NGO - Giving Student's Choice

My Grade 6s were asked to design a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) proposal. Students used the inquiry process along with the design thinking model to create an NGO to help combat a global issue of they were passionate about. 

Logo was designed by student who created an NGO proposal to fight for the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Using the design thinking process, students were able to really reflect on the solutions and responses they were posing. They were able to see what at the surface might seem like a great solution, needed some more reflecting and digging deeper. 

One particular student created an NGO on the helping the LGBTQ community fight for their rights in marriage in all States of America. I was very touched by the proposal, as the student purposed the possible responses to be education in schools on the topic and funding money for lawyers to help fight for discriminatory laws. 

We haven't spoken directly to the topic of LGBTQ, but the student educated the class about her passion on the topic with great sensitivity. This showed me how sometimes you need to give the reigns to youth to talk about what they already know and how they can really inspire their peers.  This was the moment I knew how allowing students to choose their own global issue and digging deep with design thinking model, allowed for real-authentic learning. 

To top it all off, students were asked to vote for the NGO who they thought deserves funding from "the United Nations" to help fund their idea (i.e., this was a make belief scenario) and the class chose the NGO fighting for the rights of LGBTQ community as the winner!! 

Do you SEE Math?

I recently had the pleasure of attending a parent engagement session with Dr. Cathy Fosnot on parent engagement and numeracy. Dr. Cathy Fosnot's work in the area of Math is infamous and she raised really good points that has made me think about how I engage students in Mathematics with my math program.

Fosnot made an argument for engaging students in Mathematics by solving problems creatively and seeing the creativity in math. Reflecting on my practice, I have seen how effective it is to connect math with creativity and the Arts. For example, this year I students design a skyline of their choice and of any city of their choice; using shapes, polygons, irregular polygons and attributes we learned in Geometry. This activity allowed students to design a skyline and find beauty (in Math) within their architectural piece. The hands-on learning piece that comes with finding creativity in Math, also allows students to gain a deeper first hand experience of th
e math concepts.

Her connections about creativity and Math also reminded me on the recent focus on Spatial Sense as a predictor of success in Math. If we are able to foster students to think critically and visualize the creativity in Math, especially they are being spatial aware of math concepts.

Fosnot also made an excellent argument about teaching students to think deeply about numeracy and numbers so that they are able to apply a variety of mental math strategies in their real life. The deeper understanding of numeracy does not lie in plugging in the numbers in a calculator or even finding the answer.

A resource that popped into my mind is Jo Boaler's "Mathematical Mindsets" ; she too, makes an argument for seeing Math in creative and visual ways an important way for students to think and feel about Math.

"Do you SEE Math?" As an educator, I think it's a difficult question to answer, but one that I think I will pose more often when looking at the curriculum and mathematical concepts.... "How can we foster a love for math through a creative lens?"

Mindful Breaks - Collaborative Colouring / Colour Therapy

Taking mindful breaks throughout the school day is an important part of well-being. This year, I added a new station to my classroom. On the shelves, I placed "colour therapy colouring sheets" for students to use when they feel they need a break. Students love the station and have been using it often! 

I decided to have a few options on the shelf, students can take which ever colouring page they would like at that brea. We set the norm that the colouring pages are collaborative and we add onto each other's colouring; this has also created a respectful and collaborative culture. Consider adding a colouring station to your classroom :) 

Materials you will need to create a colouring station: 

- bristol board so that the pages stand up 

- foldback clips to clip the colouring pages

- colouring pages ( I bought a book that contained detachable sheets that have designs on the front and back) 

Growth Mindset Inspiration

Great video for Growth Mindset! ....First thing that came to mind when I saw the commercial on TV this summer break.

The Evolution of the Hardcopy Text?

It has been a great start to a new school year (Grade 6 has been awesome so far :) ) and as always, my resolution is to keep blogging as often as possible! :)

Over the summer break, I began delving into Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler. It is an insightful read indeed! As I was reading my hard copy, I realized I needed many tools. Not only did I want stickies, highlighters, pens to jot down and mark down my thoughts and important information, but I was also gravitating towards my laptop! This was an AHA moment for myself, I realized that I couldn't bring Mathematical Mindsets to the beach easily due to the amount of tools I felt I needed to lug with me! The nature of professional reading has changed.

