Monday, April 24, 2023

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

 There are too many things to write about this week! The previous week was full of fantastic teaching and learning opportunities. Remind me if I lack a topic to mention to come back to one of these:

  • my fun kindergarten co-teaching lessons with a master educator (yes Steve, I stand by my words)
  • setting up students for success in dance (and conversely, dance anxiety)
  • my latest STEAM challenge center for the intermediate students (Ozobots)
  • my experiences leading Ukulele Club
  • the thrill (not exaggerating or being sarcastic) of helping AQ candidates and Grade 7s create engaging inquiry questions
Today I want to reflect a bit on my recent Media lessons with my primary division students. Last term, we focused on algorithms. I presented on this topic at the Global Media Education Summit and I will be sharing it again at TDSB's Unleashing Learning conference this week. (See last week's blog for the ad.) For this term, I decided on a more student-centered topic: Pokémon. This may sound like a "fluff" lesson, but there are so many engaging and intriguing parts to this unit that I'm doing or have planned that even my own grown children are excited about helping out.

We began with individual KWL charts as well as a group brainstorm to establish student prior knowledge of Pokémon. Our guiding inquiry question came from a Grade 2 girl who asked, "Why is Pokémon so popular?" Many students will declare to anyone who will listen that they are absolute Pokémon experts, but like the digital native / digital immigrant myth, young people of a certain age do not know it all about this juggernaut brand. We read a non-fiction book about the history of Pokémon and then examined the codes and conventions of just one example of Pokémon merchandise - the Pokémon cards.

The students, even those who weren't interested or into Pokémon prior to this unit, easily spend lots of time pouring over these cards. We've learned about the icons that denote the types of Pokémon and we've examined the clever ways that Pokémon names are constructed. They compare the cards. They sort the cards. They like to claim they can tell which cards are "fake". (The joke is on them - all of the cards I'm using are real, but because they are from older generations, back when my own young adult offspring were young collectors, the card design looks slightly different.) Some of them have even tried to steal the cards. (We'll need to talk more about how and why some schools used to ban Pokémon cards from the classrooms and playgrounds.) Here are some photos of the students (no faces shown) eagerly exploring these beloved media texts.





The next steps in my Pokémon unit are:

1) to have students design their own unique Pokémon card, using what they've learned about naming techniques, layout, and required elements. (My own children have volunteered to make samples on chart paper for the students to use as models.)

2) to watch a few of the Pokémon anime TV shows and analyze them.

3) to play a few of the Pokémon video games - especially from different eras like the Switch, 3DS, and other Nintendo systems. (Again, my own children have volunteered to come in to lead those sessions.)

4) to play the Pokémon RPG with them and examine what parts appeal to what personality types.

5) possibly to have some parents in the community (whose children told me play Pokémon Go) take small groups out to go hunting for Pokémon locally.

6) eventually to summarize why Pokémon appeals to such a large demographic of people.

This is what I've written in my long range plans (and with the relevant curriculum expectations):

April = Pokémon cards (math and language connections)

May = Pokémon RPGs and Pokémon Go (social and physical)

June = Pokémon manga and anime (narratives)

Ministry of Education Curriculum Expectations

TERM 2

= Strand: Media Literacy

·         1.2 – Overt & Implied Messages

·         1.3 – Responding to and Evaluating Texts (+1.4 Audience Responses)

·         2.2 – Conventions and Techniques

·         3.4 – Producing Media Texts

It'll be fun to see what the students produce with their cards and their reactions to the RPG (especially compared to our 2020-21 experience when my daughter ran a RPG for my then-Grade 5 and Grade 6 students online).

Monday, April 17, 2023

The Pull Between Plan, Teach, and Assess

 This is another short blog post, composed just before my self-imposed deadline.

Teaching is made up of many things. There are lots of other things battling for one's attention, but at the core of teaching are three pieces: planning, teaching, and assessing.

All three parts take a tremendous amount of energy. The teaching portion is limited by the amount of time in the instructional day for traditional schooling. In an elementary school setting, that's about 6 hours a day. It takes a great deal of time to plan and a great deal of time to assess. The end result doesn't always demonstrate the time it took beforehand. The 40-minute (or 10-minute) lesson can take hours to prepare. The 20-minute talk looks effortless but involved lots of deliberation and consideration. The comment to an assignment is just one of many (62 for a certain category) to contemplate, compose, edit, post, and document. What gets the priority? Really, all three need to happen and in a timely fashion. This weekend, I spent a lot of my time in front of my computer doing some of this. I'm getting better at (or maybe my spouse is getting better at encouraging me to) taking short breaks to clear my head and spend time with the family doing fun things (like watching My Hero Academia or getting Krispy Kreme donuts). I did a lot of assessment, which previous blog posts like this one show can be challenging for me. I feel good that I got a significant portion of it done - but like cleaning, planning and marking never really end.

