Learning Skills and Work Habits
I really like the idea that Ms. Brougham put forward about getting the students engaged with a deeper understanding of what the Learning Skills actually mean. To do this, we looked at them on the report cards and a group had the task of breaking them down and presenting them to the class.
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| The collection of completed posters are now up on the side bulletin as a source of inspiration and guidance. At some point, I will take photos of them to reduce the space they take up and post them in another location in the classroom. |
Healthy Living: some facts from a Reading Response on the importance of eating Breakfast
As I mark some of the Reading Responses from a while ago, some students are making some notes on the importance of breakfast and how this relates to our overall sense of health.
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https://www.livestrong.com/article/304577-calories-burned-by-brain-activity/ Nutrition information for a Pop-Tart (http://www.kelloggs.ca/en_CA/pop-tarts-toaster-pastries-frosted-raspberry-product.html#prevpoint).
4g of sugar is equal to 1 teaspoon
It was to my utter shock that I found out that this drink I love to have, every now and then contains 44g of sugar! How many teaspoons of sugar would that be?
A student brought up the issue of Mental Health and how it may relate to the importance of eating breakfast. Just to clarify, Mental Illness and Mental Health are two different things. This slide may offer some insight:
This is a massive subject area and something we will come back to.
Writing: Getting a sense of what writing can look like from Gr. 1-8 |
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| http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/repository/mon/3000/10278697.pdf |
This is an older document but it was first introduced to me by a former Vice Principal who suggest I used it to get a sense of where students are in their writing.
At the time, I was teaching in a Special Education class and being able to identify the Grade level of a student was key.
In class, I have shared Level 3 examples from Grade 1 to 8 to give the class a sense of the writing levels expected.
Mathematics: bridging Integers & Algebra
We just completed our unit on Integers and will begin to see this type of Math in the next unit we begin on Algebra.
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| results above B- or 70% |
For a lot of the work in this unit, the homework was assigned and the answers were posted on Google Classroom. If students had questions about the work, I strongly encouraged them to ask questions.
With some problem-solving work we did, courtesy of Mr. Toale, I posted some feedback on the questions:
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| The feedback is designed to improve student learning; this means the students need to be aware of the feedback and understand why it is important.
Before moving onto the mechanics of Algebra, I thought it was important to begin to understand some of the basic parts of this form of Mathematics.
The scholar Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi is credited with the development of Algebra. At the time, this form of Math was known as al-jabr. Translated from Arabic, this refers to the "reunion of broken parts" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra.
I have posted more class centered activities relating to Algebra on Google Classroom (GC).
History: Inquiry & RAFT
The Inquiry project continues and has been given more attention in GC. It is much easier to post items, examples, and items to print from this website. Please ask your student about this and check it out.
The RAFT activity is actually an acronym:
It is a Writing based activity that can be used in History. I learned about it from a workshop I attended many years ago by the Critical Thinking Consortium https://tc2.ca/.
For this exercise, they will be looking, once again, at the issue of the name change proposal of schools bearing John A. Macdonald's name. I recently received some feedback from the Principal of John A Macdonald SS, in the east end of the city, about the discussions they had at their school about the topic of renaming.
While the students in the Grade7/8 classes at Dovercourt explored this matter and shared their opinions during the four corner exercise, I thought I would deepen this problem by having the students look at the subject from another point of view. Again, the topic is more fully explored on GC and I won't attempt to detail it here.
As I have done with other assignments, I am doing an example that I will share with the classes, before it is due, and use the following rubric to help guide the assessment:
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