This past Friday our school held its first ‘Cultural Fair’. It all started with my Leadership class, which is one of the option classes my school is piloting this year. We started by talking about qualities of a leader, while looking at models like Terry Fox. Then we learned about different types of leadership projects; action, awareness and fundraising. After a few weeks of exploring how projects should be planned and structured, the students decided to take on organizing a cultural fair.

What was the end result? Out of our 230 student body, 50 students participated. We had a variety of events throughout the day, including country presentations, food sharing and performances. The confidence and enthusiasm demonstrated by students was amazing! We had 10 proud students sing us the Pilipino National Anthem., and then a grade 2 student serenade the school in Spanish (making all heart melt). Many dances were performed from several different cultures, all of them wonderful. Even a few grandparents showed up to support their grandchildren in teaching about their cultures. Throughout the day we also invited students to wear their cultural dress and to bring food to share with their class. So many wonderful dishes were shared - butter chicken, poutine, Pilipino noodles, samosas, borsch, perogies, dulce de leche, plum cake, double buns.

Looking back at our day, here are some of the outcomes I believed we touched upon:

1)      Students demonstrated pride for their cultural heritage

2)      Students appreciated various cultural practices, languages and countries

3)      Students demonstrated confidence in expressing information in various forms (dance, presentations, food sharing)

I strongly encourage your school to give it a try! If you are interested in putting on a school cultural fair, here is a resource that may give you a place to start:

http://www.nwt.literacy.ca/resources/famlit/howtokit/culture_days_activities.pdf

Jessica Marcotte
@jmarcotte85

During the summer of 2009, I spend two months as a Research Assistant in Saraguro, Ecuador. Saraguro is a canton of the Loja region, which has a population of roughly 30,000 in the 2001 census (according to Wikipedia). Our topics of research were eco-tourism, fair trade and artisan crafts. At this point you may be asking “What does this have to do with The Independent Project (see video below)?”

During this time in Saraguro, we learned of a non-traditional school in the community. When I saw this video about the Independent Project, I was reminded of my visit to this school.  Maria Gabriel Albuja is the founder of ‘la Unidad Educativa Experimental Activa Multicultural Trilingüe Inka-Samana’. She also started the non-traditional school Inka-Samana with her husband. She was kind enough to show us the school in the community and teach us about the pedagogy there. The school was established in 1986. Each student attends in their own way, at their own rhythm. One of the students from this school told us for his thesis (explained in my excerpts) was to rebuild and repair motorcycles. There were not tests, no homework, just independently chosen and researched projects.

Below I have copied excerpts of my field notes from the trip related to the school.

June 2009

Maria Gabriel showed us a slide show she did on the school she teaches at. The initiative is called Inka-Samana. It is based around liberal learning, compassion, independent learning. At the end of high school students are to write a 70-page thesis on a subject they specialized in, which was chosen by themselves. There are no tests in the school for the students. The school is trilingual; Spanish, Kichwa and English. They learn traditional lessons; clothing making, nature studies, food making. She said a 16-year-old girl who wants to be a doctor is working at a hospital doing autopsies and learning about medicine. She said they allow their students to cry, they simply listen and console, not interrupting in order to allow the person to let out their emotions and heal.

She took us to the school which both her and her husband started, that same one she showed us a slide show on. The downstairs part was an auditorium with chairs, it may be used for a small theatre or large classroom. On the other side were art rooms, a storage room. She said there is a teacher who supervises outside all day so the kids may play there when they please. She then took us up the stairs where there was a large classroom. It is divided into three linguistic stations; English, Kichwa and Spanish. She said that teachers and students who use swears in English are made to eat a spoonful of aji (a type of hot sauce).

The classroom was stacked with resources; language books, numberless math exercises, posters, notebooks, etc. She said there is no homework or tests but that the students are given diagnostic reports on their progress. It seems as if the students do not wear shoes inside, or at least their outdoor shoes inside. We waited for her while she did some things in the upper office. I noticed painted on the wall was a map of the world, which is now also covered in soccer ball marks from the ball being kicked against it so many times. The school itself is painted in pictures of indigenous themes. Saraguro typical dress, a picture of what might have been from a legend of Inti, natives dressed in feather and loincloth. The logo of the school is a tupu (a type of clothes pin) which comes to a point as a pencil. Instead of the rays of sun there are 4 girls and 4 boys dressed in indigenous clothes. The middle is the face of the sun.

