Student Voice: Going to a Catholic School

You get to learn to live like Jesus, and He is the Son of God.

Thank you to Jillian Fantuz, guest blogger from Holy Trinity Catholic School for submitting.  You can find her on twitter @msfantuz

Advice from a High Schooler: The Most Important Thing is Asking the Right Questions

Robotics: designing, constructing, operating,applying.

Team: collaborating, problem solving, goal-setting, accountability.

This year, as our school Robotics Team was about to begin, I do admit I was incredibly nervous. I felt as though I didn’t know enough about Robotics to be able to develop and sustain a team. I decided my first step in learning how to start would be to interview a high school student who has been part of the Robotics Team since he was in elementary school. At our meeting, he said something very powerful that resonated with me and impacted my perspective on not needing to have an extensive background in robotics to begin. He said the most important part of facilitating a Robotics Team is not to give the answers but to ask the right questions that would lead to the team generating ideas and strategies. I was immediately at ease and excited for the new adventure. I was feeling ready to begin a learning partnership with the students. I began reflecting about the students and how such a team could benefit them in developing their life long learning skills, to motivate them to achieve and develop key future skills. I wondered how participation in the Robotics Team could develop both the individual student and the group. I also wondered how the learning skills each team member was developing would not only benefit the team, but also transcend into the classroom.

Each week, when we meet, the students are so engaged and genuinely amaze themselves, their teachers, and myself about how much they are developing the learning skills of organization, collaboration, problem solving, responsibility, independent work, self-regulation, and initiative. They are making the learning skills come alive! They show initiative as they plan new challenges to overcome. The most recent challenge they are planning for is how to program their robot in an obstacle course. They are persevering and demonstrating self-awareness as they self-regulate within their partnerships. The students are becoming aware of the need to be flexible and open-minded as they collaborate towards a common goal. Students are realizing that their prior assumptions about how to accomplish a task are getting challenged and they need to be able to effectively reach a group consensus before moving forward as a team. They are developing their key future skills, they are learning to collaborate, problem solve, and communicate. The 6 C’s are being developed through their application of learning skills during each session.  

Throughout each session, as I interact with students and listen in on their dialogue to determine next steps, I encourage them to think through their steps and monitor their progress, ask one another questions, and challenge them to persevere. At the end of each session, it is proving to be very valuable to take 5 minutes for whole group reflection for students to share what they learned throughout the session and what they think they should do next. They are monitoring their own progress and are aware of the challenges they have to overcome. This is assessment for and as learning in action! We have only begun to scratch the surface in how we can monitor our learning and set goals for ourselves and the team.

“I don’t know how to do everything involved so sometimes the best thing I can do is just to listen. If I’m not so good at things, I can work at it and get better like when we were programing and we didn’t know how to but we worked at it and learned how to.” (Student, 2016)

“I can help my team and they’re willing to accept my ideas and they are willing to help me if I need help too.” (Student, 2016)

Our first Aha Moment!

When the students came to the first session, I wanted to start them with an organization task. This task would allow them to have their kit organized and would also familiarize them with all the components. I thought perhaps the students would want to get to building right away and somehow be bored with the organization task. Just the opposite was true. The students were completely engaged. They were so curious about all the components and were very eager to become oriented with the robotics kits. This session also proved favourable as we progressed through the weeks. The students quickly realized the time spent at the beginning allowed them to have a bigger picture of all the parts and provided them with more ease as they located and built their robots.  

The students had their own realization, too. They quickly realized the time spent planning and organizing up front pays off. They were able to focus on the building and collaborating since they all were part of developing a common goal.  

So, instead of the boredom I feared, the session allowed us to learn a valuable lesson that would be necessary for future team growth.

Throughout each session, the students share that they are learning more about themselves and are developing an awareness that the skills they are developing can be applied in other areas in their day to day life such as the classroom. They are excited to share how they overcame a challenge and how they needed to take a step back in the building or programming in order to move forward with their goals.

“I learned that when something goes wrong, I cannot get frustrated and need to keep trying.” (Student, 2016)

“I learned that I shouldn't be so uptight and to just get out of my shell and have fun with what I am doing. I learned to not be afraid to have a partner for work in class and not to be so uptight about work in school and to have fun with it.” (Student, 2016)

As I reflect upon the apprehension I felt to start, I am so glad we jumped in and are learning both about robotics and ourselves as learners. There are new challenges that lie ahead. Learning how to program and continuing to learn how to negotiate working as a team with self and group goals, for example. The time spent during each session flies by and is creating growth on all parts!  

“An exciting moment was when we started to program. This gave me a shot of excitement and I want to learn how to program.” (Student, 2016)

“I can really see the shift in his confidence in the classroom! Over the past few weeks, he has been offering more ideas in class and is beginning to handle his frustration so much better. He used to give up quickly and say he couldn’t, but now he is persevering more.”