There is a high need for technology use while interacting with hardcopy text. Boaler refers to many MANY wonderful links and online resource in their book. As I was reading, I felt a constant need to bookmark a page and also bookmark a web resource on my browser. There was a high level of interaction with the hardcopy text; no passive reading was happening here!

The 21st century hardcopy text is no longer just the information printed on the physical paper; but it is evolving to a physical space where the need to access online resources is increasingly becoming the norm. Therefore, students need to be taught the skills to decode the information in the black and white text in front of them, but also the online texts found in the hyperlinks as well. Students need to be able to interact with printed and online text simultaneously.

Some things I am wondering...... What tools do students need to help organize their information and for them to sift through the most important information from the wealth of information presented to them (print and online)? What are some effective strategies to help students develop these skills needed to interact with this "new 21st century hardcopy text"?

Poetry & Inquiry - How would you define/describe Canadian Identity?

Grade 6 students were asked to analyze and extract phrases/words from Shane Koyczan's poem "We are More" which was famously performed at the 2010 Winter Olympics. We watched the excerpt from the clip below: (Poem comes in at around 2:15:56)

Big Idea: Canadian Identity has many fundamental elements. Past and present communities have
shaped the development of Canada.

Inquiry question: How do we define Canadian Identity?

Highlighting and extracting phrases...

Students were asked to sort their extraction of ideas into categories....

Students were then to ask to graffiti how they would describe Canadian identity...

Students worked in groups to fill in sentence prompts/ create metaphors to describe Canadian Identity using their own ideas and taking inspiration from Shane Koyczan's poem.


Result.... creative class poem presented that allowed students to see what being Canadian means to us!

It was an engaging lesson where students were able to be creative and express some fundamental elements of Canadian Identity. The goal is to have students revisit our class poem at the end of the unit and see how their learning of Canada's past and present communities have shaped their perspective of Canadian Identity.

Lesson was inspired by TC2 resource

My Classroom Blog Links

Grade 6 (2016- present) - Grade 6 Homeroom Teacher Role
http://grade6chungstars.blogspot.ca/

Grade 6 (2015-2016) - Grade 6 Social Studies/ Science Teacher Role
http://grade6chungstarslearningspace.blogspot.ca/

Grade 4 (2014-2015) - Grade 4 Homeroom Teacher Role
http://mschungclassbulletin.blogspot.ca/

Reflections: Advocating for Student Voice - How do we teach students to advocate from themselves?

While doing course work to enhance my knowledge in the area of Special Education, I came across a fantastic article titled, "Why is This Cake on Fire?" by Jamie L. Van Dycke, James E. Martin and David L. Lovett, that really made me reflect on my own teaching practice and Special Education.

These authors use the analogy of planning a birthday party for a child who never actually part of the planning to display the importance of student advocating for themselves in Special Education. The child grows up and ends up not caring about the birthday party anymore, because they were never involved in the process to begin with. Why should the child care, if everything has always been talked around them or taken care of?

We talk about the importance of student voice in our classrooms all the time, but I think student voice in Special Education or IEP process is definitely lacking. The birthday party analogy made me reflect on meetings I have had in past about student progress. Honestly, not many times did I consider active participation or leading the meeting by the student in the meetings with family. I always consult students to discuss their progress and strategies that work for them; but not often do I have the student explain/present their strengths and needs to their families. It is so so important for students to learn the skill of advocating for themselves and their needs.

Furthermore, I think it's easy to say that student's need to advocate for themselves, but as educators we need to be able to support students to acquire the language to communicate what their needs are and how they feel.

How do you teach the skill of advocation? What can we do improve student's participating in IEP, growth plan, student progress areas?

Full Article can be accessed at this link:
http://www.nssed.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Why-is-this-cake-on-fire.pdf

Space Persuasive Letters

Should Space Programs continue be funded by the Canadian Government? 

Students evaluated the Pros and Cons of Space Exploration and how it impacts Canadian society and citizens. 

They were then asked to write a persuasive letter to the Canadian Space Agency expressing their opinion on the issue. 

This was a very engaging task, as it allowed for student voice and an authentic audience. We are sending out letters off to the Space Agency and hoping for a response back!! 

