Today I drove to Formosa again (92 km one way). It was a beautiful spring morning and I had a coffee and CBC playing, so I enjoyed the drive.
Cheryl and I had a busy day planning, organizing and typing.
First, we had a debriefing session over coffee. We read the evaluations the teachers gave us about our project and PD sessions. We re-hashed a few worries and had a laugh. Then it was time to cull, shred and re-organize the "Dreaded Paper Trail". We had 2 huge boxes of stuff to sort through.
Next, we took awhile to fill in all the Board Office paper work related to ordering lunches each day, paying out mileage (to me for the hundreds of kms I've driven), etc. etc. This is always a terrible moment for me because I have to literally hunt in the backseat of my car to find all my receipts. They are in a folder, but for some reason they migrate under my seats! Perhaps the receipts are lonely and hoping to meet a stray chip or forgotten Lego robot? In any case, once this job was accomplished we moved on.
We spent a long time talking about what needs to be in our final project submission. It is our intention to create and bind a book with all the work from this year. It will includes the templates and the exemplars for all the future writing moderation sessions.
We also made a phone call to the Ministry of Education. We begged for an extension of the deadline and received it. Whew! Now we have a few extra weeks to wrap this all up.
Tomorrow, it is typing time. Cheryl and I will spend the day typing up all the work the teacher's accomplished during their moderation sessions, in preparation for the final book.
Wish us luck!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Here come the Primary teachers
On May 12th Cheryl, Francine and I gathered our Primary level French Immersion teachers for another round of teacher moderation.
We followed much the same format as we did with the Junior and Intermediate teachers on May 11th.
It all went remarkably smoothly. I worked with the grade 2 teachers for several hours. We took pieces of grade 2 writing and used a rubric to assess the writing's level and next steps for the student. There was an amazingly long and complex discussion about what can we reasonably expect 7 and 8 year olds to know about recycling, energy conservation and natural resource uses! Thanks girls, the discussions always intrigue and invigorate me.
Francine had the most interesting group this time. The Kindergarten teachers! It takes a special person to get a 5 year old to write in French! The Kindergarten teachers decided that our rubric (yeah, the one we've revised EVERY month since April of 2008) doesn't work for them. In retrospect, they are right and I'm not sure what we were thinking all these months! However, that means ALL the previously finished work for SK will have to be redone. ARGHH! Every piece of writing will have to be re-marked, and probably re-typed too. Boohoo. However, the group made the right choice about all this and we will get it done, somehow.
Once again, we looked at a video clip, read a monograph and celebrated our success. We had another retiree to honour too. And cake, always cake. Can't go wrong with cake.
So, thanks teachers for another crazy session of hard work and sticking your neck out. We really really appreciate it.
We followed much the same format as we did with the Junior and Intermediate teachers on May 11th.
It all went remarkably smoothly. I worked with the grade 2 teachers for several hours. We took pieces of grade 2 writing and used a rubric to assess the writing's level and next steps for the student. There was an amazingly long and complex discussion about what can we reasonably expect 7 and 8 year olds to know about recycling, energy conservation and natural resource uses! Thanks girls, the discussions always intrigue and invigorate me.
Francine had the most interesting group this time. The Kindergarten teachers! It takes a special person to get a 5 year old to write in French! The Kindergarten teachers decided that our rubric (yeah, the one we've revised EVERY month since April of 2008) doesn't work for them. In retrospect, they are right and I'm not sure what we were thinking all these months! However, that means ALL the previously finished work for SK will have to be redone. ARGHH! Every piece of writing will have to be re-marked, and probably re-typed too. Boohoo. However, the group made the right choice about all this and we will get it done, somehow.
Once again, we looked at a video clip, read a monograph and celebrated our success. We had another retiree to honour too. And cake, always cake. Can't go wrong with cake.
So, thanks teachers for another crazy session of hard work and sticking your neck out. We really really appreciate it.
Working with the Junior and Intermediate teachers
Well, it's over. That whooshing sound you just heard was a sigh of contentment! We did it.
On May 11 and 12th Cheryl, Francine and I pulled together our French Immersion teachers again. It was the last round of PD as part of our Ministry project and boy did it feel wonderful to be done!
On Monday we met for a full day to work with our Junior and Intermediate teachers. Once again, the teachers were amazing and really worked hard. First, we did a quick review of where we are at, and how to moderate pieces of student writing in a group, building consensus as you go. Then we broke into grade level groups.
I ended up working with the wonderful grade 6 teachers. What a great bunch. Everyone brought samples of their student's work, collected the previous week using a pre-determined prompt. We began by looking for level 1,2,3 and 4 pieces of work and carefully using the rubric to build a complete rationale. Part way through the grade 6 teachers pointed out that the prompt that was sent out to them was the wrong one! Grrrrr! This mistake lies entirely with my team, not with the grade 6 teachers. So, we wrote a new prompt and agreed to administer it again later this week. Quite the set back since this means the grade 6 writing samples are NOT ready for typing up and refining until much later than the others.
Things went much smoother for Cheryl and Francine's groups. They were able to complete the moderation in the allotted time.
Next, we looked at a video about using Data Walls and setting reasonable targets. The video was in French and it was neat to see the teacher jargon used in French. Next, we looked carefully at a monograph from the Literacy and Numeracy Secratariat. The discussion generated was rich and the monograph confirmed that the work we have been doing is aligned with what the Ministry of Education is looking for.
At the end of the day we took a half hour to celebrate. We thanked everyone for their hard work. We gave out some prizes and some new writing resources. We had cake. We honoured our retirees. The last order of business was having everyone complete an evaluation sheet.
So, all in all, a productive and fun day. We ladies worked late into the evening to get ready for the next day's PD session. Thanks teachers! We appreciate your hard work.
On May 11 and 12th Cheryl, Francine and I pulled together our French Immersion teachers again. It was the last round of PD as part of our Ministry project and boy did it feel wonderful to be done!
On Monday we met for a full day to work with our Junior and Intermediate teachers. Once again, the teachers were amazing and really worked hard. First, we did a quick review of where we are at, and how to moderate pieces of student writing in a group, building consensus as you go. Then we broke into grade level groups.
I ended up working with the wonderful grade 6 teachers. What a great bunch. Everyone brought samples of their student's work, collected the previous week using a pre-determined prompt. We began by looking for level 1,2,3 and 4 pieces of work and carefully using the rubric to build a complete rationale. Part way through the grade 6 teachers pointed out that the prompt that was sent out to them was the wrong one! Grrrrr! This mistake lies entirely with my team, not with the grade 6 teachers. So, we wrote a new prompt and agreed to administer it again later this week. Quite the set back since this means the grade 6 writing samples are NOT ready for typing up and refining until much later than the others.
Things went much smoother for Cheryl and Francine's groups. They were able to complete the moderation in the allotted time.
Next, we looked at a video about using Data Walls and setting reasonable targets. The video was in French and it was neat to see the teacher jargon used in French. Next, we looked carefully at a monograph from the Literacy and Numeracy Secratariat. The discussion generated was rich and the monograph confirmed that the work we have been doing is aligned with what the Ministry of Education is looking for.
At the end of the day we took a half hour to celebrate. We thanked everyone for their hard work. We gave out some prizes and some new writing resources. We had cake. We honoured our retirees. The last order of business was having everyone complete an evaluation sheet.
So, all in all, a productive and fun day. We ladies worked late into the evening to get ready for the next day's PD session. Thanks teachers! We appreciate your hard work.
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