The Swag Saga

#ICANyet wristbands, originally intended to be swag for participants at a recent presentation, have caused quite a stir. 

Quite an awesome stir indeed.

Students in Mr. Montanaro's class were given wristbands, with a responsibility:   One they could keep and enjoy, a second MUST be given away and accompanied by a brief #ICANyet lesson. Basically, they were to spread the news about The Power of YET on goal-setting and Growth Mindset with their peers. What happened next blew me away!

The more wristbands I spotted around the school, the more amazing anecdotes I heard about how to use YET-- all in child-friendly, truly authentic ways.

In some cases, the anecdotes included trying to cartwheel for the first time while others took on more curriculum based forms like how to use integers or add fractions. Regardless, the buzz was #ICANyet and it was awesome to hear and see.

At Frassati, #WECANyet!!!  Can you?

And the sharing continues...EdCamp-style.

Are you an EdCamper? As an EdCamp newbie, I continue to be impressed by the rich conversation and awesome networking opportunities that naturally present themselves when passionate teachers come together in this way.  Driven by a love for learning, TCDSB EdCampers set aside their personal lives on a recent Saturday morning to share, listen and learn.  Guided conversation were facilitated by teachers for teachers on topics that were meaningful and relevant to a huge range of educators.

Circle set-up promoted authentic conversations.

Both Dan and I facilitated sessions with a focus on growth mindset, the power of YET and student-driven portfolios. Our prezis can be viewed at the links below. That being said, keeping with EdCamp-style, conversations were fluid and re-direction welcomed which led to the most amazing sharing and connecting.

https://prezi.com/m/xazppuoci_tj/icanyet-growth-mindset-the-power-of-yet-and-praise/

We chatted ways in which to promote risk-taking and goal-setting, exploring the idea of failing forward and appreciating that the path to success most certainly isn't always a straight one.  We also discussed Carol Dweck's experiences and made connections to those similar in our own daily teaching practice.

Talk of goal-setting led way to reflecting on our student self-reflections. A classroom consensus seemed to be recognizing the value of self-reflections and that although we sometimes forget to fit in time for it, student self-evaluation is key to goal-setting and determining next steps. Additionally, some participants questioned whether self-reflections should focus on curriculum-based success criteria or learning skills or a combination of the two.

Finally, where does feedback fit in? Does our praise really make a difference?

We explored and discussed feedback at length, with a focus on how to shift our own mindset to praise the process rather than the ability in order to promote student grit and resilience.

 Do you foresee any disadvantages of praising effort?

Of course, teachers cannot not discuss resources!

We shared a "few of our favourite things" when it came to resources related to Growth mindset in both English and French.

In Dan's session, participants contributed to a graffiti wall of sharing as they discussed student-driven portfolios, student-led conferences and making connections to "All About Me".

https://prezi.com/m/hwc7suafcw8r/digital-portfolios-icanyet/

What a great day of sharing and learning!

With door prizes to boot! Thanks @TCDSB21C.

Looking forward to next year!

The Power of Yet and Praise

"The only person you should try to be better than, 
is the person you were yesterday."

At Frassati, the students are learning just that. Embracing the Power of Yet, we've encouraged students to take risks, fail forward and appreciate errors as opportunities for growth. In their personal reflections for their digital portfolios, students ponder not only their learning goals and achievement of success criteria, but also their learning skills and any areas of weakness that they need to work on.  The creation of student-friendly learning goals played an imperative role in student development of self-regulation skills by encouraging them to take ownership over their leaning. Moreover, by using the word "yet" in their everyday language, weaknesses become more finite, with an end point ahead. It helped students to appreciate that learning is a journey and that they were on the right path to success. Even when it's not a straight one.

In order to promote the use of "yet", we coined the expression #ICANyet. Hashtag added for Twitter curating of ideas but mostly for "coolness factor" among grade fives. In this case YET becomes an action, something that I can do-- That is use it. #ICANyet, can you?

As a teacher, one of my learning goals this year was to focus on my praise. I've made a conscious effort to attempt to praise the process in completing a task rather than a student's ability.

In French, I focused my praise on effort, determination and strategies used to  communicate and understand. With a student friendly learning goal such as "We are learning to use varied reading strategies to help us understand authentic French texts", I might provide students with feedback such as "Bon effort! J'aime que tu as regardé pour les mots-connus, les mots-amis et que tu as bien regardé les images pour faire des prédictions." In other words, praising the use of practised reading strategies and determination rather than a traditional "Bravo" or comment about the child being a good reader.

#ICANyet shift my praise! 

