After the PS2 workshop about methods of differentiated instruction I went to another PD session called “Kids in the Margin”. It was a very inspirational talk, and it was mostly just stories being told by the one prof (I missed his name unfortunately) about a lot of the marginalized students he remembers over the years. He gave us tips on how to watch out for these students, and gave us some suggestions of ways that he has seen many teachers reach out and succeed at including these children. Many of his stories were very helpful and gave me a fresh perspective about how to include students OUTSIDE the classroom through extracurricular activities or noon hour clubs. He talked about the importance of gaining these students' trust and building relationships with them because their school life might be the most stable couple of hours that they have in their day. His powerful stories worked as an eye opener to me before I head out into practicum soon, and he has given me lots to think about!
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Today’s workshop was on differentiated instruction for all of the PS2 students. Our speaker was very upbeat, and she had lots of great advice to get students excited about learning. I especially loved all of the fun games to get students excited about math! I liked the idea of using students interests (like hockey teams) to get them hooked into being excited about learning. Here is the link for the worksheets and some of the games!
Applying DI for Inclusion Education - Worksheets Background Info: In our English Language Arts C&I class, our outstanding and brilliant profs have decided that each day, classmates should give a quick 5 minute presentation on a “meaningful text” that they enjoy. This way, we as ELA teachers are expanding our knowledge about some fantastic texts that are out there for us to possibly incorporate into our classrooms. (I will try to make a completed list once we have gone through all of the class texts!) Fast-forward: Today it was my turn to present a meaningful text alongside two of my good friends from the class. We presented on the book called “Mysteries of Harris Burdick” by Chris Van Allsburg. The entire book is set up as a mystery beginning with an intriguing story about these mysterious images that don’t have corresponding stories, only a caption and a prompt. We began our presentation by reading this ‘hook’ introduction to our University class, and even THEY believed the story and wanted to learn more about this mystery… man were they shocked once they realized that the intro was fake! This book is an incredible resource to use in the classroom especially for reluctant writers, students who have a hard time generating ideas, or for pushing students towards creative writing. My portion of the presentation focused on how we could use this book as an aid in the classroom. I think that these stories are awesome practice for late elementary and middle school writers, especially while they are preparing for their PATs. This book can be used as a writing prompt as I mentioned above, or even as a way to challenge very gifted writers if you hand them two totally unrelated ‘mysterious images’ and ask them to try and create a story that incorporates both! I also described how the images could be used to explore descriptive imagery and language by sitting two students back to back, and having one student try to explain the image to the other student as that student attempts to draw what they are being described. When they compare the two images after an allotted amount of time, they should realize which of their instructions were misleading, and consider how they would need to alter their descriptions in future attempts to yield better results. Overall I think that this particular book creates numerous opportunities to be implemented in the classroom, and I can’t wait to keep hearing of more incredible texts as we progress throughout this class! I am attaching a link to an online version of the book, and I included the book cover too! (*BONUS* our curriculum lab even had big poster-print versions of the pictures so we were able to hold them up and show the whole class at once! How cool is that!?) website: http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/davidc/6c_files/documents/mysteries/divmysteries.htm Well here I am, starting my first official blog!! So far my PS2 is going very well, I have met many fabulous people, and have learned many valuable lessons regarding my future as an elementary school teacher! I am very nervous to find out my placement in a few weeks, but I know that whatever placement I land I will give it 150% of my best efforts and try my hardest to give my students the best learning experience I can! I am especially excited about finally getting my own webpage up and running because it is one of those things that I have always aspired to do but I didn’t have the SLIGHTEST clue how to go about it! I know this will be a great opportunity for me to start building up an online resource bank, and to begin transforming myself into a super tech-savvy teacher!! Can’t wait to see what adventures the future weeks have in store for me!
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