As for planning, there are big plans coming up: Unleashing Learning, another GTA Resource Fair, the Forest of Reading voting day, Heritage Fair, the Festival of Reading, yearbook, Quiz Bowl, Red Maple Marketing, and of course the regular running of the AQs and day-to-day teaching. As a preview, here's a promotion card about my contribution to #tdsbUL23. 



Monday, April 10, 2023

Let the Hunt Begin!

 I am composing this post with less than two hours before the end of Easter Monday. I haven't spent a lot of time writing because I've been focused on my upcoming AQ courses I'm teaching and a few family errands and events. My sister came from Calgary for the Easter weekend and we've enjoyed her company. Here's a photo of my parents with us over for Easter Sunday dinner.



As we tried to plan activities, my son casually mentioned that he missed when we used to hunt for Easter eggs like when he was a child. So, we decided to have an indoor Easter egg hunt. We filled eggs with money, chocolate, or meme-ish prank notes for everyone to find. Guess what? Hunting for eggs as an adult is just as much fun as hunting as a kid. I played the role of the Easter bunny. (Sorry Doug Peterson, I only managed a pair of rabbit ears for my costume this year!)




Our school's Student Council arranged their own Egg scavenger hunt last week. I've written about this year's Student Council before on this blog. I admire how Ms. Daley and Ms. Tran, their staff supervisors, really allow the student council autonomy and agency in deciding what and how they want to do. Although finding eggs was the theme, it was not tied to any religious or holiday observances. The students did an amazing job tailoring their hunts to the specific classes. Older classes had to solve riddles, math problems, and other brainteasers to locate their clues. In a brilliant planning move, the class hunts led to finding tickets, which could be exchanged for chocolate treats during periods 4 and 8. This way, no one took more than their share and no one accidentally seized treats meant for other classes. 


The rest of the school year will fly by, I am sure. I am grateful for the four-day weekend and the opportunity to catch my breath a bit. Sure, I could have done so much more with the time - but *shrugs* I decide what is best for me to do.


Monday, April 3, 2023

Playful History

 One of the things I love about co-teaching as part of my library assignment is getting the opportunity to really focus on making a few really excellent lessons on a topic. Right now, I'm lucky enough to work with Lisa Daley on a Grade 7 history unit. Our end goal is to have the students create inquiry projects, some of which will be entered in the TDSB Heritage Fair. There is a lot of content we need to expose the students to, so that they have enough foundational information to formulate the question that will guide their research. 

When Lisa and I were collaboratively planning this learning experience, she revealed that history was not her favourite subject to teach. I understand. History can be dry and boring. Lisa described approaches, such as reading historical fiction, that got her more engaged in the subject. That inspired me to ensure that the lessons I provided would be interesting and fun. We've divided the class in half and split some of the content between us to cover in the next few weeks.

My first lesson focused on this expectation:

A3.4 describe some significant aspects of daily life among different groups living in Canada during this period

We used a Jigsaw strategy and the consolidation portion of the task was a specialized version of the classic board game Guess Who. Instead of using clues solely based on physical appearance, the students used information gleaned from their information gathering on different groups that existed in the area we now call Canada from 1713-1800.


The second lesson will focus on this expectation:

A3.5 describe significant interactions between various individuals, groups, and institutions in Canada during this period

I pulled from a couple of other popular media texts (movies and anime/manga) to help illustrate the task I want them to do. My goal is to make it easy to comprehend and relatively fun to complete.

I'm not the only one trying to have fun with history lately. Even though Twitter is no longer a significant communication tool for me, I noticed a trend - having AI art programs reimagine Canadian prime ministers in various clothing styles. Here are a few ...

Canadian and American leaders as gladiators:

 

 

Canadian prime minister as 1970s era hockey players Canadian prime ministers as 1980s metal band rock stars Canadian premiers as 80s hair metal band members

Thank you Craig Baird for making Canadian history fun and funny!