Learning Log

The artifact.

I am hosting a Creative Writing Club at Yale Secondary School during my certifying quarter. As I started brainstorming ideas for the club, I contacted two students from my English 9 class in Quarter 1. Both students had shown talent and enthusiasm about creative writing and interest in taking on a leadership role in the club. We set up a Google Meet call, and they gave me the student perspective on club size, age range, promotion methods, and the final one that was immense: platform choice. 

I knew we would need to hold our meetings online (due to COVID-19 restrictions), and the only platform I knew that was supported by the school community already was the Google Suite. I immediately set up a Google Classroom page for posting announcements, resources, shared Drive folders, and holding Google Meet calls with breakout rooms.

But when I sat down with my students and heard their perspectives, they were quite adamant that the Google Classroom platform seems too cold, formal, and unfriendly to them to be suitable for a club. As an alternative, they named Discord.

Discord is an American instant messaging and digital distribution platform that allows users to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media, and files in private chats and/or as part of communities. It’s a great platform because it is streamlined and functional, and many students use it with their friends already for gaming, E-Sports, or other online hangouts. Discord seems like an appropriate choice of platform to host a school club.

I knew Discord has its server outside Google Suites and Canada, so I got in touch with the English department to get a Supplementary Digital Learning Services Consent Form for students to sign with their parents/guardians.

For our first meeting, we met via a Google Classroom server and on a Meet call, but I gave students the form immediately to ensure we could switch to Discord right away. Over the course of week 2, students came by my classroom to grab and drop off the consent forms; this allowed me to monitor who was joining and also gave me a way to meet students in person, even if only for a moment. We were ready to hold our second meeting through Discord by week 2.

Over the past few weeks, I have had several shorter meetings with my student volunteers to establish professional guidelines on the Discord server, as well as create “bots” that regulate privacy settings, profanity filters, and other flags to make moderation on this new platform easier for me. From the very beginning, my student volunteers and I are determined to keep the club professional, safe, and well-regulated, while still allowing students to use an app they prefer for an app setting.

Why it matters.

School is a working environment, so teachers are responsible for regulating an environment that is professional, conducive to learning, and prepares students for the workforce. School-related activities should uphold levels of professionalism. More specifically, especially when data privacy is at stake and technology is being used in a less structured setting (like in a club), school should become a way to model good digital citizenship.

This topic is important more specifically in terms of data privacy. When it is the case, the Abbotsford school district (SD 34) is required by law to inform guardians and students that student data may be located on foreign servers. According to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), personal information is collected by the district to let guardians know of this and ensure everyone involved is aware that the information from the students’ accounts may be subject to foreign jurisdictions and laws.

The role of the teacher is to be a role model – any harmful activities might hinder that image are out of the question. In the weeks since starting to use Discord for the club, I’ve needed to establish a culture of professionalism, safety, and fun on the server. Despite using a more relaxed platform, it was important to me that everyone on the Creative Writing server upheld school expectations of appropriate conduct.

I truly believe that establishing these professional expectations, even while using a platform that students consider more friendly and relaxed, is important to teaching students the line between professional and personal. The young adults in my club are still learning what it means to form peer connections, have fun, learn plenty, but also do all these things in a professional context. It is my role as their teacher to ensure these professional expectations are upheld for the safety of everybody involved.

Next steps.

In this club, I value maintaining a professional atmosphere and culture of respect. For this reason, I’d love to start off with more structured meetings and a workshop on giving helpful and encouraging constructive writing feedback. As the quarter continues, I’d love to offer the students and volunteers opportunities to take on more leadership — for example, bring an article to talk about writing skills, share a favourite piece of writing, facilitate a discussion, share their writing and host a workshop. The hope is that, by the end of the quarter, the students would have the cultural norms and workshop skills at their disposal to continue to host creative writing club meetings and grow in their writing skills, as well as their relationships with each other.

Professional Standard #2: Educators act ethically and maintain the integrity, credibility, and reputation of the profession.

The artifact.

On turn-over day, I sent out an email to introduce myself to parents/guardians for the first time and notify them of the week’s schedule.

At the end of the week, I sent the email below to give a bit more detail about the first few units of the course (with learning goals), and I also gave parents a suggestion about how to get involved in their student’s learning (reading/giving feedback on their genre project).

After sending out this email, I reflected on individual students whose behaviour had been particularly encouraging to me in my first week as a student teacher. One student had impressed me with her initiative to ask for help in the writing process. Others had simply shown extraordinary attentiveness, active listening skills, and kindness towards me and their classmates. Based on these few students, I sent out a few emails similar to the ones shown below:

Parens responded very positively. Over the course of the weekend, the following responses entered my email Inbox:

Why it matters.

Corresponding regularly with parents is a valuable way to spend my time, especially during my student teaching. In the quarter system under COVID-19 circumstances, it can be challenging to always know how students are doing, and it is extremely difficult to give a class of 30 students enough feedback to continuously work on (that would take too long!). This is why parent/guardian and community involvement is so important. Without the added feedback, support, and encouragement of parents at home, students would not be developing their English language skills as well. Furthermore, I know that developing relationships with parents is crucial to ensuring the blended portion of the English 9 course will run more smoothly when we switch to online in a few weeks.

Telling parents/guardians about the good behaviour of my students is something I hold in very high regard. Most important adults only hear from teachers when something challenging or “negative” comes up about a student. My goal is to also communicate about what students are doing well — more specifically, work habits and social skills that they are developing that do not go unseen in the classroom. After all, the goal of schooling is ultimately to develop Core Competencies of respect, self-awareness, initiative, and other similar abilities — and I hope that by positively reinforcing these behaviours, my students will grow in their intrinsic motivation to live as motivated, respectful, and creative individuals.

My hope is that by establishing close and trusting relationships with guardians, I am more likely to find out about challenging situations/incidents in my students’ lives that would affect their work at school. To establish a safe classroom environment, I need my students to know that I care about their physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing outside the classroom as well.

