My new VP this year (who administers our campus - I never see the principal), is VERY keen on program that the board is implementing. I have been attending workshop after workshop to try to improve my teaching skills and to stay up-to-date on current trends in our board. The focus is on math and improving the students' test scores. There is a real push for the 3-part math lesson and moving away from the previous program we used (Nelson, for my CAD friends). But now there is some talk that we may end up moving back to a rote program. I can't keep up! The other thing I have been doing in math is called "Number Talks" which is a mini- lesson I do each day to get the students using mental math. It is definitely working. If you haven't heard of it, I highly recommend the book and doing this as part of your daily math routine.
In Social Studies, Ontario is rolling out a new curriculum which is inquiry based. I went to a workshop last night for it. I love the idea of inquiry based learning, but am still trying to figure out how to actually plan for it.
So since I'm not really ALLOWED to give my students things such as worksheets, I haven't had the opportunity to create many cool and cute things for them to do. I'm hoping to find a nice balance of inquiry based learning, group work situations, and independent work... but I'm not sure it will happen this year and under my current administrator.
If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
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