(Admittedly a work in progress)

#ICANyet get to know Digital Portfolios

We've been fortunate to have various opportunities to share our learning. Some more "traditional" than others, including Edcamps, webinars, Twitter chats and board break out sessions. Our main goal always to spread the word on how powerful portfolios can be in student self-reflection and growth, self-regulation and keeping the learning visible while promoting a strengthened home-school connection. 

Student driven portfolios allow students to express their voice in their journey and take on the role of "Leaders in their Own Learning". 

In our study of the like-titled book by Ron Berger and Carol Dweck's Mindset, we focused our attention on celebrating successes but also recognizing areas of weakness and planning their path to improvement. Students identified their goals and whether they achieved them or "not yet" (hence #ICANyet) with a reflection on why or why not. We embraced the Power of Yet, the idea of failing forward and shifted our praise and mindset accordingly.

Students used Google Slides to present student-led conferences to their teacher and parents, allowing them to take real ownership over their learning. Parents were thrilled to see their children as presenters, kids were nervous but excited and the teacher took on the role of facilitator.

The fact that portfolios were digital, it enabled presentation whether parents were able to attend conferences or not. In some cases, students used a voice-over application called Screecastify to create a remote presentation. 

Digital portfolios can take on many forms. There are a variety of applications available to curate, organize and present with student, teacher and parent feedback options. Since our board recently launched GAFE (Goggle Apps for Education), we explored Google Slides and provided QR codes to any parents who couldn't attend conferences. Google Slides work well as a presentation platform as well as offers security as viewing can be limited to those provided with the link and a board login. 

How do you encourage parent and student engagement? Keep learning visible? Please share your experiences!

To access links in the images pictured above, see our prezi at:

https://prezi.com/m/hwc7suafcw8r/digital-portfolios-icanyet/

TLLP sharing

Our TLLP sharing has been a journey on its own!  Although we initially envisioned your "traditional workshop", our sharing has transformed into Twitter chats, GoToMeeting webinars, EdCamps, GAFE break-out sessions and mentorship.  Multi-faceted sharing has allowed us to access educators across boards and nations, making connections and greatly multiplying the effects of the project.  #ICANyet embrace 21C sharing!  Can you?

GAFE and digital portfolios: learning and sharing

As our board recently launched #GAFE (Google apps for education), we were thrilled to be able to share our learning and work at a recent TCDSB21C Google Innovator workshop.  Our break-out session participants were awesome: fully engaged with a wide range of experiences to share.  The link to our preso is below for your reference.  We presented the basics of What is a Google app?, Explored the Chrome Store as well as a few of our favourite apps for educators.  Our TLLP sharing extended to demonstrating how to use Google docs, forms, sheets and slides in curating and presenting student-driven e-portfolios.  #ICANyet use Google apps, can you?

Here's the link to our presentation.

http://bit.ly/1YCRymS

Student-led conferences TLLP #ICANyet

As part of our TLLP journey, we are exploring student-led conferences and digital portfolios with a focus on growth mindset and self-regulation.

What is a student-led conference?

Click here up find out more:

https://youtu.be/zzYtBKgM_oA

Student led conferences #ICANyet - YouTube

In the process of our action-research, we gained valuable insight into ways in which to link technology to portfolios, with a focused effort on developing both personal and classroom climates of appreciation for individual growth, goal-setting and thoughtful self-reflection.  

We've also learned to better support our students to demonstrate a strong sense of pride, responsibility and empowerment over their learning.  As educators, we too continue to develop as life-long learners and leaders as we create and share our own professional portfolios, reflecting on our growth, weaknesses and learning acquired throughout the TLLP project. We have been actively researching how to assign work that matters, examples of excellence and how to build a culture of critique that requires multiple revisions and provides opportunities for public presentations.

We'd love to connect! Please also collaborate with us through our TLLP hashtag #ICANyet 

Here's a link to our most recent sharing:

TCDSB EdCamp

Digital Portfolios #ICANyet by Dan Montanaro on Prezi 

Metacognition in FSL

We have been exploring Growth Mindset and metacognition in FSL
as it relates to learning goals and skills: 

 Students created an "Instagram post" based on their past experiences with a goal of introducing passé composé for the purpose of spontaneous communication. Students discussed their past weekends with extensions such as avec qui, où et pourquoi and then prepared a more formal written task. Co-created success criteria included matching images with the text, revision and editing process as well as some learning skills. As a French teacher who doesn't exactly assess learning skills, I'm wondering how this fits in? Although we discussed strategies time and time again, we continue to reflect on learning skills in our metacognition piece of the FSL curriculum. What are your thoughts?

This week’s Friday Fizz features:

http://www.district96.org/blog/portfolio-items/friday-fizz-1-22-2016/

Great ideas and awesome layout for a news letter.