Reflections on Blogging Lunch and Learn Sessions

I have been hosting Blog Lunch and Learn sessions for colleagues at my new school this year and it has been a great success! Helping teachers set up a blog and sharing how a blog could be a useful platform and tool in the classroom has been an enriching experience for myself.

From these sessions, my gracious colleagues’ learning about blogs and blogging has allowed me to have the following reflections: 

• Life long learning truly is lifelong and ageless 
• Working with adults and seeing their excitement and spark at new ideas and concepts is very rewarding and just as rewarding as when I am teaching/helping students 
• Those that call themselves not “tech savvy” are able to setup a live blog and navigate through the settings (Growth Mindset!)
• Sharing knowledge and information allows for deeper thinking and strengthens my own practice
• Though I have been using the Blogger platform for a while, technology is always changing and within the session I get to learn a few new tidbits as well! 
• Being OK with discovering new things as the session is running - the idea of being a co-learner as well as a facilitator

Student Inquiry on the Right's of Indigenous People's

Grade 6 students were asked to read and pick out important key words from the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. We discovered the importance of having accords that protect their rights and why it is necessary to have these pieces in place. 

We began as a class discussion/brainstorm on what we knew about indigenous people and rights. Then students were to read and determine key words from the UN declaration. Groups shared as a class and we came up with a list of key words. From the key words, students were able to see the powerful language used and were able to articulate why indigenous rights need to be protected. 

Reflections: 

• students were engaged
• students were able to pull in background knowledge about what they know about indigenous people and Canada 
• students were able to see that the key words pulled as partners, resonated with others in the room as well
• provided opportunity for students to talk about the rights in the declaration 
• students were able to understand why certain groups of people in the world need protection

MApp Fair - Math App Proposals

At the beginning of this school year, my colleague who teaches Grade 1 and I wanted our students to collaborate together. We thought a great way to build cross divisional relationships was through a Learning Buddies program. The teaching outcomes were such a great success!

We worked on media projects throughout the school year. We created e-books in Term 1 and made posters to try to advertise our e-books for readers to buy! In Term 2, we came
across an inspirational article about students who created a Math App to help their friend with Autism. My colleague and I thought it was such an innovative and fun task, we decided to design our task around this inspirational story.

Our learning goal for the task was for Grade 1s and Grade 4s to collaborate and design a Math App Proposal that would target the Grade 1 audience to build a growth mindset in Math. We thought it would be neat for students to design an App for an audience both grade students would be familiar with and we could get authentic feedback from.

Flash forward a couple of months of hard work and scaffolded learning... students designed Math App Proposals that were presented in a form of a showcase. Not only did Grade 1 students provide feedback, but we had cross panel guests from our board come to visit and give feedback as well. Students were motivated, engaged and were thinking critically throughout this entire project! I am so proud of all my students and their passion into this project!

This project showed me how designing an authentic critical thinking tasks lends itself easily for students to be engaged, motivated and being creative, innovative thinkers!

We hope to continue to explore App creation and are so excited to see what is store for us next in this journey!

Student Growth found in a Teachable Moment

At the beginning of the school year, Grade 4s were asked to think about what makes a person a "hero"? We had just read a book on Terry Fox and I asked students a big question to see if students would consider Terry Fox a "Hero". We brainstormed criteria for makes a Hero together on chart paper. Students then wrote an opinion piece of whether they would consider Terry Fox a Hero. Of course, all of us agreed that Terry Fox IS a Hero.

Flash forward to 9 months later, we are wrapping up our social justice unit about finding peace within ourselves and the community. We read "Our Heroes" By Janet Wilson this week and I asked students to reflect on what a Hero means to them. We brainstormed as a class what a Hero meant to us. Then, I brought back the anchor chart from September where we brainstormed criteria for a Hero and it turned out to be a great teachable moment. Students were so surprised to see the anchor chart again and it helped that the marker ink was fading on the paper :) !! Their excitement and expression on their faces were priceless.

