Annual Kiva Fair

Kiva provides microloans for people in need. You can research a large variety topics, countries, global issues and more. Students researched the global issues that spoke to them a launched a mini campaign to try to get other classes informed and asking for $1 donations.

Christmas Cards

This Christmas Charity Inquiry has by far been one of my all time favourite inquiries. I asked students to think of a way to raise funds for a charity of at need. The only limitations were we had no money and we had to get the whole school involved. 

After a lot of brainstorming and pitching ideas students decided we could have a Christmas Card Contest for each grade and feature the winners on cards that would then be sold back to the school.

Students divided into groups based on their talents. Some focused on writing to students and making posters/school announcements and a letter that would go home to inform everyone of the contest. Others wrote to parents convincing the to buy. And the third group researched, phoned/emailed businesses that printed cards for donations and prices. 

I want to thank Toronto Printing House with being so supportive and patient with our students as they learned how to write clear emails, perfected speaking on the phone and a million other real life skills. From start to finish the students in my class created this initiative and saw it through. Spending countless hours of recess, after school sales and more. The students were able to take the lead and worked through more math, language and Social Studies than I ever could have imagined.

By the end, they were able to raise funds that went to helping students in the Hospital over Christmas. The funds went directly to supporting Sick Kids.   

Self Taught Speed Calculator

After working on our STEAM activities our class realized they needed a speed calculator to track and translate the speed of an object

Class Inquiry Project

As a culminating Task students were asked to use all the skills they gathered this year and create a meaningful and relevant project. These projects addressed students own learning and interests. They worked on and built this blog as a means of showing the world their fantastic project.

http://mrbutlersinquiries.blogspot.ca/ 

Family Math Night

Last night I was fortunate enough to give my first keynote address to a group of over 200 parents and at a Family Math Night at St Gregory's. The staff and parents were amazing and really passionate about exploring Play-based Learning. The presentation is below and really focuses on how we need to highlight students natural curiousity and making learning tangible for students.
I argue games are a rich starting point that helps students develop a growth mindset around their learning. Students play games and are more likely to take risks, try different strategies and make strong connections to the work. Games must be supported with higher order and meta cognitive questions if we want our students to consolidate their learning. Without these questions games can be great activities, but the learning doesn't last if students are not able to communicate and process their learning.
Take a look see the power of what Play-Based Learning really means.

AQ Inquiry

Last year I was able to take a fantastic AQ Certification through York University in Creating an Inquiry-based Learning Classroom. I loved the course and felt it blended beautifully with the work I was doing around Project-based Learning (PBL).

Several months ago I received an email from York University asking if I was interested in teaching the course. I jumped at the opportunity and started preparing.

The course is a blended course and utilizes Moodle and a face to face session. It has been incredible seeing the sharing and learning unfold in the moodle. Just as remarkable was the discussions that erupted at our in-class session at York.

 

GAFE Innovators Day 1

TCDSB been hosting Innovators series for the past several years. These workshops revolve around the NeXt lesson competencies and focus on creating a rich inquiry-based classroom.
This year the focus was on use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) specifically Google Apps for Education (GAFE).
Attached is the GAFE slideshow used to for the presentation. The authors include Ben Di Millo, Anita Arpaia and myself.

Be The Change

For over a month we have been studying Global Issues affecting Canada and the world. We have studied very heavy issues that have left students at times sad and frustrated about the world. Children are not content and complacent in the world; they spot the problems and challenge it.
Lately, we have been moving into a place of asking; we identify the problem and ask what is the world doing. We have been studying NGOs and looking at various not for profits. Going forward students will be creating their own mock charities based on an issue they are passionate for.

To make our learning real, we spent the morning google chatting Diana from Masaya Mission. She shared her inspiring story and the mission of Masaya Mission. The students asked great questions and learned a lot about the in and outs of running a charity. The most important thing we heard from Diana was to lead with your heart.

I want to Thank Diana for inspiring the students and sharing the morning with us.

We Refuse to be... voiceless, speechless, deaf to Global Issues

Students created beautiful art work showing what we've been learning about in Social Studies 

Biodiversity Book: Call to Action

Students have been learning about a number of different environmental issues and have been becoming strong ambassadors for this earth. Their studies have taken them from the depths of the seas to flying high with the birds. They have become poignant activists for issues such as deforestation to oil spills.
As part of our Language we have been looking at text features and the elements of a short story. Students used looked at Elements of a Story such as Plot & Conflict. All the stories and picture books the students created had very touching themes and messages. The themes were woven into their stories giving the reader a deeper meaning and understanding of the book. After creating a Success Criteria for the pictures books based on our learning students used the rubric to help them evaluate their books before handing them in.

Kinder Inquiry

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21st Century Reading Buddies = Inquiry Buddies

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic means so much more when there is context. With kindergarteners you really see how innate a love of learner is. When do we start to lose that love of learning? When does play become work? One of the themes for this year has been bringing Play-based learning into a junior classroom. My answer has been through rich game-based learning, real world problem solving and inquiry/project-based learning.

With the new full day kindergarten being play/inquiry based, I've been looking at them for insight and learning to foster that love in the junior curriculum. Along with the activities occurring in my class, I've had my students working along side the kindergarteners. In a twist of meta cognition and inquiry, my students and I are learning to understand and develop good learning practices through inquiry. My students have taken on leadership roles and help guide kindergarteners through inquiry projects. 

