A Teacher’s Hat: August 2018 Letter
Dear fellow teachers and friends,
August has begun and that means the beginning of the next school year comes closer with every passing day. I hope that you took advantages of the summer break and will go back to your classrooms with renewed energy. I will be starting my last year of Education and taking courses in topics of assessment, literacy and more.
July was a month full of growth and we published 8 articles, 4 of which were by our new writers. :)
- Melissa kicked off July for us by telling us about Flipgrid and how it solves many problems that teachers face in their classrooms. Read her article here.
- Next, I tackled the question of how to make engagement and empowerment happen in the classroom. I mentioned Genius Hour briefly and this led to Melissa’s follow up article on the Genius Hour, where she shared her experiences with organizing it and the fabulous student projects that came out of it.
- Aaron gave us an insight into Professional Learning Communities and how we can use the combined expertise of our teachers to help our students grow.
- Professional Development (PD) is an integral part of being a teacher because we are always learners ourselves. Andrew explored the different kinds of PD opportunities and the broad categories that we can use to select the development we want to see in ourselves.
- Classcraft is a popular platform for gamifying the classroom. Ginger shared her experiences of using it in her classroom and engage students through the means of a video-game style environment.
- I shared the conversation I had with Treena, my step-mom who used to teach English in Japan and was a Teaching Assistant in Canada. She talks about being a teacher and TA and the challenges that came with both. We also talked about the role of TA in the classroom and teaching moments. You can read her interview here.
- Varun explored authentic and traditional assessments, and the bigger question of whether assessments and grades can go hand in hand.
Before I tell you what we have planned for August, I want to invite you to join our mailing list to get updates about new articles delivered right to your inbox! You can sign up here and I will explain more about this at the end of the email. :)
The first article is out on the 3rd! I will explain how the Brain Rules by John Medina relate to Inquiry-based learning. I just finished reading Dive into Inquiry by Trevor MacKenzie and you an expect at least one more article about the book this month. Varun will be exploring another book by Trevor called Inquiry Mindset. Also related to books, Ginger will tell us about scaffolding using children’s picture books.
Aaron will share a follow up article to his Professional Learning Communities (PLC), examining Instructional technology PLC this time to promote student-centered use of instructional technology. In the meantime, Andrew will be researching Project-Based Learning and sharing his findings.
I recently completed an online course on Gamification in Learning, offered by Lynda.com. I will share my experience of that. I will also be working with Alicia to devise a plan to gamify the Math classroom.
Much writing, collaboration and research ahead!
Exciting Developments
Have you heard of #OneSmallThing?
At our monthly meeting on the 5th, we will be writing our #OneSmallThing as a team! We are excited to share it with you so stay tuned on Twitter. We encourage you to share yours as well!
Giveaway
Also, we are planning a Giveaway at the end of the month! Sign up to A Teacher’s Hat mailing list to get exclusive updates about the giveaway.
Have a great August! See you at the Giveaway! :)
Regards,
Kriti
