Pedagogy

Community: 

During units and lessons, I focused on creating a community within my classroom. I use a lesson on compliments, and give the opportunity for students to write anonymous messages of gratitude and kindness to one another through the Warm Fuzzies lesson.  The Warm Fuzzies lesson, when used in my classroom experiences encourages classroom building, and student engagement and excitement to write for one another. It is amazing to see students writing compliments for every member in the class, and not just their friends. That to me is a sign of a successful lesson and fits the goal of creating a community within the classroom.

I use a classroom community photo wall to display the activities that students partake in during the year. This wall was a great way for students to reflect on the various events they are a part of during their school year in addition to creating a positive classroom environment.

To welcome all from different cultures, as well to promote language development, in my classroom we created a language board.  I ask students to go home and ask their parents and grandparents if they speak any other languages besides English, and if so, they were to return with a greeting in that language. As a class we write out all the different ways to say hello. Throughout the weeks, students are always encouraged to greet one another in different languages. This is a great way to integrate different cultures and languages into our classroom.

Inspiration: 

I want to inspire my students to learn and be curious.

Showcasing personal passion for various subjects and topics, allows students to be engaged and sets a positive tone in the classroom. I design units with many hands on activities, demonstrations, labs and a final project to allow students to inquire and use their skills.

The main objective of my grade 7 Chemistry Unit was to explore that chemistry is around us, and how it affects our daily lives. Throughout the unit, I covered topics relating them to students lives. The unit was very hands on. The final assignment of the unit was a student Chemistry Science Fair. Throughout the unit, the teacher demonstrations  consisted of the use of everyday household items to teach the curriculum topics. This was the way to provide scaffolding for the students and inspiration, thus preparing them for their science fair. The unit demonstrated my passion for the subject. In the end, when students had the opportunity to participate in designing their own experiment, they were inspired and ready to display their work. 

In my grade five Geometry Unit, a story was used to increase students interest and understanding of  different attributes of shapes. Story telling is a personal passion thus when a story about geometry was told, students were able to engage with me and share the enthusiasm about the subject.

Self-Regulation: 

By setting routines in my class, I encouraged self-regulation. My math units are heavily based on routines that would allow the students to be responsible for their own learning. The Fun Five,was an example of the routines. Students know as they settle for math, Fun Five will be on the board. They begin working on these problems to get them ready for math. This routine promotes self-regulation where students are responsible to get themselves ready to begin a lesson.

In addition, during any math unit I  let students go at their own pace and work heavily on establishing routines especially when it comes to marking the work assigned. I give students the responsibility of coming to see me if they need help. This method works really well, as students begin taking responsibility on improving their own learning.

Near the end of  units, a traffic light visual is used to allow students to write their concerns, thus giving me enough information about what topics we still need to discuss or review before moving on. This technique promotes self-regulation allowing students to take charge of their own learning and giving input on how to formulate the review sessions.

Assessment: 

When it came to assessing the final chemistry unit, and the final fair, I used my inquiry steps. The unit started with establishing the goal, of which chemistry surrounds us, and affects our everyday lives. Students filled out personal goals, which they set for the unit. The goals set by the students were collected and kept by me. This really help provide a guideline for my assessment at the end of the unit. After the introduction of the unit investigation project, students contributed to creating a rubric, in which they want their final report to be marked on. This part was difficult at first. Students needed scaffolding on what a criteria was and what separates a good criteria. In addition, a midpoint meeting was conducted with the students to ask about what their experiment or demo is on, and how much progress they have made. This midpoint meeting was not only beneficial for the students, but also very helpful for me as a teacher. I was able to see who it was I needed to spend more time with, and who was on the right track.

Moreover, students  had a self- assessment form, in a checklist format, which they completed prior to their submission, to allow for them to be aware of what they have completed and what is being handed in. The checklist provided students with an understanding of what they needed to have incorporated in their project, as well was a great tool for self-regulation and students taking responsibility of their own learning.

Lastly, for the day of the gallery walk, peer assessment was conducted via the use of the “three stars and a wish” sheet. I collected these peer assessment and attached it to the  the teacher rubric that I used to provide summative assessment, as well as further feedback for improvement on their report.From my inquiry investigation, I was able to put theory into practice with an outcome of having a balance between summative and formative assessment.