The Price of Uncertainty

 A very good friend and I were chatting tonight about how frustrating it was for me to read that our Chief Medical Officer stated in an interview that "students and parents should prepare for the possibility of online learning for the rest of the school year."

I don't have a problem with this idea, and I fully support the current restrictions in place to keep our communities safe. My frustration stems from the fact that this is how I am finding out that I might be teaching online for the next 7 weeks. 

Here are some thoughts that came up when my friend asked the question, "If you were consulted, what would you want to say?"

• Knowledge is empowering. The fact is, I will have to say to my students tomorrow, "I don't know if we will be back to in-person classes before the end of the school year, I'm waiting to hear about that." This lack of knowledge is disempowering, as it throws us into a state of uncertainty, and makes us look like we are hiding something.  
• Students will stay engaged if we give them the tools and supports to do so. Las spring, we kept pushing the "back to buildings" date in increments of two weeks, in an effort to maintain engagement with students. Students will be engaged if we provide them with meaningful learning opportunities, chances to connect, and trust that they will do what they can while dealing with the trauma of an ongoing pandemic.
• We have an opportunity to think about how our school system can be more than just "in the classroom", and encourage ways of learning that go beyond trying to replicate online what we do in person (and honouring multiple ways of learning is a separate post for another time!)
• I want the chance to plan something long term for online learning, rather than lurching from week to week with uncertainty about how long we will be online. Only giving us a week or two at a time means we are often in a holding pattern, only preparing things that last a few days rather than engaging in more meaningful long-term planning.

I teach in a specific context, with a specific set of skills and interests, with a specific group of students. The above ideas/thoughts/feelings will not apply to every teacher. EVERY teacher deserves to be informed about what is being planned for education in the coming weeks. 

I have been waiting for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in Nova Scotia to communicate with the 9000+ teachers in the province, so that we can get down to making plans that are in the best interests of our students. We shouldn't be getting updates about our status on Twitter. 

How Do We Value Learning?

A Message to My Parents

I sent this to the parents of my students this afternoon. As much as maintaining connections with students is my top priority, it is also super important to check in with the grownups as well. I try to limit my emails to twice a week, so as not to overwhelm them with information while still ensuring they know I am here for their children. 

Good afternoon "Big People" of 8 Gaudet,

I hope that you are doing well, that your families are safe and healthy, and that you have been able to take some time to get out in the sunshine these past few days. 

To help get a sense of how things are going, I would really appreciate it if you could take 2 or 3 minutes to fill out the Emergency Remote Learning Check-In I have attached (blog readers, you can make a copy of what I created here - feel free to take and adapt, as I did from the AMLE website). I plan to send this out at the end of each week, so that you have a quick and easy way to let me know how things are going for you. 

There have been some assignments posted on the Google Classroom over the past week, and this will continue to be updated as we move forward. I want to underline for you that there will be no judgment, no negative repercussions, and no calls home from the principal if your child does not engage in academic work at this time. I will touch base to check in, but it is far more important to me that children come out of this experience with as little trauma as possible. We don't know how long social distancing measures will be in place, or what will happen in our communities and in our families over the coming weeks. It is very important that we all take care of ourselves - however that needs to look for individuals and families. 

If you have any specific concerns about academics, the transition to grade 9, or your child's mental health, please don't hesitate to reach out. If something comes up for you or your family that you want me to know about, you are always welcome to email me, or to call the school number and leave a message (our principal checks regularly, and will let me know if there is someone I need to call back)

I plan to send out an article each week that you may find interesting / informative / helpful. Today, that article is A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus. I am sharing this article with you so that you know a bit more about the reasons I am doing the things I am doing right now. There are also suggestions that you may find helpful in your own interactions these days. Please do not feel obligated to read this article, I am only passing it along if you are looking for some more information about what I consider to be best practice as a middle school teacher.

Covid-19 and Connections

I wrote an extended Twitter thread today, and wanted to put it up here as well :

(If you are wondering how to use Flipgrid, I made a post about it here)

Back to School - Year Fifteen!

