Voices from the Classroom
Mind Medicine
Brittany and Colin work together at JL Crowe to bring students mindfulness exercises, art and group discussions revolving around the traditional teachings of the medicine wheel. Weekly sessions focus on how teens can take care of their mental, spiritual and emotional needs through mindful moment activities. These teaching are weaved into Career Life Education 10 which covers a large unit on mental health for teens.
MBots
Bailey is a grade 2 teacher at Webster Elementary School who is exploring ADST and coding with small robots called MBOTS. Students use a tablet to control the robots through a maze they create using a block based coding method to determine the robots path. Rotation, distance, time and the blocks logic are taken into account by the students as they learn through trial and error what groupings of code will bring the robot to the end of their maze.
Microcontrollers
Kari is a teacher at KCLC teaching a Robotics 10 course to a broad range of students. A key component of robotics is understanding how microcontrollers work and in this video they are delving into the Arduino microcontroller which is a powerful open-source electronic prototyping platform that enables users to create interactive electronic objects. Here students and teachers are failing, succeeding and most importantly learning together how the Arduino can control an LED before they move onto understanding how inputs work on this amazing board. Learn more about the Arduino board here.
3D Design
Jasmine and Spencer are working together on introducing their students to 3D Design and printing.
The students are using a 3D Design program called Tinkercad to build their own custom snowflakes out of common 3D objects which can then be manipulated to specific dimensions and proportions.
The snowflakes are then taken to the 3D printer where their designs become tangible objects.
Russian Bilingual
Venie is a 2/3 Russian Bi-lingual teacher at Twin Rivers Elementary, where she also teaches Russian to upper intermediate students. This video captures the morning routine Venie has with her class each day.
Cookie Cutters
Mike and Meaghan brought their classes together to create custom cookie cutters to be used to make some delicious sugar cookies. Mikes grade 7 class delved into Adobe Illustrator and Tinkercad to learn how to construct their own digital designs to then teach Meaghan's grade 10 foods class how to build their own creations. The cookie cutters were then 3D printed and the Grade 10 class brought the grade 7's through the recipe to make their designs edible. The result was two schools working together to bring digital design into culinary arts!
Websites
Kim Hemstreet is a grade 7 teacher at Glenmery Elementary School. She is helping her students build websites to act as digital portfolios for projects and personal interests. Check out the video below and click here to get started on building a website with your class. Please contact the Learning Resources Team if you would like training with this tool!
Story Workshop
Lisa is a Teacher-Librarian and Grade 5/6 teacher at Webster Elementary. She is currently exploring how Story Workshop can encourage students with their writing and help them create better stories. In this session, Lisa's class used Loose Parts to create a setting and a problem/solution for their plasticine clay monsters. You can find more information about Story Workshop on our Capturing Professional Learning Page.
Flexible Seating
Classroom
Anne is a Grade 5 teacher at Kinnard Elementary. She has been using a flexible seating Classroom for the past two years, working to promote self-regulation and student agency. Anne and her students spend a lot of time in the beginning of the year developing an understanding of how flexible seating can benefit students in their learning, by trying out different seating options throughout the day and week. This is an on-going process that is continually tweaked through self-reflections and class meetings; this video shows how much her class has already come to understand about themselves and the benefits of a flexible seating classroom.