(Teacher, 2016)

Thank you to SCCDSB teacher, Cortnee Goure, in Wallaceburg, ON for sharing her learning! She can be found on twitter @CGoure1

Changing My Approach-Exciting and Rewarding

Changing educational approaches to something as tried and true as the classroom novel can be a daunting and potentially frightening task. However, coming to the end of a novel unit that turned my usual practice on its head, I can honestly say that changing an approach is exciting and rewarding. 


I used a student-voice centered, inquiry based, collaborative approach to teach the novel To Kill a Mockingbird to grade 10 academic English classes. The students were very excited to discuss the aspects of the novel that excited and intrigued them. 

“(Before this experience I would have said that,) I usually just like to read a book - I don’t like classroom novels because all the questions make it boring and less exciting to read.

(This time,) getting to really think about To Kill a Mockingbird and discuss what I found interesting and shocking and exciting was really cool. I really enjoyed studying this way and I feel like I understand everything well. “ - Grade 10 Academic Student





Learning was exciting and the classroom environment was organic. Small group, large group, student blogs and google classroom were some of the learning environments and partnerships used. 

Despite my reservations, I was able to cover all pertinent curriculum and did so in a way that was more rewording and meaningful for the students and myself. 

Inquiry learning in the high school English classroom is definitely worth the time. 


Thank you to guest blogger, SCCDSB Secondary English teacher from Sarnia, ON, Natalie Gouveia, who can be found on twitter @thebard18

Blogging Classrooms Explore Social Literacy: One Student's View

This summer, I took the time to send my teacher an email,(see below) thanking him for the opportunities he gave me, one of which, would be (writing) this very blog.

Hello!

I wanted to thank you for my blog, or the opportunity of having a blog. I understand that I could've started a blog either way,  but you helped in a way that I didn't know I needed. When starting my own blog, I was uncomfortable and embarrassed. 

You, or your way of learning eased me into it. Now I am comfortable posting various blogs, whether it's reviews, letters, rants or anything else. You have so much freedom in what you share. Posting blogs can be an outlet for teens, because it allows us to have a voice.

During my life I've had trouble expressing my opinion in a way that was respecting to others, and still allows me to actually share. I'd much rather not even say anything. Blogging, however is great for that, especially when taught how to properly.

I have to admit, I have taken a bit of a hiatus, and I don't post every week. Now that I'm getting back to it, I remember why I wanted to start blogging. I recently posted one that I'm super proud of, which kind of helps with my becoming a better human. It's called "A Letter To My Younger Self". And that's basically what it is, a letter to my younger self.  

So yeah, thanks again.   May new opportunities bring new knowledge... 'Cause knowing stuff is pretty cool.

People might be asking themselves some questions right now. Why would I be thankful about a silly little blog? A pile of pixels isn’t going to help me have a future in a successful career, is it?

Actually, it might.

Knowing how to verbalize your opinion in a respectful manner is extremely beneficial, especially in careers that involve public speaking, a lawyer for example. In a serious work environment, you can’t speak to your co-workers, let alone boss, using slang or derogatory terms. Blogging helps you practice planning sentences, so that no matter what the topic is, you can converse to your audience without offending them, or sounding like you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Blogging also helps teens have a voice in a world that gives teenagers a reputation of being lazy, arrogant and immature. People expect us teens to act like adults, when they treat us as they treat children. It's quite an oxymoron. 

Reality is, teens have some amazing ideas which often go unheard. If people with power took the time to hear our opinions, they could further in their career, and target their audience in a more effective way.

At least based on my experience, teachers in blogging classrooms often allow their students to voice how/what they want to blog. When writing essays and reports, you are constantly (collecting) factual content, and you never share what you think about your topic. 

Almost all of the teenagers that I know will jump at an opportunity to talk about what they are passionate about, and have some pretty awesome opinions. They aren’t going to try half as much on an essay about something their teacher chose, as they would on a project that they choose or have experience in.

Not to mention, parents and teachers constantly nag about young adults being on our cell phones, and digital blogging isn’t much different. You couldn’t count how many times I’ve been told that texting is ruining my grammar and spelling, with all the emoticons and abbreviations.

Well actually, blogging has improved my writing skills, by quite a bit. When blogging, people are more cautious about spelling, because the audience is much more broad. After I write my blogs, I have learned to take the time to look over them, and ensure that there aren’t any grammar or spelling errors. Where before, I would hardly ever read over and edit my work, because the audience is limited to just my teacher.

Blogging has many positive aspects, and when taken into account, I find it takes a bit of a new name.  To me, it's more like Social Literacy and I genuinely encourage you to take part in it.

This guest blog was written by one of our SCCDSB students, Madelaine B. She was a member of @TeachermanHT's class in Sarnia, ON and currently blogs at http://sonicminds.weebly.com/