Retrospect and Reinvention

Looking back, I can without a doubt acknowledge that what has emerged most significantly from my early experiences in teaching is the idea that the most important measure of my pedagogical practice is the degree to which it has persisted in evolving.

I used to believe that the only alternative to structure was chaos
I used to believe winning was material
I used to believe in quantitative acknowledgement of learning and data-driven assessment
I used to believe that ambiguity was the enemy
I used to believe that learning could be bottled and finite

How To Build an Awesome Car (Engineering Thinking in Grade 4)

Traditionally, Grade 4 "Wheels, Levers and Devices that Move" units involve hands on investigations in which students have the opportunity to build something. Often however, these building opportunities are heavily regulated and have students follow a specific set of instructions, put pieces together sequentially and then showcase a collection of virtually identical products.

While I can't pretend to know a whole lot about engineering, I am pretty confident that if the discipline were focused on building from instruction booklets, Chris Hadfield wouldn't have spent the last 6 months in space. As Dr. David Perkins' mentions in Making Learning Whole, kids don't learn to play the game if all they ever get are the pieces...

On Light, Shadows and Experience

Co-authored by Jenna Callaghan
Cross-posted on the Calgary Science School's Connect!

We began a recent investigation into Light and Shadows in Grade 4 by posing the question “What is Light?” to our students. Before beginning the conversation, we reminded students that the world is not nearly as concrete or easily-understood as over-simplified statements of "fact" might often imply. We talked about how scientists are by nature inquisitive, always open to possibility and a reinvention of old ideas. We suggested that throughout our inquiry, they too might have the potential to share a completely new perspective, contribute to making new discoveries and either support or disprove current thoughts. With two of us in the classroom, we were able to capture some of our students’ opening ideas about 'Light' and have embedded them below.

Kindness - A Recurring Theme

Every once in awhile all the pockets of spark that I come across intersect and whether it's true or not it really feels like the universe is pulling together to communicate something important. Today I had to write about it. The trigger was an impromptu conversation with my student teacher about how sometimes, teaching core curricular outcomes gets set aside for a period and this is okay. Because sometimes it's important to have a conversation about how to be a good person; about what it means to be kind, to make a thoughtful decision, to show compassion or respect. If real teaching is inspiring the hearts and minds of children, then taking time for these conversations, creating space and modelling the kind of brave compassion that leads to hope and change is the most important thing we do.

Mentorship and Collaboration in Student Teaching: A Video Reflection

Co-authored by Jenna Callaghan 
Cross-posted on the Calgary Science School's Connect!

Deirdre 

Working with a student teacher these past few months has been an exciting and rewarding experience. From our first meeting, it was evident that Jenna and I shared a similar pedagogical philosophy; with a strong focus on reflection and discipline-based inquiry. Jenna’s early ideas and questions were guided by an honest vulnerability that allowed for a number of frank conversations around assessment, engagement and lesson design in an inquiry based classroom. My understanding of collaboration - developed and deepened through a powerful team-teaching relationship with Amy Park - had led to a familiarity with how professional collaborative relationships might evolve and I was excited to incorporate my prior understanding and experiences.

Outside the Lines: Student Perspectives on Inquiry Learning

Sometimes it gets to me that my classroom is noisier and that my students’ work is messier. Why am I in constant negotiation with nine and ten year olds over quality, clarity, detail, what’s worth the effort and when it’s reasonable to expect to move on? Wednesday morning as I sat at my desk feeling uncertain and frustrated at the messiness of not having everything nailed down, categorized and properly evaluated, I decided to have a conversation with the kids about learning. I have to hand it to inquiry, it has made them good conversationalists and I have yet to regret asking students for their perspective in solving problems. This particular conversation was no exception...

Conversation originally recorded/documented on the white board and transcribed below. 

Random Thoughts from a Student Teacher

by Jenna Callaghan

I had my first education board screening interview a few days ago. The majority of the questions were designed to gain an idea of my overall philosophy and views on teaching.  Many were “what would you do in this scenario” questions.  In the final months of my Bachelor of Education, I feel confident that I am well on my way to having a strong sense of my values and who I am as a teacher.  One question on the interview, however, left me feeling stumped. 

iPads for Learning

At the start of our first year with a 1:1 iPad program in Grade 4, Jon Van de Raadt made a comment that resonated and has set the tone for our year. "I think you'll find that iPads are not a junior version of the MacBook and should not be used as such. The iPad is a significantly different tool, and if you are prepared to embrace it, you might even find it more useful than the laptop has been." Two thirds of the way through our grade four pilot year with iPad 3's, I can say with certainty that I agree wholeheartedly. iPads belong in the classroom. I cannot imagine a more useful tool for representing, consolidating, expanding or creating understanding on the fly. I have no doubt that the rapidity with which app and software developers react to user feedback and update accordingly makes it one of the few technological tools out there that can effectively react to the ever-changing needs of youth in education and the evolving 21st century classroom. 

What follows is by no means a comprehensive or complete overview of what the iPad might be used for in the grade four classroom, but just a few brief exemplars from some of the artifacts we have had students create and present with the use of their devices. All apps (with the exception of the iWork apps) were free purchases. All investigations were co-developed with Amy Park and have been posted and archived in Edmodo and Google Apps. 

Tortuga

I've got a turtle in my classroom. She's 25 years old and will outlive me. She likes to climb things, even though she's not built for it. She falls a lot but it never stops her. Once, earlier in her life, someone tried to drill a hole in her shell, maybe to flag her so they wouldn't lose her in the grass... It must have hurt. They probably thought she couldn't feel it. Maybe they never had the opportunity to get to know her so they didn't understand. Sometimes children forget that she can't see them properly and they try to pat her face. It's probably terrifying. She always comes back out though. Game face on, ready to forgive, adapt, and continue with her investigation, carefully negotiating her next obstacle; balanced, careful, determined.

Crowd Sourcing the Fourth Graders

I've got a novel on iPads in the grade four classroom waiting to be written. Lots of discoveries, ideas, struggles and triumphs. I just need to find the time to document it all properly. This brief gem, however, is too awesome not to share.

Earlier this year, our teaching team's excited discovery of the Edmodo app as an excellent resource for collecting and organizing student work digitally and providing an avenue for ongoing feedback was stinted by the limitation of only being able to upload images or links from the iPads. Our optimism was recently renewed by updates to the iWork apps which made it possible to upload pages, numbers and keynote documents directly to Edmodo. The latest struggle has been with how we might be able to have students download iWork templates we post to Edmodo and open them using the associated app. It seemed that the only way to open a doc from Edmodo was as a preview and frankly, I was beginning to think it wasn't possible any other way.

Nevertheless, while driving home from the mountains yesterday I posted a sample template for students to track their mousetrap car results to Edmodo via the numbers app with the comment "let me know if any of you figure out how to open this document as a numbers template!" Honestly, I didn't expect much. This morning I woke up to 17 replies...

Problem solved, instructions posted. Clearly I wasted way too much time trying to solve this problem myself. I should have asked the fourth graders in the first place.

I love my job.