2 Months later... the challenges we've faced

It has been 2 months since I have blogged about the year... did I mention that this year might be difficult?!? I really had no idea!

So my colleagues and I are teaching outside our comfort zones... Humanities 7 for one grade 7 class and STEM 7 for another grade 7 class (for more on what these mean, please see my first blog post). As the year began, we were also assigned Elective rotation classes (my choices: Drama and Robotics) plus we were tasked with integrating CTF (Career and Technology Foundations) into our timetable. As a whole, my colleagues and I were excited to gain such a tremendous level of control over our schduling but were ignorant to how difficult it would be to prep, teach and assess such a wide variety of subjects. And this was the challenge we were prepared for!

The other major challenge that would catch all three of us off guard this fall was the clientel we would teach this year. The begin with, our group of grade seven's this year, leans heavily towards the young side. From a developmental undrstanding, this means that most of students will struggle with the abstract concepts and lessons that we need to teach; their maturity and brain development keeps them focused in the realm of concrete thought.

Even more challenging was that within our grade seven group (around 85 students) we were given the heads up that 24 of them needed transition planning. We were told about some students (11) who had struggled socially, with mental health, or had senstive information about their family-life that we needed to know in order to tailor our lessons and classroom environments to best help these students learn. On top of that, we also found out that 5 of our grade seven's are English Language Learners (4 of these are Syrian Refugees who arrived in Canada within the last 9 months), and 8 of our grade seven's have serious learning issues (autism, low levels of literacy & numeracy,  cognitive delays, etc.).

That was  almost 30% of our grade sevens that were identified as needing transition planning and 15% of our population that was previously identified as having extreme needs. The school year hadn't even started!

These 2 challenges, student population and programing, created a whirlwind of a school start and each will be the topic of some blogposts to follow. 

Day 1 - Setting some goals

**So I meant to post this at the end of August but somehow forgot and left it in draft mode. Sorry!**

Yesterday was the first official day back.

I was amazed by an inspiring speech by our new superintendent, who was able to show both vulnerbility and vision while remaining authentic, calm and approachable. We formed Profeessinonal Learning Teams (PLT's) that will work quarterly over the year to improve student learning through our work with Assessment. 

This year's PLT is a little different as we will be engaging in action research. I'm excited by this prospect as I've heard the term but actually know very little about it. From what I can gather, we will be trying to use research to improve our practice. I feeling pretty positive about it right now, because it feels like something my colleagues and I have been doing naturally over the last couple of years. 

The goal for our PLT: How can we demonstrate that the process of giving and recieving, gathering and using feedback is a more effective approach for student learning?

  This goal is esspecially important to me this year in light of some conversations and opinions that I have encountered this summer. Some parents are struggling with our school's approach to learning; they dont' understand why we are doing what we are doing and they worry that their children are being negatively impacted by it.

I whole-hearted believe that what we are doing at our school is working with students to help them become the best learner they possibly can. It is my hope that we will be able to use action research to start the process of informing others how empowering our approach to learning is for students.

A New Year

This blog is going to be a record. A record of my learning as a teacher, with more than 10 years experience, who is taking a leap of faith.

This year, my colleagues and I have decided to take on a new challenge. The three of us are going to collaborate to teach as much of grade 7 as we can. For those who know me, you know this isn't completely new. I've held the belief for many years that teachers teach students not subjects and that if required I could take on any class.

The difference this year is that I am going to try and put my money where my mouth is. Though collaborative support, we are going to each teach a section of Humanities (Language Arts and Social Studies) and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). We are going to integrate as much as we can in order to show our students the real-life applications of their learning and we are going to rely on thinking, feedback and reflection to demonstrate our students' success.

In all honesty, I know that I'm feeling equal parts excited and nervous right now. I've never delved this deeply into the STEM curriculum and I know that some of this will be hard for me. I also know that as a learner, I usually have to live through an experience before I truly understand it. Our hope when we first proposed this idea last spring was to improve our students' learning experience by allowing greater flexibility in the schedule, but there is the worry that my inexperience will somehow prove a disservice to my students.

Fortunately, my team has an amazing capacity to collaborate and I believe that over the last two years together, we have proved to each other and those around us that there is very little we can't achieve when we put our minds to it. I know that I can rely on these people to encourage me, support me and catch me as necessary and that gives me a great deal of confidence moving forward.