Tag Archives: Calendar

Pre-Prac Prep in EDUC 310: Update for Wednesday, 7 March 2012

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We started today with a free write on the ideal practicum and the practicum Question Box.

Next, we handed out a calendar with practicum dates.  Here’s the calendar:

Also, I noted that the TCs I’m supervising must videotape a lesson on prac and go through a self- and peer-analysis process.  This is an option for Shep’s TCs, too, if you wish.  Here’s the form you’ll use for that endeavour:

We moved into my Top 11 Tips (in a nod to Spinal Tap) for a successful prac.  Here they are:

Lastly, we enjoyed a potluck lunch before engaging in an Appreciation Circle to thank those who’d supported us over the course of our time on campus.

Enjoy your upcoming break and best wishes for a successful long practicum.

– Lawrence

SRL in the Middle Years Cohort EDUC 310 & 316 Course Outlines & Calendar

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Below you will find the course outlines for EDUC 310 and EDUC 316, the two courses that Dave and I are teaching you this term.  Also, you will find the calendar, a class by class breakdown of how we envision the sessions unfolding:

Look at it this way.  Even if our projected calendar doesn’t go exactly as planned, it couldn’t possibly be as wrong as the calendar shown below.  Who buys this stuff?

– Lawrence

EDUC 310 – End-of-Term Calendar & Classroom Management BUMP 1: Update for Wednesday, 2 March 2011

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Here’s what we managed to wedge into today’s POT class:

Calendar

Here are some dates to remember:

  • Thursday, 3 March = Practicum Seminar in Hebb Theatre from 12:30 to 1:30
    • LLED 320 class will start when the seminar ends
  • Monday, 7 March = Assessment Lecture in SC 100 from 10:30 to 12:00
    • Please attend this lecture in lieu of our regularly scheduled class
  • Wednesday, 9 March = TCs Without Lawrence As An FA Inquiry Project Conferences in SC 1310 from 9:45 t0 12:30.
  • Monday, 14 March = Pre-Practicum FA Meetings By School Group in SC 210 from 10:00 to 12:00

Classroom Management: Working with Barrie Bennett’s Theory of Bumps

Connecting

I asked you to think back to your classroom experience and…

“Recall a student who was beginning to stop you from teaching or stop others from learning.  Perhaps they were pencil tapping, talking to a classmate, or calling out.  How did you respond to that student?”

We took a few responses.  As it turns out, many of you were already using some of the techniques advocated by Bennett in Bump 1 – Preventing and Responding to Misbehaviour Through Low-Key Responses.

Processing

I used this PPT slidewshow to give you some background with Bump 1:

Next, partnerships presented short role plays demonstrating NO and YES examples on how to use 12 low-key techniques.  Each role play was followed up with a quick blurb on how to use the technique effectively and artfully.

The responses fall into two categories and are as follows:

Responding Strategies

  • Touch
  • Student’s Name
  • Gesture
  • The Look
  • The Pause
  • Ignore
  • Signal to Begin
  • Deal With the Problem Not the Student

Here’s an example of “The Look”.  Watch and determine if it’s a NO or a YES example:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNEmyHsqoVY[/youtube]

Here’s a musical example of “The Look”.  Please wield this one with extreme caution:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlVI7ZNiFlI[/youtube]

Preventive Techniques

  • Transitions
  • Dealing With Allies
  • Winning Over
  • Pre-empting Call Outs

You can find all the low-key responses in this handout from Bennett’s book, Classroom Management: A Thinking & Caring Approach:

Personalizing

To close, I asked you to consider the following question and to share your thoughts as you left the classroom:

“Which of the techniques we worked with today will you add to your repertoire on practicum?”

By the way, check out this clip from Star Trek IV: The  Voyage Home that I was referencing during our discussion on swearing.  After watching it, I recalled that “Double dumb-a*$ on you!” was my favourite expletive of 1986.  Enjoy.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WTvEbUkeLM[/youtube]

That’s a wrap.

– Lawrence

EDUC 310: Inquiry Project Criteria & Calendar

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Today we focused on:

  1. Assessment of the Inquiry Project
  2. How we’d spend our class time to facilitate the completion of the task.

Inquiry Project Assessment Criteria

We used a Jigsaw-ish strategy to think and talk about the I.P. criteria.  These four criteria are the same ones I’ll use in the assessment of the projects that are submitted to me.  For  your reference, here they are:

Inquiry Project Class Schedule

Here’s the schedule that I ran up the flag pole and that you saluted:

Also, here’s the list of the times for Wednesday’s 5-Min Inquiry Proposal Approval Meeting (Thanks Tyrel for typing this up – LH):

Finally, here’s a list with two more bits of important info (Thanks Leanne for typing these  up – LH):

  1. The groups and times for the IP Check-In Meetings on Monday, 31 Jan and Monday, 7 Feb
  2. The IP Multi-Media Presentation Schedule

I think that covers it.

