Dear Suzanna, Jorden, Sara, Julia,
In this first post, I would like you to share where you are in your baseline in your field study. Perhaps as a way to share this with us, you could reply to the following questions:
What am I already doing with regards to my field study?
What is in place (practices, supports, structures) that I can build on to support my field study?
Please click on "Comments" and post a comment... please include your name or initials in your comment. This blog is not searchable so only those who have the address will access it.
Mehj
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Hi Everyone, it's Sara.
ReplyDeleteMy baseline for my field study so far is in the form of a few reflections on my first few weeks at William Bridge. I just wrote a more formal reflection of my baseline info that is divided into the follwing headings:
Strengths I see at William Bridge, Challenges I have noticed at Bridge, Steps I have taken so far to improve upon the challenges I see at Bridge, and Next steps.
Being at a new school, I have really been working on getting to know my school and my staff. I have taken a lot of time to engage with staff and to listen to their ideas and their concerns. I am going to be supporting 3 classes this year and I am really excited about the teachers I will be working with as they are all very supportive, experienced and open-minded. I think that they will be very receptive to any ideas I may have around implementing more culturally aware lessons and resources into their programs.
The resource team at Bridge is pretty incredible and I know that I will learn alot from them this year. They are all very experienced and my VP in particular has really impressive communication skills. The challenge we are facing however is organization. I decided to include this in my fall field study as a means to improve communication amongst the team (including all the EA's at my school).
The other thing I have been working really hard on is being proactive. I have created a joint EA/Resource team bulletin board with a year calendar and all the pro-d opportunities that are upcoming. I also talked to the EA's about ways that we can improve our communication and I implemented their ideas.
I have quite a few next steps that include looking at our school composition data, finding resources I can use that complement the programs of the students I am supporting and relate to my field study, doing some relevant readings, and finding a good pro-d session for Oct. 23 that relates to what I am doing. Any ideas?
I hope this is along the lines of what you were expecting here Mehj :)
I hope you are all doing great!!!
Hi Sara,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very thorough baseline. I see many examples of you working to establish the necessary conditions for collaboration including establishing relationships and setting up structures. These build trust and establish transparent support networks. These will be key in setting a stage for the kinds of collaboration around cultural inclusiveness that you are hoping to integrate into your work.
I have attached a link to a reading that connects to your field study:
http://eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/44/d5/ec.pdf
Here are some options to look into for Pro-D:
"Anti-Racism Education: Building Something Greater," Queen Elizabeth Secondary School, King George Highway and 95th Avenue, Surrey, BC. email:aakutoto@shaw.ca
The ESL PSA's 19th annual conference "Diversity: Expect, Respect and Celebrate" will be held at John Oliver Secondary School.
joywild@hotmail.com
http://srcle.net/documents/Encompass%202009%20List%20of%20Workshop%20Descriptions.pdf
Mehj
I signed up for the ESL PSA conference. Thanks Mehj!!
ReplyDeleteHi groupMehj,
ReplyDeleteIt is Suzana.
The focus of my field study is inclusive education. Right now I am at the stage of establishing a supportive community and identifying the specific learning needs of my students. At my school, along with the other two grade 8 teachers we are meeting weekly and sharing experiences on how to implement the new curriculum in a way that meets the diverse needs of our students. Secondly,I have volunteered to open my classroom doors and offer a lesson study for my department colleagues. Lastly, I signed up to attend the Northwest Math Conference, and in it diversity is a dominating theme.
Hello.
ReplyDeleteWhat have I done for my field study so far? Well, since my focus is on collaboration, I have been working on making connections/plans with my colleagues. We have set up two times per week to meet with our classes and so far, have used this time to do baseline assessments. For instance, one day I did a creative art-writing activity with three classes worth of kids while the other teachers did reading assessments. We thought that would be a good place to start. Who needs help? Of course some interesting data came from this.
We have had several meetings over the month, along with our E.A., to consider how we might support eachother over the year. At this point we may not have accomplished a lot but I can say that there's a different feeling this year at my school...amongst French Immersion teachers...they're leaning on eachother, discussing what to do and working together. I've never experienced so much "community" at Gilmore as I have this year. It's seems to be spreading and the connections are being made. It's a start.
Beyond that I've been working on making my class as 'inclusive' as possible. It's early in the year and I'm trying to get to know the kids and
I've been talking with my "senior" colleagues a lot and trying to draw from their wisdom on how to teach primary (I changed grades this year.)
More to come tomorrow...see you soon, jorden.