Being in regular contact with parents seems like one of the more daunting parts of the teaching profession. But this week, I felt the positive effects of simply connecting with guardians for the sake of my students. After all, this communication is not to “impress” parents — but really, it’s about establishing a relationship so that students have the best support they can get, both during and after school.

Next steps.

I’d like to set a goal for myself to send out regular emails to parents. Informative emails that focus on units and activities (including learning targets) will be sent out at the beginning of every new unit. Furthermore, when we switch to online learning, I’m sure my correspondence with parents will be much more frequent. I hope to send out weekly reminders of assignments and learning targets so parents are in the loop and can actively support their students as they do school from home.

In terms of positive reinforcement, I am setting a goal to send out at least 1 positive email a week about student behaviour. During my first week of this quarter, I focused on several students whose positive behaviour stood out to me right away, but in future weeks I will choose other names on my attendance list to write home about. By the end of the course, my hope is that each of my students will have had at least one positive email home about how they are behaving in my class.

Professional Standard #1: Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.

Professional Stardard #4: Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.

The artifact.

On January 29, the Abbotsford school district had a Pro-D day. I used this Pro-D opportunity to sign up for the district’s workshop hosted by Teachers for Indigenous Success and Indigenous Support Workers. They led a discussion about the critical thinking process when considering the resources, finding ways to connect with Elders and Indigenous community members, using the land acknowledgment in the classroom, and other ideas to include authentic Indigenous worldviews and perspectives.

I found the workshop immensely useful for gathering ideas for Full Immersion. I had put lots of thought into Indigenizing my curriculum, but I found it challenging to know how to without the appropriate resources and district supports. This workshop discussed a variety of things that I am thrilled to consider in further depth as I begin my certifying practicum:

• Land acknowledgment: The practice of land acknowledgment has been approved by Abbotsford community Elders. The purpose of these acknowledgments is to ensure this practice becomes a norm in schools and Indigenous voices are heard so that I am “working with them instead of for them.” Daily land acknowledgments!
• When speaking about Indigenous perspectives, cultures, and practices, acknowledge the specific nations — each nation has in itself its own sovereignty, language, traditions, and values
• Incorporate perspectives like the fact that the health of humans and the health of the land/planet are part of one whole — do this by inviting students outside to explore the natural world and consider how humans are impacting this natural place
• Languages of each First Nation are something that could be incorporated in the classroom in a variety of ways — and this is important to keep these fading languages alive!
• Teachers may book a session with Beatrice, the Abbotsford Elder, if they would like a guest speaker in their classes.
• Many Indigenous resources for the Abbotsford school district can be found through their excellent Indigenous resource library.

Why it matters.

This session was very important to me because I’ve been wondering about ways to integrate more Indigenous perspectives into my classroom. I have been in touch with Yale’s Indigenous resource teacher, Jessica Richardson, to collect resources to include in my English units. While doing dissections in Biology, she suggested we sprinkle tobacco leaves on the pigs before we dispose of them with thankfulness in our hearts for the opportunity for knowledge and learning these living things provided for us. These were all tangible ways to incorporate Indigenous ideas into my classrooms — and I am so thankful for resource teachers who make these materials accessible to young teachers like me.

Incorporating land acknowledgments, specific nations’ names, perspectives on the land, languages, and many Indigenous resources are all foundational steps that educators can take to make the journey of Truth and Reconciliation more tangible in their classrooms, schools, and districts. The Lower Mainland and Abbotsford School District are still at the beginning stages of truth-telling, and many teachers feel unsure about how to integrate Indigenous perspectives in the classroom in an authentic, meaningful, and seamless way. This is why I think professional development opportunities with an Aboriginal education focus, and teachers choosing to attend such workshops, are fundamentally important in the journey of truth and reconciliation. Much of the work that still has to be done in this process starts in schools because young minds need to be shaped in these values to make a lasting impact towards reconciliation moving forward.

Each educator is responsible for their own journey of contributing towards truth, reconciliation, and healing.

Next steps.

Personally, I want to commit to diligently maintaining relationships with Indigenous resource teachers and support workers. It’s really only through these relationships that I can truly come to better understand Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and value Indigenous resources as much as they should be in my classroom.

During my first day of in-person classes on Wednesday, I will do an intentional territory announcement and talk about why I am personally thankful for the opportunity to gather on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Stó:lō people, the Semá:th and Mathxwí First Nations. I hope to make this at least a weekly tradition within my class (Monday mornings), especially since the singing of the Canadian national anthem is very much a weekly tradition at Yale.

At the bottom of my district emails, I also include the following phrase:

I acknowledge that I work, learn, and play on the Traditional, Ancestral, Unceded, and Shared territories of the Stó:lō people, the Semá:th and Mathxwí First Nations. With this, I respect the longstanding relationships that Indigenous Nations have to this land, as they are the original caretakers.

This comes from the Abbotsford School District official territory announcement publication. These words were revised and approved by Indigenous Elders of the Abbotsford region. I want every person I correspond with to know that I value the opportunity I have to be a guest on this land, even to work and play here in the way that I do.

The second English 9 unit is about Nature, but after this Professional Development experience, I feel encouraged to reconsider how I go about the unit. I would love to incorporate First People’s Learning Styles very explicitly as I get my students to write descriptively and reflect on their relationship with nature. In fact, to include a more explicitly Indigenous perspective in the unit, I will re-name it to “My relationship with the Land” — and I will have conversations with students about how our relationship with the land one and the same as our relationship with others and ourselves. For example, when we explore environmental issues, we will discuss how our health is interconnected with the health of our planet.

During the Provincial Professional Development next week, I will sign up for further Indigenous education workshops. This is an area I would love to grow more in and become more used to using in my classroom. The goal is to make Indigenous perspectives, stories, and ways of knowing and being an integral and “normalised” aspect of my classroom, so that each of my students engages with an environment that deeply respects and values the history and sovereignty of the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis in Canada.

