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:

• Preparing For Success in Your Initial Practica Handout

– 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:

• EDUC 315: Pre-Practicum Feedback Form – Advisor
• EDUC 315: Pre-Practicum Feedback Form – TC

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

• 9:30 – 11:00: Communication Needs of Aboriginal Children and Families Lecture – First Nations House of Learning
• 11:10 – 12:00: eFolio Presentation from eCoaches in SCARFE 1007 – Computer Lab
• 12:00 – 12:30: Microteaching Preparation Time

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

• 10:00 – 11:00 – Working with UBD Stage 1 – Desired Results & Discussing the Henderson article (Be sure to have your entrance slip ready to go)

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:

• Introduction to UbD PPT in 10-11

‘Til Monday.

– Lawrence