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.
