Thursday 12 October 2017
Collaborating to Learn
Thursday 9 February 2017
Ensuring Continued Growth: Greenwood's Expert Teacher Program
Expert teachers Tony Costa (pictured left with teacher Alex Hurley) and Amanda Lester provide conversational coaching to teachers who have been at Greenwood for 4+ years. |
How does Greenwood stay on the leading edge of customized learning? Ongoing professional development is a big piece of the puzzle. Expert teachers Tony Costa and Amanda Lester work with experienced Greenwood teachers to ensure their continued growth.
What is the Expert Teacher Program?
Working out of the Greenwood Centre for Teaching and Learning, Tony and Amanda - both accomplished Greenwood teachers - work with colleagues who have been at the school for four or more years. In addition to providing conversational coaching to these teachers, Tony and Amanda are a professional development resource for all teachers. They also meet weekly with Mary Gauthier, Executive Director of the Greenwood Centre for Teaching and Learning, which supports their growth as expert teachers.
Why become an expert teacher?
For Amanda, the expert teacher role seemed like a natural next step. “I had already been a subject team leader and a mentor for newer teachers,” she says. “I really enjoyed collaborating with teachers, so this opportunity really excited me.”
In Tony’s case, he saw the potential of the role and wanted to be a part of shaping it. “I felt it was so important that this position was conversation-based, and that it was a two-way exchange of information,” he says. “Amanda and I are always learning, too.”
Supporting Professional Growth for 4+ Teachers
In keeping with Greenwood’s customized approach to learning, the coaching Tony and Amanda provide is tailored to each teacher’s specific needs. “Depending on where people are in their careers, they may have very different goals,” Amanda says. “We work with teachers to mutually identify areas where there is opportunity for growth.”
Some examples include:
- Refining the use of our Learning Communities
- Using assessment to drive learning
- Finding new ways to incorporate technology in the classroom
After goals have been set, Tony and Amanda observe teachers as they teach; based on these observations, they provide suggestions on how teachers can incorporate new ideas and approaches into their lessons. It’s important to note that teachers are not “assigned” to one expert teacher; they can choose to meet with either Tony or Amanda, and have either expert observe their lesson. “Having two people involved adds richness to the conversation,” Tony says. “Amanda and I have different perspectives and see different things.”
Amanda and Tony observe teachers in the classroom several times throughout the year. At the end of the year, teachers will reflect on their growth and set goals accordingly for next year.
Celebrating great teaching is also key to the expert teacher role. “So many teachers here are doing amazing things,” Amanda says. “We want to ensure that their work is supported and celebrated.”
Providing & Developing Resources
Our expert teachers act as a resource for all teachers, no matter how long they’ve been at Greenwood. If they’re looking for an outside perspective on a lesson or wondering about a new classroom management technique, Tony and Amanda are there to help. They also contribute to Greenwood’s Wednesday morning professional development program - for example, they most recently ran a session on relational teaching. In delivering these PD sessions, they consistently model effective teaching practices.
In addition, Tony and Amanda regularly send teachers resources - including articles, videos and podcasts - that are targeted to their specific goals. “We don’t want to inundate people with information,” Tony says. “We want to send them resources that we know are going to be useful.”
Thursday 19 January 2017
Apprentice Teachers Deepen Knowledge of Customized Learning
During their time at Greenwood, our apprentice teachers get to know our students - and how they learn - incredibly well. |
By working with experienced teachers, coaching sports teams, supervising outdoor education trips and service learning initiatives and completing on-calls, our six apprentice teachers get to know our students - and how they learn - incredibly well. These quality relationships between students and teachers are integral to supporting a truly customized program.
Apprentice teachers meet with Mary one per week to explore a topic connected to customized learning. |
OISE Certificate Program
Thursday 6 October 2016
Challenge and Support: Greenwood's Centre for Teaching and Learning
Greenwood's Centre for Teaching and Learning will support teachers in taking full
advantage of our new learning spaces.