Professional Standard #7: Educators engage in professional learning.

Professional Standard #9: Educators respect and value the history of First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Canada and the impact of the past on the present and the future. Educators contribute towards truth, reconciliation and healing. Educators foster a deeper understanding of way of knowing and being, histories and cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Métis.

The artifact.

I invited two other teacher candidates to my dissection lesson, so they would be able to observe some practical ways we explore ideas and knowledge in the Sciences. These teacher candidates came from PHE and Social Studies classrooms, yet they wanted to explore other areas of the school. By observing in my class, they were able to learn from the experience through seeing another teacher candidate teach (another style, new ideas, some inspiration).

This reminds me a lot of the collegiality I observe in my SAs and around the Yale community these past two weeks before my certifying practice starts next week. I have two SAs (in English and Biology) who work together to make sure my work as a student teacher is balanced and that I have autonomy about how to coordinate my certifying quarter. My mentors work hard to ensure that my environment at school is fruitful, diverse, and conducive to my learning.

I notice this same level of openness and collegiality with the other teachers at Yale. Last week, I observed a Science 9 class, asked a Creative Writing teacher for some advice for running a Creative Writing club, volunteered with Learning Support Services, and had conversations with the school counselors about their work. Despite being in the last two weeks of the quarter, the staff at Yale showed openness, care, and kindness towards me in my endeavors to broaden my horizons.

Why it matters.

In my experience, there are many schools that are hesitant about bringing in student teachers or other observers for various reasons. Many teachers don’t enjoy feeling like others are peering over their shoulders. Yet the atmosphere I observe at Yale Secondary is quite the opposite. Every teacher I’ve contacted takes the time to answer my questions, have a quick chat with me, or give me a seat at the back of their classroom while they teach. When I pass colleagues in the hallways, they greet me warmly. Despite COVID-19 pandemic conditions at the school, the collaborative and community-oriented atmosphere at Yale is very evident.

In my initial classroom experiences and during PYP, the collegiality of teachers has been what keeps my learning going. I am so thankful to be at Yale, because it is a community of teachers who work together with the best of students in mind. No teacher should be an island, and being able to share ideas, observe each others’ teaching styles, explore different areas of the school, and take time to answer each others’ questions are all important to establishing unity within the school. If these practices are not a part of the DNA of the school, teachers can very easily become stuck in their ways and avoid feedback at all times. Collegiality contributes to the mindset that what we do is ultimately for the benefit of our students. There is no singular, perfect way to be a teacher, but we can all grow by sharing and exchanging ideas.

One of the professional standards is that educators contribute to the profession. Yale’s collaborative atmosphere is the embodiment of this professional standard. Many teachers at Yale have had or currently have student teachers, and they often connect with each other to ask questions or observe each other. This is definitely the kind of school community I would like to be a part of. It means a lot to me to feel supported in my profession, especially as a teacher candidate and new teacher. Being able to quickly ask my colleagues a question or ask them for ideas is a huge part of a conducive learning environment, where everyone is contributing to everyone else’s professional growth.

Next steps.

In the coming weeks, as my certifying practicum begins, I will consistently be collaborating with my SAs in the classroom. To further my contribution to the profession, I would love to have admin (or even other teachers and fellow teacher candidates) observe my class. The most conducive activities to have observed would be inquiry-based activities, lab activities, presentations, sharing circles, and other unique instructional techniques that I’ve been excited to try out since my undergraduate degree, that perhaps the rest of the school would be interested to learn about or observe. I’d love to spend a weekly student-teacher lunch time to debrief the activities that worked well that week. Another way I’d like to share my ideas/resources in the Yale community is in department meetings — by asking my own questions and participating in discussions, I’d like to contribute to the collegial atmosphere. I will also be sharing activities/resources that work very well for me on my Twitter feed for other educators in my professional learning network to benefit from.

Professional Standard #8: Educators contribute to the profession.

The artifact.

I wrote my first letter to parents last week. To gear up for the final week of the quarter, I notified parents of what we had been working on as a class and let them know what their child will be working on as they complete the course. Karen and I came up with a draft in a Google Document, revised it for clarity, and then sent it out to parents via CheckMyProgress.

Email to parents Nov2020

Another artifact that is relevant to this learning comes from the English 9 parent-teacher interviews that were held a few weeks ago (Oct 22). Although I was not personally involved in the interviews, Karen mentioned my name to the parents and asked for my input during specific stages of the meeting. I wrote down key phrases and sentences that stood out to me from Karen’s conversations with the parents:

The phrases I liked were:

• “Does that sound consistent with what you know of [them]?”
• “Is there anything you’d like me to know? Ways I can support [them]?”
• “I am looking through the assignments and taking a snapshot of skills, versus penalizing what is incomplete.”

What stood out to me during these interviews was the friendly way in which Karen communicated with parents, and all the discussion points were formulated so that they could reach an understanding of how the student was really doing, both in school and at home. Karen asked for guardians’ input about why students may be struggling and how they can be best supported in the classroom. The conversation very much revolved around a partnership in supporting the student and focusing on their learning and well-being over grades, incomplete work, and other such judgments.

Why it matters.

Regular communication with parents is vitally important.

My SAs are in regular contact with parents and guardians regarding the progress of the students. During blended learning with the English 9 class, Karen continuously emailed home regarding repeated absences and late work. She did this to keep a sense of accountability for students and guardians regarding the blended learning space — just because it was at-home learning, the students were still held accountable to show up to class on Google Meet and complete assignments. For several students, they needed their parents to be a part of facilitating good learning habits at home.

In the Anatomy & Physiology 12 class, Nathan communicated less with guardians. He held on to the philosophy that these are almost-adult-aged students, and should therefore learn to self-regulate and foster habits that adults would be expected to have as well. Nathan messaged home a few times, first to introduce himself, then to send an update of marks to guardians, and finally to remind them of how the format would change when the cohort switched to the blended learning space. There were one or two students that Nathan did need to correspond with their parents about (about missing work or questions regarding grades).

