Ms. Coutts' Class

Category: Career Education (Page 2 of 2)

Working Together

September 27, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Learning to work together to complete tasks and achieve a common goal is part of a skillset that underlies all aspects of curriculum. Throughout our first couple of weeks together, Division 3 has been working in small randomized groups on a variety of tasks to practice our communication, thinking, and interpersonal skills. When working in groups, we need to remember the “big 3”:

  • Work persistently
  • Communicate productively
  • Take risks

Division 3 discussed how sometimes we need to take breaks to regulate ourselves when getting frustrated because our brains can “shut down” when overwhelmed, that communication requires sharing AND listening, and that taking risks requires trust of everyone else in the group.

Today students got some practice with the big 3: they worked in small groups with an elastic and string to move cups into various formations according to the instruction cards provided. They had to use verbal and non-verbal communication and teamwork to complete their task.

Division 3 — What was something that made you feel successful today? What was something that was the most challenging for you?

Student-Led Conferences, May 17 & 19

May 9, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Student-led conferences are coming up on May 17th and 19th. The purpose of a student-led conference is exactly how it sounds–each student will lead their family through some examples of their learning from this school year.

Although you signed up for an hour time slot, student-led conferences usually take around 15-20 minutes and occur sometime within that hour in order to accommodate space for other visiting families.

Students will be sharing their learning in relation to completed or in-progress assignments and reflecting on the Core Competencies.

Related image

Students will select two or three Core Competencies, show evidence that demonstrates their strengths, and share how they would like to continue growing within each competency. Students may also reflect on how competencies tend to overlap.

In addition to the posters and handouts in the classroom, students should refer to the added information in the Core Competencies tab in the menu above.  We are working to include this language, and variations of it, into our Blogfolios as well as our Student-Led Conferences. Parents who are unable to attend the student-led conference may still have the student-led conversation at home through the Blogfolio.

Students in BC complete self-assessments at the end of the year as part of their final report cards, and so we are weaving the practice of self-assessment and portfolio development into our daily activities and informal reporting.

The self-assessment process is a cycle of identifying strength(s), providing evidence, setting goals, and taking action.

Students’ self-assessments may be awkward at first as they are developing greater awareness and reflective capacity regarding their Communication, Thinking, and Personal/Social skills. They are exploring and applying language to describe their learning through curricular content areas.  Students are working hard to become more fluent in their understanding and communication of the Core Competencies.

See you next week!

Pink Shirt Day👚

February 23, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Do you know what Pink Shirt Day is REALLY about? It’s more than just wearing a pink shirt! It started as an act of kindness combatting homophobia.

 

 

Here is some more information about the day and its origins:

What is something you do to spread kindness? How can you be an advocate for others?

Also, here is the short video we watched in class:

This video has lots of layers. Use your On/Between/Beyond the Line reading skills to unpack what this video is about:

  • On the line–what are we seeing and hearing?
  • Between the lines–what implicit message(s) are being communicated?
  • Beyond the lines–what connections can you make to other texts, experiences, or events?

Global Goals

January 11, 2022 / / 5 Comments

The Global Goals are seventeen goals to end poverty, fight inequality, and address climate change. Governments need to work together to make big changes in policies, but each individual citizen also has a role to play in order to build a better future for everyone.

The Global Goals were developed by the United Nations in 2015, with the aim to build a better world by 2030. We are already seven years in–there has been progress made, but we still have a ways to go.

 

 

Division 3–what are some actions you are taking or are willing to take in order to contribute to the Global Goals?

 

What Is Fair?

October 29, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Is the world a fair and just place to live?

Students in Division 3 worked in teams to do a building challenge where they were tasked with building the tallest tower possible in ten minutes. Each group received an envelope containing toothpicks, string, tape, spaghetti, and mini-marshmallows to build with. This is a common ADST challenge that many of the students have done before… but what they didn’t know was that each envelope had different amounts of supplies. Some had lots of marshmallows but very little spaghetti, some had lots of spaghetti but few marshmallows, and so forth.

They had different amounts of supplies because this was actually a Social Studies exploration where students would examine the how the distribution of the world’s wealth and resources are inequitable. In this task students:

  • asked questions, analyzed ideas, and communicated findings
  • developed a plan of action to address a challenge
  • exchanged ideas and viewpoints to build a shared understanding

So here’s how it all went down…

Continue reading

Class Agreements

October 26, 2021 / / 5 Comments

How should a classroom space feel?

What kinds of things can make it a productive space? A caring space? A safe space?

How can we all contribute to building community in our classroom?

What are your roles as a student? What are the teacher’s roles?

These are all questions we have started exploring as we reflect on our class agreements.

At the very start of the year, we brainstormed various roles and responsibilities expected from students and teachers. Several themes emerged from this discussion, and these themes are our Class Agreements. The agreements are:

  • Mutual Respect
  • Safety
  • Right to Participate/Right to Pass
  • Attentive Listening
  • Appreciations/No Put-Downs

These agreements don’t happen automatically–they take work and collaboration on the part of each individual student and teacher. Because these themes can be quite broad, students worked in small groups to create Y-charts to describe what each of these agreements would “Look like,” “Sound like,” and “Feel like.” After the first round, we reflected on what each agreement meant, and what each group wrote–we discussed how we could be more specific with our descriptions. Then groups worked on adding ideas to two more Y-charts.

A couple of things I noticed during this group work:

  1. At first, students had a tough time naming specific actions, phrases, etc. to describe each of these categories. There were lots of notes about “Sounds respectful,” and so we really had to dig into what you would actually hear if you walked into a space where people were treating each other with mutual respect, for example.
  2. You might notice off-topic doodling or writing on some of the sheets. Some students noticed this, too. We discussed the idea of “respecting the work.” Especially when we are working in a group, it’s important to honour the contributions of others by offering our own quality contributions. I’ve also noticed this doodling etc on assignments. Keep the doodles to your doodle-book, and keep the assignments clear of clutter so they are easier to read. It is important that we communicate our ideas in ways that others can understand.

Division 3–what is something you can do to help contribute to developing and maintaining these class agreements? Comment below!

Newer posts »

© 2024 Ms. Coutts' Class

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