In an effort to make EDUC 310/316 classes as beneficial for you as possible, I’ve created a survey to get your input on what is working and what’s not thus far.
Here’s a link to the survey:
It will probably take you about five minutes to answer the three questions (anonymously). When the results are in, I will report out the findings… and take action!
I appreciate your support in my efforts to improve my teaching practice.
– Lawrence
Here’s the message Devin sent out about how to best prepare for Monday’s eFolio Seminar:
“Hey Everyone,
Before you come in to the lab [SCARFE 2007] on Monday for the eFolio seminar, we suggest that you make sure you can at least sign in to your eFolio.
1. Go to https://efolio.educ.ubc.ca and click Log In. You can use your CWL or CMS account.
2. You should be in the WordPress Dashboard. It will say your name in the top left and say Dashboard along the top of the page. The left side has various menus, such as Posts, Media, Links, Pages, and so on. [Here’s] a screen shot of what a WordPress dashboard looks like:
If you’re really motivated you could get a head-start by viewing the startup tutorial here.
If you’re even more motivated than that, you could check out this Google Doc that explains some of the steps for making Posts and Pages and uploading media.
If you have any questions, please let me, Shaun or Christian know. See you on Monday!
P.S. Please let me know if you have trouble opening any of these links.”
– Devin”
EDUC 315 Information
– Anecdotal Observation Forms: I handed out a few triplicate observation forms for use by your SA as she or he observes your lessons. Most SAs prefer to write up their notes on the computer as the lesson progresses but some observations – namely movement around the classroom – lend themselves almost exclusively to writing by hand. Please deliver these forms to your SA and, if they want more, let me know so I can deliver them.
– Computer Passwords: You will need an SD43 or SD40 username and password to access district email and other online resources. The sooner you can get these, the better. To do so, please see the secretaries in the office. One of them may be able to do this for you or, at the very least, they will be able to give you the name of the school’s computer site contact. The site contact should be able to make the request for your usernames and passwords. Let me know if you run into a snag here.
– Overhead Transparencies: [NOTE: This suggestion was given to my by Jan, the lead secretary at Minnekhada, and I’m passing it on to you at her request.] Unfortunately, acetate sheets used to make overhead transparencies have a bad habit of getting stuck in photocopiers and melting on the machine’s rollers. This can put a copier out of commission for days. So, before you attempt to make an overhead, I recommend requesting a quick tutorial.
– Yellow “Preparing For Success in Your Initial Practica” Handout: I urged you to take a look at this document that I passed out during our Pre-Practicum Preparation Seminar in September and make note of what you have already accomplished and what’s left to do. You needn’t do everything on the list but it does give you a good idea of activites to engage in as the 2nd half of the Tuesdays prac kicks in.
Here’s a copy if yours has gone walkabout:
– End of Practicum Paperwork: You’re keeping informal reflections and your SA is taking informal notes on the lesson(s) you are delivering at this point. The only formal paperwork that needs to be taken care of is this one-pager to be completed just before the final Tuesday on 23 November. I recommend bringing a printed copy to school on that day so you can discuss your completed form with your SA. Your SA should return the favour. For easy reference, here are the forms. By the way, they both gather the same information, but the TC one is in the first person:
POT/COM Calendar
There are a few out of the ordinary things taking place over the next few days so I wanted you to have the heads up. Here goes:
Monday, 8 November 2010
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
NOTE: Bonus points to anyone who says the author’s name with the same flair as Foster Hewitt does while making this classic call from 1972:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMf2fAXPS1Q[/youtube]
UBD Unit Planning
In preparation for today’s look at UBD unit planning, I had you read the article “Put Understanding First” by UBD creators Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. I then had you pull three key words from your entrance slip and write those words down on a slip of paper. Here’s the list of words that the class wrote down:
impacting challenging exciting transfer cross-curriculum questions scaffolding critical thinking frustration first rung public syllabus meaningful sequence rethink meaningful practical regurgitate meaning purposeful untraditional order focus facilitator meaningful opportunity practice understanding transfer meaning boring stimuli meaningful-sequence questioning political agora transfer meaning acquisition understanding strategies different approaches application-task guided-transfer pressured meaning connections critical thinking unclear-goals make-meaning transfer-learning transfer-ability life-skills connect-to-practical transfer boring captivate connection application inquiry
Amanda kindly entered all these words into the Create page of Wordle.net and we created this image:
According to the website:
“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”
Wordles have many applications in a classroom setting. I urge you to think about how you can use this software in the work you do with your students on practicum.