Especially during this global pandemic, the involvement of parents and guardians in schools is of vital importance. The blended space is challenging for teachers and students alike, so the support of parents to hold their children accountable and stay “in the loop” about their progress is crucial. Regular communication between the teacher, student, and home means that the student is regularly supported, held accountable, and also reminded of how they can improve if they are struggling.

For myself, communicating with parents makes me feel less isolated as an educator. Knowing that the students’ learning is not entirely on my hands alone is a comforting reality – it helps to know that guardians are on my side too, especially when I need to have challenging conversations with students.

Professional standard 4 describes that “educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families, and communities in schools.” Schools are a central tenet to communities and a foundational part of every individual’s upbringing. For that reason, the people involved in raising each student should be aware of how their ward is doing in school. Students still require support from trusted adults until they can learn proper work and self-regulation habits on their own.

Next steps.

Thinking forward to my certifying practicum in the spring, I am considering how to best stay in communication with parents. Like Karen and Nathan do now, I plan to write an email to parents at least 3 times during the quarter to notify them of their child’s progress in the class: first, to introduce myself, then to share a mid-quarter update, and thirdly to prepare guardians about how students will complete their course.

In English 9, I will communicate with parents about absences and late work if it is a continuing issue. For Anatomy & Physiology 12, I agree with the idea that students should be treated like mini-adults by being contacted by myself directly, first: parents will only be notified if there is a repeated issue and/or the student is not replying to my efforts to communicate my concerns.

Over time, I think it will be helpful for me to come up with a bank of email templates that may help me to communicate with parents in an efficient way that communicates ideas clearly but also saves me some time. I recognize that corresponding with guardians can become time-consuming (especially if I’m trying to make a good impression as an English teacher!).

A goal I would like to set for myself is to communicate with guardians regularly about the positives of what students are accomplishing. When students excel in a skill or show extra effort or initiative, or contribute positively to classroom culture, I would love to tell parents about that. The positives are equally, if not more, important than the challenges. I’d like parents to also be a source of encouragement for students, and for my communication with guardians to also be one that establishes positive behaviors and celebrates students’ victories. The goal is to email the guardians of each student in my class at least once over the course of my certifying practicum.

Professional Standard 1: Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.

Professional Standard 4: Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.

For the last two weeks, I’ve had the privilege of teaching an entire unit of grade 9 English. The core learning standards of this unit were to develop students’ discussion and essay writing skills. My favourite part was that I was able to journey alongside students for the entire learning progression: from their first essay outline to their final essay submission. I was part of the formative and summative assessment process.

The artifacts.

Straight, Curvy, Mountainous

The language Karen and I use to scaffold learning for various students in English 9 is “straight ahead, curvy, and mountainous.” Even though all students are aiming for the same learning target, there are various avenues or “paths” they can choose to take depending on their comfort level.

In one of my note-taking activities early on in the unit, I showed students three different questions they could focus on. Students chose which one they would like to aim for. This was one way I scaffolded the learning for them and gave students choice about which goals they might like to set for themselves, depending on the level they believe they are capable of.

Choice Board extension tasks

To offer my my students opportunities to apply their learning in creative contexts, I created a Choice Board. This gave extending students further activities to work on while the rest of the class finished up required class time activities. The Choice Board was an ongoing extension opportunity, and I continued to add options to the board throughout the unit as we tackled new topics. Students viewed videos and responded in creative ways by writing stories, letters, or even spoken word poems with the same themes.

With the permission of my students, I have a few exemplars from the Choice Board to share here.

• One student wrote a story about the end of the world as a result of further advancements in technology.
• A second student wrote and recorded a spoken-word poem about the effects of social media.
• A third student also wrote this slam poem about social media and the importance of remaining present.

Peer-feedback opportunities

On two occasions towards the end of the unit, I guided the students through peer-feedback activities. In the first activity, the students used a single-point rubric to evaluate each others’ essay plans (see here for real student examples). This was a helpful way for them to grapple with the learning targets for an essay outline and also offer their peers support. In the second activity, the students took on the role of the teacher to give feedback on each others’ full essays using the comments feature in Google Docs. I gave them a worksheet with feedback prompts to help. With both instances, I emphasized that students’ ability to give good peer-feedback shows me that they understand the performance targets well.

Feedback for Ms. Sommer

Last week, I asked students to complete a “Thursday Check In.” This was a brief Google Form assignment they completed as an attendance task first thing in the morning. In the Check In, students shared one piece of learning they were most proud of from the week and which assignment proves the development of that learning target.

In the next part of the form, I asked students about what I did to best support them this week.

My second question asked them what I could do next week to better support them as learners.

After they completed this form, I emphasized the reality that, as a student teacher, the advice/feedback from my students is most valuable to me. They best understand the effect my teaching has on their learning and well-being.

Self-assessment

Throughout the unit, students worked on their group discussion skills. We came up with a list of criteria for discussion skills as a class and conducted student-led discussion activities to practice them. After one of the discussion activities, students completed a Google Form with the discussion criteria, identified a specific skill they were proud of achieving, and set a tangible goal for future discussions.

At the end of the unit, I did a quick review of all the learning goals we covered and asked students to complete a Google form with all the unit learning targets. Students rated themselves on the proficiency scale for achievement of these learning goals.

Why it matters.

The reality of student teaching is that I am learning intensely, right alongside my students. With the hope that my students would develop as learners, I tried to model initiative, self-reflection, and focus on learning targets in my practice.

As I designed activities to develop various competencies in this unit, I wanted students to have a voice in the assessment process and in how they applied their learning in creative contexts. I wanted students to develop their metacognition and ownership of learning. And by doing that, I was making my role as the teacher more manageable and strategic, because they were partners in the assessment process.

