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It's been a fabulous summer in Corner Brook and throughout the west coast of Newfoundland!

As we head back to classrooms, what interesting new thinking is emerging in our professional learning? I'll be curating my own learning into this newsletter each week.  My goal is to provide content that will encourage you to challenge your own thinking, reflect on your practice, and ask great questions about what is best for our learners.  I hope you will subscribe and share - and suggest content for future editions!
Listen to the Modern Learners Podcast - With Ted Dintersmith
What School Could Be


We can't lead toward something we can't envision.

What do you believe school could be?  When you walk into a classroom, digital or f2f, what do you want to see?  What is your vision for the classroom of 2020, a mere 16 months away?

This podcast will help you think about what school could be.
 

via @mmejwebb
(Jessica Webb, Safe & Inclusive Itinerant)

Important Questions to Ask Your Students

Edutopia
What messages to we give our children on the first day of school?

Do they go home and tell the adults in the house that they can't wait to go back the next day? Or do we scare and shame them with messages about how many marks they will lose if an assignment is submitted late, how big the textbook is or how much time this course will take?

Every child must have a safe and inclusive environment where they are free to learn and reach their potential.  After all, that's the vision at our school district! As we move toward implementing a SEL curriculum in 2019, let's put the the very best conditions for learning in place from day one.
 
Our message must be clear:
This school, this classroom - 

This is where you will thrive!
Read the full article here
Sleep and Adolescents
What the research is telling us

As we transition to later start times in some of our Corner Brook schools, here's one of the prompts that started us thinking about the importance of sleep for the well-being of our students.

So Tired 1 of 5: Dr. Genevieve Gariepy on CBC On the Go
Listen to the Sleep Research Here

via @therobinsonread
(Sherra Lee Robinson, Safe and Inclusive Itinerant)

Find Your Marigold

Edutopia
Best advice for new educators:
Surround yourself with good people

"By finding the positive, supportive, energetic teachers in your school and sticking close to them, you can improve your job satisfaction more than with any other strategy. And your chances of excelling in this field will skyrocket. Just like a young seedling growing in a garden, thriving in your first year depends largely on who you plant yourself next to."

This is wonderful advice for all of us in education.  It's easy to find people who dwell in a negative space.  It's just as easy to find educators whose purpose is all about learning.  They live and breathe a positive outlook on what is possible in spite all that swirls around them.  These are the people who will energize you and make you a better educator.
 
Read the full article here
unsplash-logoMilin John
Navigating Sex and Gender
(Sam Harris, with Martie Haselton)
 
Many educators feel that they don't have a strong understanding of the gender issues facing students.  This conversation (also a podcast here) on YouTube is an excellent starting point for further learning on these topics.
This week, my friend and colleague Dr. Jenni Donohoo (Jenni_Donohoo) spoke at the Visible Learning Conference in Toronto. I wasn't able to be there in person, but as a connected educator, I was following all the attendees who are social notetakers, sharing their learning online through the hashtag #TorontoVL (go back and look through that hashtag for important learning!).  Another colleague, Dr. Debbie Donsky (@debbiedonsky) kindly captured the talk in a sketchnote.

For me, this comes down to the essentials of teaching and learning. 

Every child should be able to answer these questions with respect to their learning: 1) Where am I? 2) How am I doing?  3) Where to next? 

....and every teacher should be able to answer 1) Where is this child now? 2) How is this child doing? 3) Where is this child going next?

We should be able to articulate with every child, what the learning goals are, what the success criteria look like, and how we will get there through descriptive feedback, peer and self assessment (which must be taught to be effective) and individual goal-setting.

What do you connect with in this image?
Quick bites: Some further learning that might be interesting to you

Google Classroom has changed over the summer!  Check out learning videos here.  How might Google Classroom help you blend your instruction and keep students involved even when they are away? 

And speaking of attendance, check out these stats on the impact of poor attendance from The Learning Exchange (a source of really excellent, free, open professional learning). 

We are seeing lots of new research this week on the Power of Play It's important that we have this research handy as "play" is still has negative connotations with some parents and educators.

And as we consider play-based learning, how can we continue to help learners self-direct in an environment that requires evaluation? Here is how some teachers went gradeless in grade 9 math. 

Those who know me know that I am very concerned about system "filters" - the way we as a system decide who gets the opportunity to go on to further learning. Currently, we rank our children with marks, and higher learning institutions choose the ones who have the highest marks.  Our filters are what we require students to do to get those marks.  We need to always be attentive to those filters.  Who are we keeping away from further learning? What narrow range of abilities do we promote when some children are ranked higher than others?  Seth Godin addressed this issue beautifully this week.  I'd love to hear your thoughts. 




 
unsplash-logoKrista Kankula






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