New School Structure

I've had to take a break from blogging over the past month or so due to my involvement in my school's restructuring for next year. Our school board has undergone a renewal process and launched the opportunity for schools to propose a new innovative school structure that involves teacher collaboration, project and inquiry based learning opportunities for students, flexible time tabling, mixed groupings and a focus on literacy and numeracy skills. Our school decided to take the board up on its challenge and submitted a proposal. In the end, we are one of ten elementary schools and four high schools to be chosen. We are very excited about next year.

I'm most excited to be moving into a classroom with a SMART Board. I will be moving into a larger classroom that will have room for students to work on project-based learning opportunities in the afternoon. I will also get to use the SMART Board for my literacy and numeracy blocks in the morning.

The structure we proposed is outlined in a Power Point presentation I created to present to our staff and parent council. I have posted it to Slide Share to include it in this post. I have also included the draft of the handout we produced to distribute at our Board's Annual General Meeting last week. I don't have a digital version of the final draft.

WW SIWG Presentation

View more presentations from bobiashj.

WWAGM Brochure

View more documents from bobiashj.

As we embark on this new structural innovation, I would love to hear from others regarding our plan. Have you implemented similar plans in your school or division? How have you used SMART Boards in your classroom? Do you have other ideas or suggestions after reviewing our plan?

Universal Design for Learning

My cousin sent me this link on the weekend. It is the keynote from a conference that was put on for teachers in BC called "Reaching Every Student in the Digital Age: A Showcase of Universal Design for Learning." Dr. David Rose from the Center for Applied Special Technology was the keynote speaker. The BCTF has now archived the webcast. You can find it at the bottom of this web page: http://www.bctf.ca/psas/LATA/conference/oct08conf.htm.


If you not had a chance to see Dr. Rose speak on the Universal Design for Learning, it is a great opportunity to learn about it.

I know that this is a long presentation (over 2 hours), but well worth listening to! On the website, you can either watch all or part of Dr. Rose's presentation.

Here are a few things I got out of it:

• I enjoyed Dr. Rose's comparison of the different note taking styles in his class at Harvard. Very good example of collaborative learning and differentiated styles of note taking.
• The explanation of the brain and the demonstration of what the brain looks like while it is learning new things was very interesting. MRI technology is fascinating.
• The sharing of the CAST website http://www.cast.org/ was very useful for differentiated learning using technology. I'm particularly intrigued by the Book Builder function of the site.
• The curriculum, in its current printed in black and white state, is what is disabling for students. A renewable, ever evolving curriculum would be better able to serve the needs of all students making it more universal.

I hope it generates some discussion. I found it very worthwhile to watch.