In giving students choice opportunities to extend their learning to creative contexts (Choice Board), students who may otherwise have felt bored or under-challenged were more engaged and able to exhibit what they were truly capable of. The extension opportunities gave the “extending” students an avenue through which to take their learning further. I was amazed at the results, and I felt so lucky to be able to see what they were capable of in a creative context.

By wrestling with learning targets through peer and self assessment tasks, the students practiced the routine of reflecting on their own learning. Choosing which scaffolded avenue to take in some activities (straight ahead, curvy, mountainous) also allowed students to take ownership of their learning by setting their own goals based on what they are comfortable with. By also asking for the students to give me feedback on my skills as a teacher, I hoped to model a sense that we never stop learning: life is a journey of continued lessons.

I wanted to eliminate the notion that I was the “all-knowing” teacher who was the only voice in the assessment process. While it’s true that the teacher has the last say in what grade gets recorded in CheckMyProgress, I wanted to hear back from students about where they were at in the learning journey. Reflecting on your own learning and thinking (metacognition) is a valuable real-world skill that I want my students to develop.

Next steps.

As I marked my students’ summative assignments for this unit, I looked over their self-assessments of learning standards and discussion skills. I felt conflicted on how to visualize these results in CheckMyProgress for parents to view. I ended up only logging students’ proficiency rating of their discussion skills (1-4) and a completion mark for their unit self-assessments. Both of these “marks” were unweighted and did not contribute to their final marks.

If I was teaching in a semester or linear system, I would convert these assessment strategies into the basis for “celebration of learning” conferences with my students at the end of the course. With all the marks of various assignments (including formative and summative tasks), self-assessment tasks, and other activities such as the Choice Board extension task, students would come with a grade proposal worded in the way, “Ms. Sommer, I think I deserve [this grade] because of [evidence 1], [evidence 2], and [evidence 3].” Together, we would discuss the mark and come to an agreement about their final mark for the course. My hope is to try to integrate one form of this “exit conference” during my full immersion practicum in the spring. Whether that is to negotiate a grade for one unit or for the entire course, I would love to take my practice of giving students a voice in assessment a step further by sitting down for one-on-one conferences with them.

Finally, I think the Choice Board extension idea was one that I would love to carry forward into my teaching of Biology and English in the coming few weeks of practicum and my full immersion in the spring. It’s a fantastic way for students to gain choice and voice, and to give extending students an opportunity to show their abilities in the way they wish.

Nathan and I have already designed a few Choice Board projects (one on circulation and the other on respiration) for the final units on body system in Anatomy & Physiology 12. These projects are peer-assessed before they are submitted, and students request 1-2 topics out of 6 that they would like to be summatively assessed on. This is a method of giving students voice and choice in their learning that I will definitely try to keep carrying forward in my teaching. (For the record, summative tests still ensure all students are learning the foundational concepts of each unit on body systems. The Choice Board projects are ways students take their learning further by applying it to other contexts.)

Professional Standard #1: Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.

Professional Standard #3: Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.

Professional Standard #5: Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.

Professional Standard #7: Educators engage in professional learning.

The artifact.

Friday, October 23 was the Provincial Professional Development day. I participated in the Provincial Specialists’ Association (PSA) Pro-D day, specifically with BC Teachers of English Language Arts (BCTELA).

Due to COVID regulations, the conference was conducted entirely on the Zoom platform. I expected this to limit the interactions I would have with other teachers and teacher candidates (TCs), but the reality was entirely different.

I made a point to live-Tweet my notes from each of the three sessions I attended. The first was Kelly Gallagher’s keynote session on Building Adolescent Readers. The second was Roxanne Pope’s workshop on Inclusive Assessment Practices. The third session was with Shelley Moore, Penny Carnrite, and Jo Chrona on Curriculum Design with Accessibility in Mind. The result was a cascade of retweets, likes, and engagement with the workshop hosts themselves. On the Twitter platform, I felt empowered, appreciated, and seen, even as a TC. How rewarding!

Furthermore, during the sessions themselves, I interacted openly and comfortably with other teachers (and co-hosts) in the chat bar. We extended our learning from the workshop themselves by asking questions, exchanging resources, and building each other up with encouragement and shared experiences. The BCTELA team ended up making a new Facebook group as a result of the sharing that occurred during the conference — and I am now a part of that group.

The key points I learned from each of the workshops/keynotes are summarized in my Tweets, but can be summarized even further to the following three ideas:

• Be a culturally responsive teacher who engages readers with independence, choice, and voice. Ask the hard questions. (Kelly Gallagher)
• Be strategic in your feedback and hold students accountable to their own learning. (Roxanne Pope)
• Curriculum and learning targets should be set up so all learners have the same goal to achieve – but with different layers of complexity. (Shelley Moore)

Yet even beyond these “big ideas,” I learned about the reality of teaching within a community: as educators, we are not meant to undergo this journey alone. We are meant to share. We are meant to collaborate. We are meant to exchange resources. In my experience, the result of engaging in a teaching community is a greater sense of passion for this vocation and a feeling of being more grounded, because I have a whole community of educators standing behind me.

Why it matters.

Professional standard #7 for BC educators is, “Educators engage in professional learning.” Professional learning includes reflective practice, engagement with the teaching community (see Standard 8: “Educators contribute to the profession.”), and continuous revision of educators’ philosophy, practice, and development.

Conferences like the BCTELA day I participated in encourage educators to reflect on their practice by engaging with fresh ideas and resources and asking the questions that matter, ensuring they are taking steps to being better educators to their students. My engagement on social media encouraged me, as I realized I had a voice within the teaching community, even as a TC. The thoughts that I was engaging with for my professional learning were valuable to others in my PLN, and in turn, I was also able to engage with the things they were learning on their Provincial Pro-D Day.

Pro-D encouraged me to reflect on my achievement of Professional Standards 3 and 5: Am I continuously understanding and applying my knowledge of student growth and development? Am I implementing planning, instruction, and assessment practices that are effective, respectful, and inclusive? The three workshops I engaged with asked those exact questions.