We reviewed the criteria we co-created from September and then compared it to the anchor chart we just brainstormed. I asked students, "What do you notice about the two sets of criteria ?". Students expressed the following:

• "the one we created today has big ideas"
• "we now know that a hero can be anybody"
• "ideas are stronger in the anchor chart we created today than yesterday"
• "lots of big ideas with details in the one we created today

I was SO impressed with students responses. Students clearly were able to see how their critical thinking skills have grown as a learner in the past 9 months. It also showed me that the Social Justice unit made a huge impact on my students learning and having them being able to communicate that growth orally was an amazing moment to witness!

Dear Ms. Chung - Reflection of Term 1 Activity

Since we just wrapped up Term 1, I asked my students recently to reflect on how they felt Grade 4 is going, their strengths, next steps and any questions they may have for me or anything they felt they wanted me to know about them. The result of this activity was eye-opening! 

Here are some sentence prompts... 

1) How do you feel Grade 4 is going so far? How do you feel Term 1 went? 

2) What are your strengths? What are your next steps?

3) How are you doing socially and behaviour in the classroom? 

4) Questions you have for Ms. Chung / Anything you want me to know 

The letters were honest, raw and sincere. I learned so much about my students and have a great touch point to conference with students. I responded to each student, tailored to their goals and their questions. They were able to set effective goals for themselves and I able to communicate to me their feelings that I may not have otherwise in a large group setting. 

Many students wanted to know how they could improve in their studies, 

This was an effective reflection activity that has provided me great insight into my teaching practice and the wellness of my students. 

Reflections on Coding

This past week, my grade 4 class participated in the "Hour of Code" and we learned so much! For many of my students, it was their first time hearing about coding. They were super excited to see famous faces in Code's launch video advocating for coding and the importance of computer science. We watched tutorials and students worked collaboratively to code. There were many obstacles along the way, but students used their critical thinking skills and solved it on their own. They had to "ask 3 before me" for our coding session. I told them that they were the real experts and I am no more of an expert in coding than they are. Students were engaged and loved seeing how their favourite apps and games used computer science and knowledge power from all subject areas in the process of creation. We created a "Flappy Code" and our own game using "Play Lab". We had a great time and learned lots! I highly recommend participating in the "Hour of Code"! 

Resource: www.code.org

Digital Citizenship

Image from :http://www.prn.bc.ca/ss/k5DL/?p=206


We started our health unit on looking at technology, how to have a positive digital footprint and being safe when using technological forms of communication. To my surprise, students had difficult time coming up with ways we can safely use technology or what type of precautions we need to take when online. This turned into a great teaching point about how technology is everywhere in our lives, but not very often do we talk about what precautions we need.... I think my students saw the importance of the topic at hand just by seeing how stumped they were in generating precautions/factors we need to think about when online! 

Digital citizenship is so important in the lives our children, especially since I think we sometimes take technology for granted or assume children are tech-savvy at a young age - we cannot forget to educate the impact and importance having a positive digital footprint has in their lives. 

Happy Wednesday!

Saw the video of Adam Levine and Jimmy Fallon singing kids songs - made me smile! Check it out and I hope it helps put a smile on - Day 2 being done! Completion of 1st week almost there... :) Happy Wednesday!

Exit Tickets as Assessment

This year, I created a "parking lot" poster in my classroom in hopes that it will be used for quick assessment "for" and "as" learning. Students will need to answer a quick question or quick 3,2,1 (i.e3 things I learned, 2 wonderings, 1 question - many variations are possible!) on a sticky note and park it on the poster before leaving class. I hope to do this everyday, but not, definitely an end of the week as a culminating self-reflection piece on our learning. I think this will serve as a good indicator of where my learners are and serve as a touch point of how to plan for my next lessons.

What are some of your favourite self-assessment tools?

New Year... New Beginnings!

Welcome to a "revamped" Chung's Learning Space!! I am very excited to start the new school year with an updated blog look and a new promise to post/blog more in this upcoming school year (i.e busy is no excuse)!! I will be working with a wonderful group of Grade 4 learners this year. I am looking forward to learning and working with them and cannot wait to share what we are learning... stay tuned for updates :)!

Inspirational Idea: Re-imagined Guided Reading

Came across this great article that made me reflect on my own guided reading practice. There are some great points raised. My favorite idea for rethinking guided reading is to ask students to determine the most important information but also discuss where students can access tools to learn more/gather more information about the topic! Definitely worth the read!

Re-imagining guided reading in the 21st century http://zite.to/1kqJlxZ