one of the most fun! Here are some of the activities we completed over the week, they were NOT all done in one day. PRIMARY ACTIVATION      I started off the unit by having students, in groups of 4, br ainstorm ALL of the ingredients they would need if they were going to bake a cake . Some students went very simple with the boxed-cake-mix approach, others had detailed lists for baking one from scratch, and others were much more focused on the decorating options!      When completed, I asked my students the following questions: What is the shape of the container that that ingredient comes in? Does the shape of the container match the shape of the ingredient? What things do companies keep in mind when selecting package shapes? I was really pleased with the responses of the last question...

     I am currently writing this from the luxury of Spring Break! Last week included the delivery of our spring report cards and our second formal parent-teacher interviews of the year (read all about my experience & tips here ). This week has brought a much needed break and despite it still being -30C, and feeling nothing like spring, I couldn't be happier!      If you haven't encountered a " Currently " post before, it is just a fun post at the beginning of each month that serves as a way to share what is  Currently  going on in your life! You can link up and share your own " Currently " post by visiting the wonderful  Farley  over at  Oh' Boy 4th Grade .     What are your thoughts as we enter April? What are your must-dos during Spring Break?