Next steps.

Kelly Gallagher’s keynote session encouraged me to be more culturally responsive in my teaching. I am encouraged to bring more of the BLM movement and Indigenous issues into my ELA classroom. I received a plethora of source ideas and materials, as well as an idea on how to lay out my unit with my students. My hope is to spend our last unit together (on the relationship between humans and society) exploring these issues, being exposed to “seeds” that provoke deep thinking, and summatively asking my students to reflect: “How did the reading change your thinking?”

Roxanne Pope’s workshop on inclusive assessment practices showed me that feedback does not need to be equal — it needs to be equitable. Not all my students need the same amount of feedback. To be effective, efficient, and helpful in my assessment practice, I need to be more intentional and strategic in my feedback, and also hold my students accountable to their own learning. One way I would like to implement this is by setting aside time on Monday to offer my students feedback on their essay outlines. I hope my feedback will be focused and strategic, depending on the student in question. I would also like to have  a conversation with my students about how the feedback process might work best for them, and challenge them to take more ownership of progressing in their learning.

Shelley Moore’s workshop on inclusive curriculum design challenged me to keep an achievable goal in mind for ALL my students. What needs to be changed based on ability and learning differences is the complexity of how that same goal is achieved. In my practice, I would like to shift my focus and use the “Straight, Curvy, Mountainous” language to encourage my students to aim for complexity that they are both comfortable with and challenged by. In this workshop, I was also reminded about the importance of taking time to stop and breathe. I would like to work on taking moments to pause with my students, too.

Next week, I am participating my own self-initiated professional development. I signed up for a free trial to use a new project management platform for student-led projects like PBL. I am participating in a workshop that will outline how to navigate the Spinndle app. I am excited for further professional connections and ideas to bring into my classroom!

Professional Standard #3: Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.

Professional Standard #5: Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.

Professional Standard #7: Educators engage in professional learning.

Professional Standard #8: Educators contribute to the profession.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I unexpectedly came down with flu-like symptoms and needed to get tested for COVID-19. As a result, I experienced a small peek at what it’s like for teachers to still do their jobs from home when they are feeling unwell.

The artifact.

I was scheduled to teach a lesson on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Because I was unwell, I missed both of these days of in-person teaching. Teachers still need to submit lesson plans for TTOCs when they are ill all the time. Because I also still had to send in my lesson plans for these days, I saw a little bit into the world of a teacher.

On Monday and Tuesday night, I made sure to submit my learning plans to my SA for the following days. During these times, unfortunately the lesson plans were not submitted early enough — Karen and I ended up calling each other the night before to finalize plans (so as a teacher candidate, I should have prepared these learning plans in further advance).

The first learning plan I prepared was an inquiry activity, during which students responded to a video on climate change and then chose a topic from a choice board to conduct research into that topic. They had a short lesson on reliable online sources, and had a response sheet on Google Classroom ready for them to fill in once they found an online source of their choice.

The second learning plan I prepared tagged off of the inquiry activity from the day before. Students presented their learning on their chosen topic on a Google slide and then did a brief speaking activity, sharing their ideas with the whole class. They then reflected on their oral presentation skills.

On both of these learning plans, Karen commented on my Google document to give feedback on how the lesson went in practice. This was so helpful! I noticed that I always underestimate how much time various activities will take. I also noticed that some of my ideas involved a bit too much work for the teacher to coordinate slides.

As TTOC learning plans, my lessons were a bit too complex. But because I knew Karen’s teaching style well, I knew she would be able to put my plans into actions excellently. Thus, I was designing complex learning experiences instead of simple work block activities.

Why it matters.

Last week I was in-class on two given days when a TTOC had to step in while Nathan was away, and this week I experienced the other side of that (in a way). As a student, it’s easy to assume teachers have it so easy when they take a sick day — but the reality is so different. Despite being ill, teachers are still responsible for their students’ learning. They know the skill level and learning preferences of their class. They know where the unit is at. Thus, learning plans still need to be prepared and sent to the TTOC or person taking the teacher’s place for the day.

For this reason, most teachers on sick days either give students a work block to continue on projects or do independent learning, or refer to one of their emergency lesson plans.

During our first weeks of our professional year, the secondary cohort created an emergency lesson plan. (I talked about this emergency lesson plan briefly in an earlier blog post.) In this emergency lesson, students conduct an independent research project, which requires them to conduct their own research and exploration of a category of media, and use evidence and observations to analyze what they observe and find the message/purpose of the text based on context. They will then construct an analysis project in response. My hope with this emergency lesson plan was to give the TTOC as little responsibility as possible, and that is the case with most lesson that teachers prep for their sick days.

Yet with the lesson plans I submitted this weeks, there was more complexity, teacher involvement, and discussion facilitation required for my “TTOC” (SA). This would set apart my practice to that of a real teacher’s. Yet the principle is still the same: even while sick, teachers are responsible for the learning and development of their students. The teacher’s job is to plan for instruction and learning regardless of whether they are in the classroom or not.

Next steps.

I learned this week the immense importance of preparing learning plans and units further in advance. When I was unwell, I found I barely had the energy to design a learning plan, make a Google slides, and think about my unit. If I had prepared the learning prior to the Thanksgiving weekend, I would have had far less to do, and my discussions with Karen in the comments of my Learning Plans (follow the links above to see her annotations) would not have had to take place the night before her teaching.

This learning experience taught me to set a new goal for myself: I would like to plan my learning experiences at school the week before the lessons take place. Doing work at school instead of at home will make my working time more efficient and also give me more space to rest when I am at home. Furthermore, if I finish my plans ahead of time, I won’t have anything to worry about over the weekend to prepare for the learning. (Of course, up to this point, my SAs have not known where their units would go in time to let me know, but now that we have prepared more in advance, pre-planning will be more possible.)