School starts up in a couple of weeks here in Nova Scotia, and I can hardly wait! I appreciate having the summer to relax and reset, and to find time for independent professional development, and I also love heading back to school. I've had another commitment that is keeping me very busy these last couple of weeks before school starts, and I'm feeling the itch to get into my classroom and get set up.

Similarly to last year, I have sent out a letter to each of my incoming grade 8 students, and prepared our Google Classroom and Flipgrid introduction topic. I've also written a letter to parents/guardians this year, inspired by Monte Syrie and Allison Krasnow, which will go home the first day of school. My letter outlines things I want them to know, and also invites them to tell me about their child.

Here's a copy, feel free to modify & use if you wish!

 

It's important to me to maintain positive connections with my students' caregivers, and it's not something that I've always been particularly good at doing. Over the past few years, I've made it a priority to communicate regularly, sending both important information as well as personal notes about students (I use the add-on Email Parents to help organize this) I've received a lot of positive feedback from parents about this practice, and I feel very good about the open lines of communication that this creates.

A Funny Little Experiment

I've been working on an experiment for the past few months, and it came up in conversation with a colleague this morning so it must be time to write about it! The experiment is simple. I have mostly eliminated the words "but" & "however" from my vocabulary.

Now, this may sound bizarre to you. "But what about when you need to say something and then say the opposite?" you may be shouting at your screen. Well, I have replaced those words with "and", "also" & "additionally." How does this sound in practice in the classroom? Here's an example of how a conversation might go:

"Mme Gaudet, I'm thinking of making a flamethrower for my Passion Project, would I be allowed to do that?"

Option 1 : Yes, but you will have to get permission and be safe.
Option 2 : Yes, and we will discuss ways that you can be safe while you do that.

The "Yes, but" option sounds a lot like "No", while the "Yes, and" response doesn't close off any avenues.

I'm also consciously using "and" instead of "but" when giving instructions and feedback to students. "This project will be challenging, and I know that we can do it." Rather than setting up a dichotomy between what is challenging, and what we can do, I link the two ideas together and it becomes as if one follows naturally from the other.

I don't know if this shift in language is evident to my students, or if it is having an effect on their perceptions. I hope so. I hope that they hear in my words a sense of possibility, a sense of openness, a sense of "and".

It's the Little Things

Sometimes, it's the smallest things that stand out. I had to be out of my classroom today to fill in for the principal. This was a sudden occurence, for a sad reason, and it is the day after March Break. My plan was to spend the day reconnecting with my students, checking in, getting excited for the final stretch of this school year.  

When I am going to be out of my classroom, especially if it is unexpected, I always email my students with a plan of what the day will entail. I teach my homeroom for upwards of 3 hours per day, in a variety of different subject areas, so prepping for a substitute can be a daunting process. Emailing the students puts some of the onus on them to get things accomplished even when I'm not in the room. It cuts way down on, "But the substitute didn't tell us what we were supposed to do!" 

Although my students are growing up as "digital natives", they are not very diligent at checking their emails. I often will include a little challenge at the end, so that those who do read all the way through have a fun response to send to me (and a reward in Classcraft for such a response never goes amiss!) Last night, as I will not likely have time to check in with each of them today, my challenge was for them to send me a picture expressing how they feel about coming back to school after March Break. The two that I chose to include reflect the excitement I feel about our upcoming Passion Projects, our end of year Interdisciplinary Unit, and my normal excitement at reconnecting with my students after a break.

Here are the pictures I received from five students in response:

 

It's the little things that make a difference. Emailing to let my students know I will be out of the classroom is a tiny, easy thing - I copy and paste notes from the plans I make for my substitute. Letting them know I am excited to see them again costs me nothing, and the responses I get tell me so much (I'll be checking in with the student who sent "ok" and no picture to make sure things are really OK with them). Even though I'm not in my classroom today, I feel like I reconnected in a small way.

Recreating a Painting in Minecraft

I've been dabbling with Minecraft for the better part of a year (or, more accurately, with MinecraftEDU, the educational mod that is available thanks to the wonderful people at TeacherGaming) Through our Exploratory program, I've experimented with a wide range of worlds, mainly with students who have prior experience with, and lots of passion for, Minecraft. My main goal, however, has always been to integrate Minecraft into my teaching practice.

