Refocus on Planning and Partnering

 What a busy week! It began with no students in the school and lots of uncertainty as CUPE and the provincial government squared off over the use of the non-withstanding clause, and ended with the first whole-school assembly in the gym since 2019 for Remembrance Day. In between, there were also York University AQ guest speakers and my parents' 63rd wedding anniversary. 

Because of all the administrative tasks needing attention lately, I noticed that my lesson plans were almost non-existent (as in, they were in my head but not written down) and my collaborative teaching times were very last-minute, just-in-time affairs. That's fine once in a while but I want to ensure that these partner co-teaching times were valued and valuable. I have 35% of my schedule as co-teaching time, a better schedule than I've had for a long time, and I don't want to lose that because of improper or insufficient use. This is a quick overview of some of the new and renewed teaching partnerships.

Grade 6 Social Studies with Connie Chan

Connie and I work well together. Our first foray into co-teaching did not go as smoothly due to all the interruptions related to reorganization and other external factors. This time around, we vowed to make it work. We are focusing on the expectations related to expectation A3.8 in the strand "Communities in Canada: Past and Present" - "identify and describe fundamental elements of Canadian identity". We are combining it with media literacy and oral communication and our first lesson together went quite well. 

Grade 3-4 Language with Brenda Kim

Brenda and I worked on a critical thinking social studies project a few years back. Our language unit together was the most thoroughly planned of all my recent endeavors. Having said that, it's a subject that we need to keep tweaking based on the student output. I borrowed the idea Lisa Daley and I had years ago about writing the ending to an existing story rather than a complete narrative, which worked well. This past week, we actually unwrapped the back of the book to reveal what the author's original ending was like, compared to the student versions. They were very excited for the "big reveal".

Grade 7-8 Geography with Farah Wadia

I love working with Farah. There's a reason why we keep nominating her for a Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence. I had a great idea related to geography concepts that I learned from my Drama AQ long ago and I used it way back in 2010. It didn't go in quite the way I had hoped. It began well and the students were very engaged. When things went south, Farah helped save the day to ensure things didn't become worse.

Grade 2-3 Social Studies

This particular teacher prefers that I abstain from mentioning her name online. She is also great to work with. Last year, due to class dynamics, our partnership involved separating into smaller groups. This year, we are more able to work in a single, cohesive team. We have expanded our resources to include videos from TVO Learn. We developed assessments to check for understanding before moving on to the next subtopic. The students were excited to explore atlases and made so many connections to their prior knowledge. A week or two before, we brought the students to the library to recreate urban and rural environments using furniture and big blocks and they keep asking when they can return to make a suburban space!

I might be missing other collaborations because I'm relying on memory rather than my notes right now. I'll take the rest of the weekend to plan the newest lessons that I deliver solo, as well as mark my university course work. Hopefully there won't be too many more out-of-the-ordinary interruptions.