Below is some of the castles we build together with our inquiry buddies.

                              

STEM Challenges

Challenges inspire students to think creatively and reflect on their strategies. Having students build the tallest tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows or the most buoyant raft out of 10 sheets of paper allow students think critically. They need to make a plan, test out their ideas and revise their work.
We are constantly pleading with students to double check their work. Rich challenges sparks students interest and help motivate them to work better. Students are able to apply a theory to real world examples. Students can be hands on and get immediate feedback if they are successful or still require help.
I am a huge believer that we are not teaching students to memorize mindless facts or preparing the for the weekly test. We are inspiring students to be live long learners, researchers, problem solvers, critiquers of knowledge, skeptics, innovators, critical thinkers, team players, presenters and individuals that disrupt the status quo (Be the Change). If students can walk away from my class understanding the learning skills and the Four C's (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking & Creativity). The result of a test will not matter in 10 years, but the ability to collaborate well, gather information (not memorize a worksheet) and critically respond to information will help students for the rest of their life.

Below are some resources to support challenges in the class:

Curiosity Machine

10 Team Building Critical Thinking Questions

DIY.org

Engineering in Elementary

Instructables

Biodiversity Picture Books & PBL

Brainstorming ideas for the newest project. After a basic introduction and a quick video explaining biodiversity students. Students created a KWL chart (Know, Wonder, Learned) and using that we decided on our Driving Question, "How do you design the perfect habitat?".

We started with vague ideas and expectations that the students felt would need to be included to be successful and show their learning. I needed science information, we decided to write a story (comic, picture book, iBook, etc) and the students wanted to be creative (art). The students created the following chart we will use as our Success Criteria.

Once we had a preliminary vision of our questions (Driving Question & Wonder questions from the KWL) we could form our mini lessons based on where the students are coming from. We created a Project-based Learning Wall with our Driving Question, N2K (Need to Know lessons that we added to as we went through) and the new vocabulary from the curriculum (that will help us form the mini lessons for the unit). Quizlet is an awesome website to help students learn new vocabulary. 

I will update once the projects are done and we will hopefully have lots of cute photos reading our stories to our kindergarten inquiry buddies. 

Beginning Teachers Conference: Assisted Technology

This past weekend I was asked by OECTA to present at the Beginning Teachers Conference. I presented on Assisted Technology(AT) as a tool for EVERYONE! AT helps students find their entry point no matter the where they are coming from and what they bring with them. Technology is a great vehicle that can help students find their voice (see video) and deliver their message, but it is just a tool. I've shown hundreds of tools and resources, but it is no substitute for good teaching practises.

The message I tried to get across was centred around differentiation. Differentiation of strategies and differentiation of tools. We cannot look at one tool and expect it to solve all our problems, in the same way we cannot look at a student and think one label (special needs identification) sums them up. For information and resources from my presentation please see the below links.

*Presentation                                         *Links                                            *Handout

Flipped Lesson Math at OAME

This past week I had the fortune of presenting at the OAME with several great people. The Flipped Inquiry Team was a group of incredible teachers from around TCDSB that wanted to study the affects behind a flipped approach to learning. As part of this team I was able to play around with new ideas and challenge my own professional development. My class became a richer community and continued the shift to a more student centred class. My math lessons and teacher talk became delegated to a 5 minute video and class time opened up for students to play and explore with the math. Class questions are focused on taking ideas from theory to Real World problems.

It was a great honour to be able to talk at the OAME and present the ideas I had been playing with for the past several months.

Bridges, Towers & Flying Devices

Here is a follow up post to show the fantastic work done by the grade 5 (Butler's Big City Build) and 6 (Butler's Flight Toy Build Off) students on their Science projects. Grade 5s were answering the question how can structures be built to minimize damages from natural disasters. Here are a few creative solutions. The grade 6 students were building toy models for flying devices.

Project-Based Learning(PBL) Class Walls

I recently same across Project based Learning Connections which is a great website to learn more about PBL. They have some incredible resources ranging from launching, planning and assessing PBL in your class. One of the ideas that really intrigued me was the Dynamic Project Walls. The website lists 8 competencies and a rubric to reflect upon the creation of your own Project Wall. The walls may look cluttered, but are a great way to scaffold and document the learning process. The notion of the Third Teacher argues that students learn from their environment; this can mean geographically, socially, creative field trips or even the physical layout of the classroom. We need to optimize what we put on our walls and ask is it really helping or just distracting our students? I can't wait to try this in my class. Updates to come once it is up.

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Flipped Class

My new goal as of lately has been flipping my class.

Please find my Youtube channel here

For a great Introduction of Flipped Learning please see the Prezi attached

Social Justice for Home

Students rush home, speed through their homework and glue themselves to the TV or computer. As an alternative to this we must harness the students interest and give them purposeful and meaningful work to do at home. I've discussed the power of gamification and in-depth Inquiry/Project based Learning, but a power purpose and compelling the students to impact the world can be the perfect engagement piece for students.

Resources like FreeRice are a fantastic way to teach students multiple lessons. Students are asked basic questions on math, geometry, language and others while at the same time earning 10 grains of rice for the World Food Organization for each correct multiple choice answer. 

Another fantastic website is Change.org that allows students to browse local and global petitions. Students can read up about issues that they care about and also write their own petitions for get their voice across.