This week, for the first time, I had an opportunity to do just that, in the context of grade 8 Visual Arts. The other teachers who teach Visual Arts with me were incredibly open-minded, and let me take the reins (and I think they were as pleased with the results as I was!)

I created a questionnaire for students, asking them to choose a painting that they would recreate in Minecraft, with a group. Their choices were:

Starry Night - van Gogh


Tahitian Landscape - Gauguin


Three Cats - Maud Lewis


The Scream - Munch


The Great Wave off Kanagawa - Hokusai


Composition #2 (1920) - Mondrian


Three Musicians - Picasso


Tulip Field with the Rijnsburg Windmill - Monet



After students had made their selections, I assigned them to work in groups of four or five. Surprisingly, only one or two students had chosen the Monet, and none were interested in the Picasso, so those two were not recreated.

Upon entering the Minecraft environment, students found themselves in a room with 8 doors, each labeled with the title of the painting as well as the students' names.



They walked through the door, and teleported to an empty field with these instructions:


And then they got to work. Sitting next to their group members, they decided what format their recreation would take, and then dividing tasks to be as efficient as possible in their building. Several students who generally let others take the lead really stepped into a leadership role at that point, as they have lots of experience in Minecraft. There were two students who had never played Minecraft before, and their group members were patient in explaining how to move around and place blocks.

Here are the results of two days of building (approximately 90 minutes in total) :

Starry Night (work in progress)
Look at all the detail they have included! The tiny houses! The swirls in the sky!

Tahitian Landscape (work in progress)
My newest Minecrafter created that mountain from scratch. I am also quite impressed with their choice to combine a 3D idea with a top down view.

Three Cats (complete)
This group took on the challenge of finding a way to make their cats look fuzzy :-) 

The Scream (complete)
All the detail! The bridge! The sky!

Great Wave off Kanagawa (complete)
These students struggled a bit with their idea and their ability to work as a cooperative group. They became frustrated and destroyed what they had begun two times. As a result, they didn't have a lot of time to create their painting, and it is significantly smaller than the others. However, their use of real flowing water, and the fact that they placed NPCs (non-player characters) in their boats and named them after themselves more than makes up for the size! And in the end, they were very happy with their effort.

Composition #2 (complete)
This one was the simplest, but I was impressed by the amount of thought and planning that went into getting the proportions correct! 

All in all, I consider this first educational application of Minecraft to be an enormous success. Students were engaged, creative, cooperative problem solvers.

On Tuesday, all students will go on a gallery walk through the paintings of other groups. I can't wait for them to appreciate the work that each group put into their recreation, and to show off their own piece of art!

Take a Video Tour!

Gaming to Communicate

I like playing board games. And card games. And guessing games. And logic games.

I like games.

I try to use games in my teaching as often as possible. Not the "made for the classroom" games that seem to take much of the fun out of playing a great game, but games like 99 (a great card game that also reinforces Math skills), Word on the Street (spelling! tug-of-war!) or Morphology Jr (an excellent combination of building, charades and guessing). I also really value the days during the year when I have time to play other, less obviously academic, games with my students. Ghost Blitz and Squashed were crowd favourites last year.

This year, I've decided to try something new to build a strong classroom community. I am hosting once-a-month Games Nights for students and their parents. The guidelines are simple : students must come with at least one parent or guardian, parents or guardians must come with at least one student. No cost. No commitment. No RSVP. Whoever shows up can play whatever games they want.

Tonight was the first night. Only one of my students attended, with her mother. Their game request? They both wanted to learn how to play Settlers of Catan. We spent a highly enjoyable time playing together, and I feel as though I know a lot more about that particular student from watching her interact with her mother, and from observing how she plays games.

I am very much looking forward to future Games Nights - sometimes there will be only two guests, other times there may be many more. Either way, I think this is going to be a great opportunity to create connections with parents whose only contact with the school up to this point may have been phone calls or emails about missing homework assignments or discipline problems. If I can get parents to have fun with me, those more difficult conversations may become ever so slightly easier.

And, of course, I'm just always looking for someone to play games with me ;-)

Photo credit: http://www.ubcieee.org/events/boardgames2015