The SHIFT Blog

On June 1st, the Halton District School Board wants to celebrate some of the great things that happen in our schools and community.  The medium for this celebration?  Twitter and the hashtag #LoveMyHaltonSchool.  If you are reading this and are already using twitter, we think that is great!  If you haven’t had a chance to try out twitter yet, or are reluctant to jump into the world of social media, allow us a moment to try to convince you to join the conversation. We want you to create your own professional twitter account.  We also want you to know that it is ok to sign up for twitter and never tweet a thing.  Being passive in an online community is a great way to be introduced to the ins and outs of the community…and what a community it is!  There are so many educators using twitter, and their practice is enhanced by the sharing that goes on in this space. So here is our next Call to Action If you use twitter, send out a tweet on June...

I hate end of period bells.   #Observe’em observation day and the Most Likely To Succeed film gave me a lot to think about how the school day can be structured.  I don’t know if we can get rid of them entirely, but I’ve been working on playing with a timetable that offers some flexibility, as well as some opportunities to go deeper and longer in a class period.  What are your thoughts on this one? Pros? Cons?  Would love to hear your ideas and feedback!

We had the opportunity to witness an amazing project last week, and rather than write about it ourselves, we have asked the lead teacher on the project, Jordie Burton to share.  Here is what he had to say: We laughed about our day over homemade burgers and a potato salad recipe perfected by Oma. We had just finished the second full day in a blitz of a four day project to complete nearly 700 sq ft of mural. I was eating dinner with three “En Masse pour les Masses” artists visiting for the week from Montreal, who happened to be crashing at my house. The halfway point was a perfect evening to have a dinner with the three artists and three of the teachers from our school involved in the Norton Community Park Mural project.  We could debrief the project, plan for the next two days and further develop conversations that we had pulled threads on all day while painting. Our mural project was already successful, as our community was working together. Brainstorming on the theme...

I wish I could +1 an image I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Ontario Association of Mathematics Educators conference in Kingston this past week.  I plan on blogging in detail about my time there, which was amazing!  At one point the #OAME and #OAME2017 hashtags were trending in Canada.  Lots of great sharing was happening, conversations were deep and rich, it was food for the mathematical soul. Of course, as with all things social media, there were some unhappy voices.  These weighed on me, mostly because I can’t understand why an individual would be called out for mentioning a point that resonated with them.  Our institutions of education grow by sharing, not by shaming. So this troubled me on the way home Friday night.  It stuck with me Saturday morning until I decided to cut my overgrown lawn.  Distractions are helpful, right?  I wasn’t prepared for my backyard, it was overrun with dandelions and other prickly weeds...

Me and my math classmate and helper Nikolina The other day, Jamie asked whether I wanted to become a student again for a math period.  All for it, I grabbed my laptop (as I was told I needed it), and ran for the portable.  You see, Jamie was doing a little recording of Stephanie Briggs’ Grade 10 math class for the upcoming OAME (Ontario Association for Mathematics Education) conference, where Briggs will be presenting on teaching using Desmos with Todd Malarczuk. I had heard of Desmos, the online graphing calculator, because well, Jamie won’t ever stop talking about it!  As an art teacher, I never really knew what he was always so excited when Desmos was mentioned. So here was my chance to see what all the fuss was about. I settled into a group, hoping that my new math classmates might help guide me through the period.  I have to say, it is a little intimidating diving back into high school math, not having done so SINCE high school *cough* a few years ago. ...

It’s 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon, and I’m Line Dancing with 200 Halton Teachers and my cell phone is still at 75% battery.  Neither of these things are ever true in the middle of the afternoon on a school day.  First of all, during a regular day my phone is a gateway onto social media for me to share things that are happening in my classes and keep up on what other teachers on various online communities are doing.  Secondly, Line Dancing is far outside of my regular comfort zone. Two shifters, modelling our new shirts.  Try, Fail, Learn! So how did it come to this? First off, the cell phone thing.  I was far too invested in the breakout sessions to seek out my phone for distraction.  Yes, I tweeted about various things that spoke to me throughout the day, but I tried to make it quick.  The only real time I spent reading twitter was during lunch or after the breakout sessions ended.  I loved reading others reactions to what they experien...