February 2011 Blog Posts (4)

After 25 years of teaching, engagement still seems like a magical happening most of the time. That moment when we help the student connect to learning and they take off independently and succeed with ease. It

is the best part of teaching! That moment when a student says: “Oh I get it! I

can do it, this is easy!” or they say, “Class is over already? That was fast!”

or “I like it how we never do Math, I mean, I know we do Math, but it doesn’t

feeeeel like…

AFL & UDL

David Rose spoke in Vancouver BC. In his presentation, he used the metaphor of a GPS to describe learning. The GPS knows the destination and when we take a wrong turn, it recalculates a path. With that metaphor in mind coupled with a series of webcasts from our ministry on the six big ideas of assessment for learning (AFL), my practice changed forever.

At the beginning of each unit of study, I create stop light/green light sheets for…

In my Grade 6/7 class this year, I have 7 students with significant learning challenges and they teach me something everyday.

One of my Grade 7 students reads at about a Grade 3 level and any advances that he may make from that will be a challenge for him. Each day he reads little novels and tries to summarize what he has read by using pictures and graphic organizers like double entry journals and character traits sheets. Finally, in February these little novels are wearing…

My UDL Journey

2004 I joined a small book club organized by my district in partnership with our union, both provincial and local. We read David Rose's book, "Teaching to Diversity". We had to synthesize what we learned and present it. I presented a short slide show that I made on my new MAC computer. I was new to the world of the internet and computers and I knew that to demonstrate one of the most…