-              -          -         -      -

Inka Samana has established their own curriculum. It is my hope that with Alberta curriculum redesign, we may see school have the flexibility to accommodate students in ways similar to Inka-Samana and The Independent Project. As our world changes, knowledge is becoming more and more available. We need to teach students how to access this knowledge, how to apply it, and how to dream. Without the desire to learn, students will not likely take the initiative to find and apply the vast knowledge that is available to them.

Here is a link to a Blogspot (in Spanish) that also speaks about this school http://pedagogiadelaalegria.blogspot.ca/2012/10/unidad-educativa-experimental-activa.html


Here is a link to the slideshow that I mentioned which provides more information on the school and its pedagogy (in Spanish)

Last week I set the goal of engaging my students in the following ways: 

• Peer work
  
  Technology
  
  PBL (long-term goal- not yet accoplished)
  
  Love what I do and share the passion
  
  Movement (not accomplished)
  
  Use Visuals
  
  Student Choice
  
  Student Ownership
  
  Mix it up – different activities
  
  Have fun as the teacher
  
  
  

Though I did not complete all ten, here are some of the pleasant surprises and hiccups that came along with checking these goals off my list this week.

Pleasant Surprises

(Student Choice) My students worked extremely well together to complete their culminating projects for the Global Read Aloud book ‘Out of my Mind’. I had students engaged creating me various projects; songs about overcoming disability, research projects on Cerebral Palsy, a biography on a girl with Down Syndrome, and comic strips highlighting key events in the novel. Each students followed the expectations, using cues from their planning sheets and the rubric that was provided.

(Student Ownership) The students had some really good suggestions when I asked them to complete their Stop, Start and Continue Feedback slips. Here are some suggestions I will be using to help creating next week’s goals.

        Start working with us individually during Math time

I will say I have proficiently provided one-on-one time during Language Arts to discuss literacy, but not enough time on literacy. I will take students who are struggling aside to reinforce numeracy strategies, but I have not extended this to all of my students in Math class.

        Continue giving us more projects

This encourages me to pursue Project Based Learning. Although the project this weekend was for learning assessment, I was really impressed by their level of engagement.

        Start giving us more P.E

Students just love their phys. Ed. time. Though I cannot give them more time for this subject area due to curriculum hour allocation, I will try to integrate more physical activity and game activities in to my other subject areas.

        Continue to read us more books

This I feel is getting to know the specific interests of each class. As a class, they were extremely receptive to the Global Read Aloud. Even though this is now completed, I think I will look to the Rocky Mountain Book Award list to find great books to share with my class.

Hiccups

(Student Choice) When planning the project, I did not consider Bloom’s Taxonomy. I found that during the students’ working process, I was facilitating students to vary the project based when the work the student was providing was not at the level I felt they were ready to perform. In retrospect, I would have integrated more of Bloom’s taxonomy into the planning process to help decrease the redirection I provided to students once they had begun.

(Visual) I set out to represent our ‘Right to Left’ Addition and Subtraction strategies in a skit format. I feel like explaining the skit would not be effective, but in the end I do not think it helped the students to understand the concept better. Therefore, I will continue to look for effective interactive ways to represent math strategies for my students.

In closing, here are the goals I have set for myself for the next two weeks. This week my Leadership class is delivering the school’s first Cultural Fair – so I am giving myself more time to get these goals accomplished.

1.      Provide more one-on-one time with all students in Mathematics to help reinforce strategies and introduce new strategies when needed

2.      Initiate a Project Based Learning Project. Consider Bloom’s Taxonomy during the planning process

3.      Integrate more physical activity and games in to other subject areas

4.      Choose another great book to read to the class.

5.      In addition to goal 4, find related books to feature as book talks to encourage individual reading

6.      Integrate effective interactive and visual ways to represent math strategies

At times, I feel the quotidian demands of my role as teacher compromise my enthusiasm to try new ideas and inspire love of learning. Demands like dealing with student conflict, classroom management, and assessment get my mind set on work-pilot mode and I lose that passion of making learning fun. This week I have given myself the goal using each one of these 10 tips for student engagement to help truly engage and inspire my students.  Here is the ‘Kids speak out on Student Engagement’ article link published by Edutopia:  

 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-engagement-stories-heather-wolpert-gawron?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=blog-kids-speak-out-question

Here are some of the ways I plan to implement these strategies this week:

1. Peer work

I have embraced collaborative student work in the physical space of my classroom. I have replaced desks with tables and left an open space in the center for class and group collaboration. This week I stepped back and asked myself “Am I allowing my students to take advantage of this space?”