– Lawrence

Admin. & UBD Planning – Stage 1: Update for Wednesday, 17 November 2010

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Administrivia

– Calendar: There’s been a change to the schedule.  As such, here’s what the next two Wednesdays will look like:

  • Wednesday, 24 November – 10:00 to 12:00 = Sims Article Discussion & More UBD Unit Planning
  • Wednesday, 1 December – 10:00 to 11:00 = Pre-Prac Preparation

– Reading: Please read the Sims article, “How my question keeps evolving” and develop an entrance slip for it.  As a part of your entrance slip, please jot down a few teaching and learning-related questions that you might be interested in exploring in more detail.

– EDUC 315 Paperwork: There is one formal paperwork requirement as a part of the Tuesdays practicum.  The forms are below.  You and your SA will each complete the appropriate form and email them both to me.  Before you send them off, however, I suggest that you both discuss your completed forms next Tuesday – 23 November, the last school visit of EDUC 315.  This conversation can serve to wrap up this prac experience and look ahead to your two weeks in January.

– Microteaching: I handed back the rubrics completed by the peer assessors and a feedback sandwich that summarized my thoughts on your presentation.  After you’ve completed your reflection – the post-microteaching task due on Monday, 22 November for those that presented on Monday – take a look at the feedback and see how it jives with your thoughts on your performance.

UBD Unit Planning – Stage 1: Desired Results

Now that you have a good idea of the subject, topic, and PLO(s) that you’ll be working with during your 2-week practicum, we started to look at how to design a unit that will develop student understanding on the topic.

To that end, I presented a PPT slideshow that highlighted how to unpack PLOs to uncover the:

  • Big Ideas
  • Understandings
  • Essential Questions
  • Skills
  • Knowledge

that, when played with in class, will lead to student understanding of the topic under study.  Here’s my slideshow:

Here’s a copy of the chart for the HCE 8 Substance Use PLO we unpacked in the guided practice part of the lesson:

… and here’s a blank template you can use to unpack one or more PLOs that you will work with during your January prac:

The unpacking process can be a bit tricky for new and experienced teachers alike.  Seeing as the process starts with identifiying the Big Ideas – the concepts, themes, issues, debates, problems, challenges, processes, theoriex, paradoxes, assumptions, and perspectives – that lie at the heart of the topic, here’s a short blurb on how to identify the Big Ideas more easily.  This excerpt comes from Tomlinson and McTighe’s book, Integrating Differentiated Instruction + Understanding by Design:

Here’s the complete UBD unit planning template:

We’ll be working with the other sections of it in future classes, namely on Wednesday, 24 November.

The rough draft of your 2-week prac unit is due to your SA and FA on Monday, 6 December 2010.  What we expect you to submit at that point is:

  • a completed unit plan template
  • full lesson plans for the first two lessons of the unit

Bob and I will be meeting with the TCs we supervise to discuss your unit planning ideas on Monday, 29 November.  You will have a chance to set up a meeting time with Bob or in class on Monday, 22 November.  For this meeting, you should have a firm idea of Stage 1 – Desired Results and have considered the sort of assessment you’d like to use to determine if the students understand what you’ve been teaching.

Magic Lessons, Conceptions of Teaching, and a Few Bits and Pieces: Update for Monday, 1 November 2010

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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:

  • What worked? Why?
  • What didn’t work? Why?
  • What next? Why?

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:

  1. What are some present day understandings of teaching and teachers?
  2. What are some historically significant understandings of teaching and teachers?
  3. What understandings do you hold about teaching and teachers?

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

EDUC 310 – Preparing for Practicum: Update for Wednesday, 24 March

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Here’s what happened in our last EDUC 310 class:

SCETS

Thanks for taking the time to give Shep and I your feedback.

Free Write on the Ideal Practicum

You took some time to consider how, if you were teaching in a perfect world, your long practicum would look.

Information for Parents of the Students You’ll be Teaching

We recommend sending home an introductory letter and a letter that gives you permission to take still photographs for use in your e-Folio.   Proficient wordsmiths could probably combine both letters into one.  Here are files the related files:

Practicum Calendars

There are a multitude of different calendars depending on the length of practicum you are doing and whether or not you are involved in EPBCO.  I’ve divided them up below by FA:

Cheryl’s TC’s Calendars:

Lawrence’s TCs Calendars

Pre-Prac Letter and Responsibilities Chart

Finally, Cheryl and I shared our “Top 10 Tips for a Successful Practicum”.  The tips were culled from these two documents -the  “Expectations and Advice for The Long Practicum” letter and the “Suggested Practicum Responsibilities” chart.  Here they are for each FA:

Cheryl’s TCs Documents:

Lawrence’s TCs Documents:

That about covers it.

Good luck on practicum.

– Lawrence