Welcome Back!

Welcome back to a great school year!  It is hard to believe that we are starting our second year in this amazing space.  We had the chance to show it off to new 6th grade families during our back-to-school open house, we heard praise and excitement.  However, most of all, it reminded us how lucky we are to have this space and how we need to utilize it to its fullest potential.  

Last year was such a great year for us, but more than anything, it was a learning year and we are finding notes all over the place reminding us of things we want to tweak.  So, we have outlined some goals for this fresh new school year.  

1. To allow for more student choice when using the various learning spaces within the room.
2. Better utilize technology in new and organic ways.  
3. Incorporate inquiry and provide opportunities for students to learn through their own curiosities.
4. As teachers, learn at least a few new pedagogical methods to use within our space.  
5. Continue to push our space on other teachers and allow others to experience with their own classes.

It Takes a lot of Trust

As mentioned above, a goal for our classroom this year is to provide more autonomy within our space.  We want to help the students to figure out how they learn best and to find a space within our room that best suits their learning.  However, this is no small task.  We have spent a great deal of time at the start of this school year to make our new students and parents a part of this environment.  We wanted them to really understand how much time, effort, research and money went into this transformation and we want them to appreciate all it has to offer.  As classes, we have created expectations for each of the spaces and the students have thought of ways to increase accountability and ownership.  As we break out into our working groups, we are excited to see students gravitate towards some of the non conventional spaces.  It is amazing to see the learning going on, even when lying on a couch!

Well Underway

Our first unit is well underway and it will be kicked off with a Hyperdoc.  What is a Hyperdoc you ask?  Check out more information here!

Students were provided with their learning target and were provided with multiple resources and tasks to guide them towards answering their targeted question.  Within this first one, students were given multiple checkpoints which required them to share a produce with a teacher.  These checkpoints help teachers to monitor their understanding as well as to guide students in their pacing, but HOLY COW were we impressed.  The hard work of our elementary predecessors is definitely shining through.  Students required little to no instruction on using the technology and have amazed us with their products.  So, this means that we, as teachers, had better step up our game.  Here are a few pics of the students hard at work!  

Partners working in the lounge

Using the counter space and white boards to brainstorm