Currently, I am planning an entire unit on technology in English 9. I have already mapped out all the learning standards and sections of the unit, and now I am planning individual learning plans. Having a pre-prepared unit outline ahead of time is helping me look well ahead and plan individual lessons more efficiently.

Professional Standard #5: Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.

This week was an exceptional learning experience! I took charge of an Anatomy & Physiology 12 class block under the supervision of a TTOC, I led a 3-hour-long fetal pig dissection, and I taught a blended lesson complete with break-out rooms over Google Meets (more to come in this post!). My first practicum is under way at last, and being able to dive into teaching independently has been immensely rewarding in terms of learning.

The artifact.

The concept of “inclusion” came up a few times in the past week.

One less prominent example comes from my fetal pig dissection block. During my planning, I coordinated groups based on the strengths of various learners, to ensure that they would be able to support each other as needed. Many of the students submitted their post-dissection reflections, noting that their groups “got along well,” “shared the workload fairly,” and “were supportive.” The students who usually struggle to complete assignments up-to-standard submitted reports that were detailed and showed great critical thinking and creativity.

The scenario where making necessary accommodations came up was during my Thursday English 9 block. I taught a lesson that was an extension from a previous lesson taught by Karen on Tuesday. Students were expected to get into assigned groups for a break-out group discussion about their texts and asked to evaluate a character in a “Report Card.” Students recorded their main discussion points in shared Google docs created for their groups especially. We had six students come in to class that day for extra support (and accountability to stay on task!), so I asked them to get into two groups for the discussion.

With each group discussion task, I’d designed the worksheet to be oriented around five specific paragraphs within the text, to help focus the discussion and also help students who had not read the text. I thought it would work; but it turned out that the students in the classroom in-person were so behind on their other work from class, they barely knew how to begin. They had not read the story. They felt the pressure of a new assignment looming. They felt the pressure of so many old assignments piling up, making them more and more behind.

I did my best to encourage students to engage, speak, and interact for this activity, but it ended up being one of the greatest challenges from my professional year thus far. The students would barely speak at all, and when they did, it was off-topic. My questions were met with blank stares. Students and teachers alike ended up hitting a wall during this class period. For Karen and myself, we realized the immense challenge of navigating the needs and levels of all learners in a blended space.

When Karen and I sat down to discuss how it went later, we both decided that Friday needed to be a “mercy Friday.” We were not going to introduce another assignment. We were not going to teach new material. Instead, we were going to designate Friday for social-emotional connection, a low-stakes “Friday Free Write,” a mid-quarter reflection, and lots of time for catching up.

Originally, Karen and I were a little worried that most students would take advantage of this and simply not put in any work. Yet when we announced our plan to the class, all the students who had “hit a wall” during the discussion period on Thursday asked if they could come in again on Friday to catch up on assignments. Every student who was behind took the initiative, responding to our accommodation with a willingness to work hard and do their best.

Despite the challenges we faced on Thursday, we recognized some breakthrough during Friday’s English 9 class. One of the students who rarely speaks initiated a conversation with me, asking specific questions, and coming up with some solid points! Although they barely know each other, several of the students left the classroom together, laughing and joking.

Why it matters.

Making accommodations (as well as extensions!) for students, even in a blended space, is unquestionable. Students require equitable access to the learning in order to properly engage and develop.

Shelley Moore uses a bowling metaphor to describe inclusion in education. What usually happens is that teachers during instructional planning, especially with lots of other things on their minds (such as blended spaces), “aim for the middle” in the hopes of reaching the most students with the lesson. But to ensure all students can be successful (which is the aim of inclusive education!) the goal should really be to “aim for the pints that are hardest to hit.” By making accommodations that would suit and benefit all students, the learning becomes accessible to all.

The blended learning space has been less-than-ideal for the “outside pins” in our bowling metaphor. Giving students the option to come in to the classroom for extra support was our way of offering the accommodation, but it mostly ended there. The result was that students who were unable to complete activities fell severely behind and lost incentive to keep working, because it felt like there wasn’t much of a point.

My learning from this week shows the importance of taking a step back sometimes: Sometimes, we all need a day to catch up and breathe. The students who have been completely assignments diligently got most of Friday afternoon off — that was their reward. And the students who were behind on assignments were given the space and time to focus in on the ones that mattered most, and get more one-on-one help from the teachers during the work block. Students responded with hard work, showing that the issue hasn’t been a lack of motivation or drive — it’s been a lack of accessibility.

Next steps.

Next week, the Anatomy & Physiology 12 class is moving into the blended space, and the English 9 class will meet in-person. I am looking forward to implementing accommodations into the in-person English class to “aim at the outside pins.”

In looking forward to the coming weeks of switching to blended learning for Anatomy & Physiology 12, Nathan and I have been designing alternative ways for students to engage with the learning. Inspired by our staff learning opportunity on Wednesday, Nathan and I are designing a “Choice Board” project to experiment with various scaffolds for learners. In our Choice Board, we are including activities for students to choose from — some of which are standard proficiency-based tasks, and others which encourage students to go deeper or extend their learning. Students may choose three activities from a list of twelve. They need to choose activities from each category, but the choice is theirs if they would like to extend their learning or aim for proficiency. This accommodation allows students to decide their levels for themselves based on their comfort and skill.

In English, I want to come up with ways to ensure even struggling learners can successfully complete tasks I assign for them. Whether this means creating scaffolded graphic organizers or meeting with students one-on-one to discuss strategies for their improvement, the most important strategy I will use is to scaffold the learning from the beginning: at the planning level, lessons and activities need to designed in an accessible way. Truly, my lesson design should begin with a focus on the students on the tail ends of the learning continuum. If my curriculum is designed to help them be successful, my “centre pins” will succeed, too.

Professional Standard #1: Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.

Professional Standard #5: Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.

Professional Standard #7: Educators engage in professional learning.

