A week flew by so fast.

My first week at Vancouver College ended with a Pro-D day centered around inquiry hosted at the school.

Friday started off with a run in with my former Science 8 teacher, who was ecstatic to see me when I introduced myself:

The Circle of Life: A former student now a student-teacher soon-to-be colleague????

Proud pic.twitter.com/vxwyctYd3W

— Rose Pillay (@RosePillay1) April 28, 2017

I’m excited to see what directions my future students will go.

The keynote speaker was Trevor MacKenzie, a BC teacher who wrote Dive Into Inquiry. One thing that I will take into my practice will be a brainstorming session of questions. To start inquiry we must have a question. By coming up with multiple questions, identifying whether they are open or closed, and prioritizing the questions, students should be able to identify an essential question to their inquiry. The practice as a teacher, when considering my subject area (Chemistry), was very eye opening.

There were multiple sessions throughout the day.
I attended:

• Philosophy for teens
• Cross Curricular Co-Teaching Science with Art and made this little guy
  
• Project Based Learning
• Career Mentorship Program
• Innovative Assessment
• Outsourcing to students

The day ended with a review session. I plan to use the format in future review sessions I will hold in the classroom.

How it worked:

• Four students to a group
• Each is assigned a card with a specific suit (hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds)
• The group answers a question together in 5 minutes
• The students hold their card up
• A suit is selected to come up to a board
• They must answer the question again on the board with no aid
  • verbal – team cannot give any hints, only a thumbs up or down as guidance
  • paper with solution cannot be brought up to the board
  • room should be silent
• The teacher checks answer
  • If correct gain a point
    • get a chance at a bonus point
    • Throw a football through a giant protractor with a hollow middle

I took away a lot from the Pro-D day and my interaction with students and staff at Vancouver College. I am very thankful for the opportunities I’ve had so far and look forward to the coming week!