I found the answer was not enough. After a few adjustments to my arrangements, I am ready to embrace Monday with a new perspective embracing more peer work. Digging back into the bag of tricks with which my university professors sent me off into the work field, I have rediscovered such strategies as ‘Think, Pair, Share’.  I will also let me students work on formative assessments with each other and embrace chatter as potential learning, rather than distraction from learning.

2. Technology

I feel like I have made good progress with using technology in my classroom this year. I have my students using Padlet as a fast and effective way to post reflections to questions. I recently have tried 100 Word Challenge in conjunction with KidBlog to get my students creative writing. This week I am going to take things further and try a Skype session with another class. I have been participating in Global Read Aloud these last 5 weeks, and my students are in love with the book. During the Skype session we will be discussing the book ‘Out of My Mind’ by Sharon Draper. In order to get my students to practice behaviour during a Skype session – and provide myself an opportunity to work out the process of Skyping class to class – we will be having a practice Skype with our principal.

3. PBL

PBL is one of my TPGPs for this year. I will not be tackling it this week, but I will be integrating PBL in my teaching throughout the year.

4. Love what I do and share the passion

My passion for teaching is certainly related to my passion for all student learning and passion to create positive change in the world. Learning is the door to embracing life and enjoying our short role in the amazing production of humanity. The more we know, the more amazing the world becomes, and the more we realize our individual gifts are needed to better our world. My students deserve all of this – to be in awe of life and feel needed.

So I dug a little deeper to search for some of my personal passions to help ignite love of learning in my class. I have always been an avid reader. I love books, and more specifically, I love young adult fiction. As a result, I will inject my enthusiasm for teaching and learning through book talks. I have recently begun the book ‘Wonder’ by R. J. Palacio, which has similar themes to ‘Out of My Mind’, in addition to it being a wonderful book. So, I will be delivering a book talk about ‘Wonder’ to my students to help encourage love of reading.

5. Movement

Get them moving. I often do math aerobics when my students have been in their seats too long. I write a basic multiplication sentence on the whiteboard. The first person to correctly answer gets to choose an activity the students must do, such as jumping jacks, in the quantity of the product.

This week I will integrate physical activity in my literacy lesson. I will have balls with words we have currently brought up in class, such as the word envious. A student will throw said ball at the class. If the student who is hit by the ball can come up with a synonym and an antonym for the word on the ball, they get to be the thrower. This idea was inspired by the ‘Mix it Up’ portion of the Edutopia article.

6. Visual

This week to make things more visual, I will be integrating a teacher led skit in my math lessons to demonstrate the strategy of borrowing in subtraction.

7. Student Choice

Seeing as we are at the end of the novel ‘Out of my Mind’, it is time for a culminating assessment! I will allow my students to choose from a list of options for this activity. I have used Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences to guide the choices I provide so that all types of learners may engage with this culminating assessment. Here is a list of the options I will provide:

·         Act out a key scene from the book

·         Create a poster encouraging understanding for others’ disabilities

·         Write a journal entry from the main character’s perspective

·         Stage an interview between a news reporter and the main character

·         Create a comic strip in the day in the life of the main character

8. Student Ownership

I admit that I should be better at this. I, as many teachers do, want to be at the helm of my classroom. If I am not directing the flow of my classroom, I feel I am not doing my job to facilitate learning. Perhaps it is time that I challenge myself to structure the activities to encourage more student ownership.

This week I will ask myself "How would I feel if I were this student?" when considering student interaction with their learning.  

I will also try better to ask my students for a ’Start, Stop and Continue’ feedback sheet after lessons.

9. Mix it up

I feel the aforementioned activities all meet this goal.

10. Have fun as the teacher

My students’ laughter and insights can be infectious. So can my focus on ‘getting the job done’, and perhaps that is not for the best. When the last 5 minutes of the day arrives, do I allow my students to inquire more, or do I stop them to make sure they have their agendas filled out? More often than not, I choose the agenda. I need to combine these two things. I need to take the best of what my students love and the best of my focus on teaching, and bring them together. This week I will smile more and allow the students to embrace moments of personal inquiry and response. Not only do I want to have my students embrace these moments, I want to create opportunities to let these moments happen more often.  

Jessica Marcotte
@jmarcotte85