Gantter

Here is a snippit of a website that helps you plan a project. The website is called Gantter. It is essentially an online version of Microsoft Project.

As you can see, I set up a plan for teaching the skills related to fractions that are prescribed by the Cycle 3 Quebec curriculum.

Each skill has an estimated duration, and each skill is not initiated until the prerequisite skill is completed. Thus, an estimated graphical timeline for the project is created.

Gantter.com - web-based project management alternative via kwout

I investigated the possibility of creating a similar project proposal for English, or for a subset of English, but I cannot visualize how such a thing would look.

English and Math are too different.

I am sometimes reminded just how complex and demanding the job of a teacher is, and how many people underestimate teachers as glorified babysitters.

But, here is an example of the complexity of teaching. An elementary teacher must teach Math, English, Socials, and Science. Each of these subjects is fundamentally different. They require different methods of preparation and different methods of assessment. Essentially, the elementary teacher is required to do 4 jobs simulataneously. (This is excluding other subjects, such as Art and Computers.)

Math has specific skills and abilities that can be neatly measured. Science and Socials are similar to Math, but more complicated. These subjects have facts that can be memorized and assessed, but they also have higher level concepts than might be understood.

English is the most obscure of all. The rules of grammar can be taught and measured, without much trouble; although, there is not the definite order of learning that characterizes Math. Is it more advisable to teach Capitalization or Pluralization first? It doesn't matter -- one is not a prerequisite of the other.

When it comes to reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, the role of the teacher becomes even more uncertain. There is no definite process for teaching these abilities, and there is no definite method for measuring them.

Organizing Curriculum

Two ideas have been on my mind.

Organizing and curriculum.

Philosophically, I believe that subject matter should be student centered.

However, upon closer inspection, it is to be seen that there needs to be a balance between the content that sprouts from the students and the content that is prescribed by the Ministry of Education.

It is very nice and well to say that you will have a student-centered classroom, but such a philosophy makes planning difficult, if not impossible.

I am realizing more and more that one of the most important tasks of teaching is planning.

Bob's Educational Site contains the Quebec curriculum prescriptions for each of the subjects for each of the grade levels.

The Word files can be used as a roadmap for the school year; additionally, the files can be used as templates to create a checklist for each student, to assess each student in each category as the school year progresses.

These checklist roadmaps can be supplemented by curriculum guides from other districts. For example, these from Kent State University.

I wrote a previously about the benefits of accepting failure in the classroom. It is evident that, if a group of students is going to progress through the entire curriculum for a year (or, at least, most of it), then there will be occasions when it will be necessary to forge ahead even though some of the students have not yet mastered a particular concept or skill. This acceptance is part of the necessity of accepting failure. You cannot get hung up on one topic if the students are not learning it. You need to move on.

For some subjects, the course content is more rigidly prescribed than for others. For example, Math is more rigid than English. For Math, the teacher need only follow the provincial curriculum outline.

For English, the prescribed outcomes are less exact. The English curriculum can be augmented by a Grammar Curriculum. The website Guide To Grammar And Writing has a pretty thorough catalogue of grammar and writing topics, and could be used as a checklist for an English curriculum.

As I stated, teaching does not need to be complicated. Google Calendar can be used to create a daily routine. There are certain tasks that the class should accomplish each and every day. For example, the Quebec Curriculum states that the students should be engaged in writing every day. So, a personal blog or a journal can be implemented, and it can be done at the same time every day. A work day can be mostly filled by recurring tasks. It is not necessary for a teacher to re-invent the wheel every day. Routines are good. For teachers and students alike, routines reduce the stress of not knowing what is going to happen next. Routines can reduce incidences of misbehaviour.

iGoogle

One of the recurring themes in teaching is organization / planning.

I have made it one of my resolutions to hone my organization.

With this goal in mind, I recently brought together my digital life on iGoogle; and I'm glad I did.

iGoogle allows you to plug gadgets onto your home page. Now, instead of surfing to different sites, the sites I want come to me. In a way, it is similar to the harvesting concept of Google Reader.

I had been utilizing Sunbird as a calendar application offline, but it has bugs, I discovered. Now, I use the Google Calendar gadget on my homepage.

