On Top of Our Game!

SSI Conference

Last week I was able to attend a Student Success Conference in Toronto focussing on students in the 21st Century - what an eye opener....in a great way!

I was asked to facilitate a math session so I sat down with 6 other teachers who either taught in the Toronto District School Board or the Niagara Board.  The focus was grade 9 applied math and what could be done in the classroom to help motivate the students of the 21st century.  We had to choose a lesson and come up with learning goals a plan on how it could be taught in class.  The lesson and the learning goals were pretty straight forward and done quickly.

Now for the eye-opener part.....at our board and school, we are leaps and bounds ahead of what the other schools were doing!  Simply the daily use of entry cards which have questions from the work the day before that are graded and checked daily with students being able to correct them was greeted with great enthusiasm.  Add in our use of interactive projectors, tablets, iPads, blended learning, Google docs, blogs and everything else that is incorporated at our school was mind boggling for the rest of the table!  Much information was shared and quickly the focus of our task was put aside as we pulled out our own devices and shared much information, tips and tricks to help each other out.

It was a good session, interesting to see what the different schools and boards are putting in place and trying to adapt and change to meet the needs of the new student.  Much more to come!