My Struggle With Letter Grades

Much of my teaching experience, prior to becoming a vice-principal was teaching primary students. When teaching primary students, we do not assign letter grades. Instead, we look at each prescribed learning outcome for each student on a continuum of learning: not yet within expectations, approaching expectations, meeting expectations, and exceeding expectations. I very rarely indicatedContinue reading “My Struggle With Letter Grades”

Soft Eyes and a Warm Voice

On Friday, for the Provincial Professional Day, a group of us from our school heard the second part of the workshop by Colleen Drobot on Supporting the Inner City Teacher. Specifically, her workshop was entitled: “Working With Immature, Sensitive and/or Stuck Kids”.  The second part of her workshop she presented was called: “You’re Not theContinue reading “Soft Eyes and a Warm Voice”

I Heart Pro. D.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you probably know that I love learning.  So, it wouldn’t surprise you that I love Professional Development Days and today was one of those days. While I will discuss my Professional Development Day experience in a later blog post, I just wanted to talk briefly about why I loveContinue reading “I Heart Pro. D.”

We Did It!

Yesterday was the day that I committed to myself and, more importantly, to my students that we were going to have our Health & Career Education class in the computer lab. I’d been planning this since the summer, but it just hadn’t happened yet.  The students were ready, but I wasn’t quite ready, but IContinue reading “We Did It!”

Life Long Learners

The district in which I work is an amazing district, full of truly dedicated educators and people who really care about kids.  They want to make a difference.  And they do. Each and every day. Last week, I blogged about the wonderful initiatives being provided to the administrators in our district: study groups, independent studies,Continue reading “Life Long Learners”

Leading the Millennials

As part of my professional growth I am involved with a study group of administrators. We are focusing our growth in the area of technology and 21st Century learning and education.  We have chosen to read Leading 21st Century Schools:Harnessing Technology for Engagement and Achievement as our first book on which to focus our learning. IContinue reading “Leading the Millennials”

Confession

I’ve got a bit of a confession to make. Over the past few months I’ve been doing a great deal of learning online and that has been so very exciting!  It allowed me to start the year very excited and pondering the impact technology would have with the students I teach at my new school.Continue reading “Confession”

I’m Thankful

The Thanksgiving long weekend is here already. It’s amazing to me how fast this year has gone so far!  I can’t let this weekend end though, without blogging about the 10 things for which I am most thankful (I’m sure there are well over 10).  In no particular order, this year’s list of the TenContinue reading “I’m Thankful”

Exciting Things are Happening

We have such an exciting, innovative district!  I am so excited about what the future holds with our district.  Let me share a few initiatives that were shared with us at our admin meeting on Wednesday. Administrators can choose to be involved in a variety of different opportunities, which include: Study Groups – we’ve alwaysContinue reading “Exciting Things are Happening”

Engaging the Digital Learner – Part 1

The first night of the Engaging the Digital Learner dinner series planned by our District Helping Teachers was this past Thursday night (September 29).  What a great event! It was a full house (well over 100 people), full of excited, enthusiastic, and caring educators (teachers, administrators, district staff and senior management) who want to makeContinue reading “Engaging the Digital Learner – Part 1”