I have a Facebook gadget, so I don't need to surf over to Facebook.

I have a gadget for my Yahoo Mail account, and another for my Gmail account.

As well, I have a gadget with a To-Do list, and a gadget with my most frequently used bookmarks.

I have a Google Reader gadget.

In fact, I am writing this post from the comfort of my iGoogle page, using a Blogger gadget.

Sunday

Today is Sunday.

My wife and daughter are out of town. I stayed home with my son.

It was a very lazy, do nothing, surf the internet kind of day.

It was good to have a day like this to re-charge my batteries.

I spent a few hours trying to understand twitter.

It is nice to have a day with nothing to do. I should do it more often.

A teacher's life is so full of deadlines and tasks. My stream of consciousness is a constant litany of to-do's.

They say, a teacher teaches, always. When I am away from the classroom, my mind is still in the classroom. I would suggest that it is good to get away from teaching, mentally.

In fact, one of my character weaknesses, I think, is that I am not inclined to pay attention to the present. As Yoda quipped of Luke Skywalker:

This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph.

By the same token, I should devote my mind entirely to my students when I am in the classroom. I read a blog post recently about a teacher who devotes herself 100% to her students when she is in the classroom. I think this is a good policy. Sometimes, when I am teaching, I have a tendency to day-dream about my personal life and my personal problems. That's not fair to my students.

Photo by Chris Devers.

Planning Discipline

Planning.

Preparation.

Martin Brodeur, arguably the best goalie in hockey history, in one of the most stressful jobs there is, once made a comment that I found particularly poignant. In response to a reporter's question, Brodeur stated that he was not nervous before a game because he was prepared. Brodeur posited that people are only anxious when they are not adequately prepared.

Sounds about right to me.

Two common sources of anxiety are: a) the unknown future, and b) powerlessness

Being properly prepared for a situation reduces anxiety because it makes the future more known and being prepared is empowering. Being prepared reduces anxiety, and thus, enhances performance.

Planning is not my favourite task, but it is very important.

In terms of classroom management and discipline, having a plan is vital. Before a misbehaviour occurs, a good teacher (and a good parent) should anticipate the possibility of the misbehaviour, and should visualize his reaction. That way, when the misbehaviour occurs, the teacher is not caught off guard, the teacher does not react impetuously, the teacher does not lose his temper.

It would be nice to live in a utopia where we always expect the best from our students. However, being prepared for misbehaviour reduces the anxiety a teacher feels before and after the incident of misbehaviour.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

(And be careful not to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

Photo by Jordon

Twitter

I finally broke down and joined twitter. @kangirsuk is me.

I had to break through my preconception that twitter is only a site for people to tweet about what they had for breakfast.

Many teacher's blogs comment about the potential of twitter.

The main strength of twitter, apparently, is it's instantaneousness.

I will see if I can use twitter to find good information, especially, teaching ideas. There are groups that you can elect to join and follow.

Ignorance is Knowledge

Here is an extract from a nice poem about teaching.

The magical thing
about teaching
is
that when one thing
doesn’t work
you get to
try something else!
There are no
failures
in the classroom,
just a series
of
exciting experiments
leading to
wisdom and knowledge.
Sometimes
the students learn
sometimes
the teacher learns.
Sometimes
students and teachers
learn together.

One of the weak points of my character is that I hate to make mistakes, and I hate to admit it when I make mistakes. I would prefer to imagine myself as perfect. Of course, this is inaccurate. It would be more realistic and less frustrating to accept my flaws.

Mistakes can be good things. Sometimes, we learn more from our mistakes than we learn from our successes.

Teaching can be an intimidating profession, if I fear making mistakes. On the other hand, teaching can be a great profession, because it is a rare profession that encourages mistakes, and encourages people to utilize their mistakes.

I heard a hockey commentator mention that the managers and coaches of the Detroit Red Wings, one of hockey's most successful teams, follow a philosophy that assumes players are bound to make mistakes. Detroit's players are not punished for making mistakes, they are supported when they do make mistakes, and they are encouraged to play an aggressive, risk-taking style of hockey.

Photo by libraryman.