The Wordle highlighted several key ideas promoted by McTighe and Wiggins in their UBD unit planning model. I elaborated on this model in my PPT presentation and we will continue to look at unit planning in subsequent lessons. Here’s my slideshow:
‘Til Monday.
– Lawrence
Delivery of the Magic Lessons
After considering how an ability to do magic tricks might be useful for a classroom teacher and reviewing the goal of this task – to comprehend and apply the Lesson Design components through the planning and delivery of a lesson, each group taught what they had planned.
The post-conference was structured around answering the questions:
When all lessons were delivered and debriefed, we revisited the Lesson Design Anticipation Guide that I used to introduce the topic. Also, I urged you to use the Lesson Design structure when planning lessons of your own during prac. It is tried, true and allows for a great deal of flexibility in the way learning experiences are structured.
Here’s a LD lesson planning template for you to use:
In addition, here are a few sample lessons from previous TCs that show you what a completed LD lesson plan might look like:
By the way, here’s an advanced version of Cups and Balls performed by Penn & Teller in Vegas. Enjoy… but don’t try these tricks on your waterbed!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPyvAtQYVok[/youtube]
Inquiry Article Processing
We used the Carousel Brainstorming strategy to process the 2 articles – Freire & Danylewycz and Prentice – read for a prior class. At the end, of this activity, I asked you to complete an exit slip that was a reflection on any new ideas that emerged during your thinking on and talking about the articles. Overall, the goal was to examine conceptions of teaching – past, present, and yours (… for the moment, at least.)
Here are the three questions that guided our examination of the articles:
Instructions for Carousel Brainstorming (Lipton, L., & Wellman, B. (1998). Patterns and practices in the learning-focused classroom. Guilford, Vermont: Pathways Publishing.) are below:
Revised EDUC 310/316 Calendar
I wrote the updated calendar on the board. Here’s an electronic copy:
Permission to Capture Video / Still Images While on Practicum
We will be asking you to videotape at least one lesson on your long practicum and, to do that, you will need permission from the parents of your students. Most students will have signed some form of consent for photography at the start of the year. You need to find out who has consented and if the permission given extends to you taking video and still images for your educational purposes, namely for use in your ePortfolio and for the analysis of a videotaped lesson.
Here is a form you should use to get the required permissions, if need be. Be sure to add in the details where prompted and, before you copy the letter to send home, to proofread the file to make sure it reads in a way you’re comfortable with. While the gist of the letter should remain the same, you can feel free to make subtle tweaks to the style:
[NOTE: This is a different form from the one I first posted. There were some significant concerns with a lack of clarity in the original letter. – LH on 3 Nov 2010]
Print out one, copy as many as you need for the students in your home room, and hand them out. Set a due date and over the Tuesday visits collect them in. You have a lot of time on your hands now so you can chase those who have late forms. Also, this will give you another opportunity to connect with the students in your class.
Looking Ahead to Unit Planning
As per the revised calendar, we will be starting to look at unit planning on Wednesday. In preparation, I’ve asked you to read the article linked to below and to design an entrance slip – using the same process as the entrance slips you followed for the Inquiry Articles – for use in Wednesday’s lesson. Use this link to the article if you didn’t receive a copy in class.
See you on Wednesday.
– Lawrence