In our EDUC 496 class on Teaching Secondary Science and Mathematics, we are exploring the inquiry process as a way of facilitating learning in the high school classroom. Inquiry and project-based learning fascinates me (in fact, I think I’ve found my “thing” in teaching!), and based on my learning in these classes, I was inspired to dive right in to inquiry on my first week back at Yale. This quickly became a theme that permeated several aspects of the week.

The artifact.

I taught my very first lesson on Monday in Anatomy & Physiology 12. Nathan was planning to take his class through one final class on DNA and end it with an exploration into ethical considerations of genetic manipulation. I recalled that there was an activity I’d tried out last semester in my short practicum, so I asked if I could jump in and do this part of the lesson. It was totally impromptu, I only had about 20 minutes to prep, but it worked. I ended up taking the students through a brief controlled inquiry lesson, in which students were given a worksheet and asked to explore the world of CRISPR in cancer research in groups, ending their exploration with some ethical considerations about potential benefits and risks of genetic manipulation procedures. We finished off the class with a “PROS” and “CONS” list on the board, and each group shared their ethical considerations.

After this class, I started planning for a fetal pig dissection next week. My goal with next week’s activity was to make it more valuable than the standard label-the-body-part dissections that are so prevalent in high schools today. I wanted to make the learning more inquiry-based and meaningful to students. For some ideas, I posted my own “inquiry” of sorts on Twitter, where I asked my professional learning network for thoughts. This Tweet encouraged me to keep posting my inquiries on Twitter – after all, it doesn’t hurt to get ideas from other seasoned educators and education authors!

For my dissection activity next week, I ended up planning a more inquiry-based dissection activity (see below) where students pretend they are coroners investigating the death of a pig. Their task is to collaboratively conduct a dissection, come up with a cause of death, take pictures of various body parts and organs, and present it all in a report.

To incorporate some controlled inquiry into this activity, I am asking students to prepare for the dissection by reading up on procedures and creating a plan-of-action flowchart to map out their dissection process. My hope is that, by getting students to prepare for the procedure ahead of time, they are practicing an important part of the inquiry process by evaluating how to best conduct a dissection lab on their own PRIOR to making the first incision.

After the dissection, I will ask students to reflect on the process and come up with their own future inquiry questions. The hope is that this will become an “extension” point for groups that finish early to keep exploring and for me to be aware where the curiosities of students lie.

I’ve never conducted a fetal pig dissection myself, but I wanted to be prepared to assist my students as needed next week. So, to extend my own inquiry, I conducted my own fetal pig dissection (warning: image contains graphic content) in the lab on Friday. I used videos online and the lab manual to guide my steps. Through my own inquiry-based dissection, I learned some valuable dissection techniques, the best tools to use in certain conditions, and successfully discovered the sex of my specimen. I also experienced the sense of awe and privilege that comes from being able to independently explore a whole animal. I hope to encourage my students to consider the sense of awe and respect as well as they prepare for their dissection on Wednesday.

Why it matters.

The inquiry-based process is hugely important for a plethora of reasons:

• It involves students actively learning based on constructing meaning from their own observations.
• It cultivates skills for all areas of learning.
• It deepens understanding.
• It promotes student autonomy and engagement.
• It creates a love of learning that students will hopefully keep forever.

After all, the inquiry student captures, reflects on, and shares their learning. They are involved in a journey of discovery that will be replicated in all aspects of their professional life in future years — as professionals, if they don’t know something, they will need to figure it out! Inquiry allows students to develop question-asking, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills to prepare them for the real world.

I strive to be an inquiry teacher. For my students, the fact that I am actively engaged in the inquiry process with them (how do I best teach this material? how do we conduct this investigation? what methods are most effective?) helps me empathize with them, and will hopefully show them my enthusiasm and openness for learning in the process — after all, if the teacher is involved in inquiry, they must not have all the answers after all. Although I have a degree in Biology, I do not have all the answers — but I do have a helpful set of skills that I’d like to instil in my students as well. The “answers” (or better yet, the discoveries) are found when we all inquire together.

The inquiry-based process has been heavily pioneered by Trevor McKenzie, who has published several helpful resources for teachers who wish to implement these values and procedures into their classroom.

Inquiry doesn’t mean a “free-for-all” — students aren’t just free to randomly explore questions as they see fit. The reality is that the inquiry classroom involves a carefully-chosen setup, facilitated by the teacher, where students are free to ask questions and conduct their own investigations. Inquiry can be classified in a series of tiers, yet each layer involves the students in the question-asking process and encourages them to make their discoveries and learning their own.

Next steps.

On the inquiry series of tiers, I am certainly not at “guided” or “free” inquiry yet. My versions of inquiry are still very structured or controlled, because I believe my students require that level of structure while being introduced to the idea of generating their own questions. Yet with time, I hope to develop my classroom into one that gives students more and more autonomy to conduct inquiries themselves.

My next steps as a teacher who wishes to work on inquiry and project-based learning involves contacting my PLN for ideas, resources, and feedback when questions arise.

This week in Thursday night class, Dani DeJong and her husband shared about their project-based learning style at Abbotsford Christian School. Their presentation excited me immensely, and I asked them for access to a bank of PBL resources.

I also hope to continue to utilize my Twitter PLN to ask open-ended inquiry questions of my own. For example, I’ve already asked a question about using breakout rooms in Google Meet. I plant to keep using this for various questions that come up in my PYP and beyond.

Finally, my next plan for inquiry- and project-based learning activities (after the dissection) will be in my English 9 class next Friday! I will get students to conduct research on a human-driven environmental issue (of their choice!), present their findings, and conduct writing and discussion strategies in response to their findings. My hope is to develop students’ reading, responding, and creating skills, while also encouraging them to learn something new and nurture their sense of responsibility for preserving the beauty and health of our planet. Inquiry really can be used in so many areas, and I hope to keep implementing it into my Biology and English classrooms!

Professional Standard 3: Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.