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We often forget that teachers are learners, too. Greenwood’s new Centre for Teaching and Learning ensures that our teachers are challenged and supported throughout their careers, whether they’re in Year 1 or Year 10. The Centre is also dedicated to identifying and implementing best practices in customized learning, and to supporting teachers in taking full advantage of our new learning spaces.
Mary Gauthier |
Q: What are your hopes for this year?
Be sure to visit our blog throughout the school year to see how we're turning these hopes into reality.
Thursday 29 September 2016
Customization and Optimization: Making the Most of Our New Spaces
This new Learning Community is one of the many new spaces at Greenwood that is designed and furnished to facilitate fluid transitions between types of teaching. |
Two key initiatives in our new strategic plan involve establishing a Centre for Teaching and Learning to help teachers advance their use of customized learning and ensuring that we optimize our new spaces to build learning and community. Throughout this year’s edition of our school blog, we will share examples from teachers of how they are working with students in the new spaces on these initiatives. We will also examine how teachers collaborate with one another to enhance their professional growth.
One key principle we want to illustrate with our new classroom spaces is how they promote individual, peer-to-peer and whole group learning. Physical settings make a significant impact on student engagement. Greenwood's spaces are designed and furnished to facilitate fluid transitions between types of teaching and ultimately, should enable students to take greater control of their learning. These spaces also feature technology that supports vertical and horizontal surfaces that can be used for projection, display and interactive learning.
Besides classroom learning, our new spaces are also designed to enhance the social, physical and creative culture within the school, all of which contribute to the development of character. So, we want to show you how students are using the Learning Commons, the second gym and the new arts spaces. Ultimately, we hope that students are engaged and enjoying life here at Greenwood.
Principal
Wednesday 22 June 2016
Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning
The participants from our first Summer Institute for teachers shared how they have tapped the power of personalized learning this year. |
Throughout this year, the participants from Greenwood’s first Summer Institute for teachers have shared how they have tapped the power of personalized learning. Our Grade 10 history team outlined how their program allows for choice and connects with the power of student interests. Our French teachers have demonstrated the importance of creating authentic learning contexts as a way of addressing student needs and readiness. Our science teachers have illustrated how they have used technology to provide instantaneous feedback, which allows students to track their progress. And finally, our Grade 7 and 8 teachers describe how their integrated projects allow for students to demonstrate their deep learning about such important issues as sustainability.
These are just a few of the many exciting examples of Greenwood’s ongoing efforts to make learning something we do with students. In doing so, we are helping prepare students for the world in which they will live and work.
Principal
Friday 9 October 2015
Integrated Projects: Learning Through Cross-Curricular Programming
- Grade 7 - Designing for Disaster: In teams, students will design a device that will help a literary character survive a disaster. They will need to use their scientific knowledge and understanding of how humans acquire, manage and use natural resources based on their environment to help them achieve their task.
- Grade 8 - WAPT (Water Action Project Toronto): In teams, students will create a proposal for Toronto City Council that focuses on improving water sustainability within the city. In creating the proposal, they will investigate the various ways people impact the physical environment and sustainability of water resources in Toronto, and use statistical data to support their ideas.
Grade 7 & 8 Teachers
Friday 18 September 2015
Greenwood’s First Summer Institute for Teachers - Collaborating to Develop Personalized Education
Science teachers Julie Way, Nancy Clarke and Vanessa Floras developed technology-rich lab activities for students during the 2015 Summer Institute. |
- Developing a curriculum that integrates Grade 12 English (ENG4U) and AP English (ENG4UO) using a team-teaching approach within one learning space.
- Developing blended learning materials for Grade 11 Biology (SBI3U) to provide a student-centred learning approach.
- Designing the WWII unit in Grade 10 History (CHC2D) to integrate blended learning, community service, and experiential learning opportunities.
- Generation of teacher expertise with Vernier Lab Equipment. Expert teachers spent time developing technology-rich lab activities for students and training modules for teachers.
- Redesign of the Grade 10 Core French (FSF2D) course to integrate project-based assessment and more personalized learning activities.
- Development of blended learning materials for Grade 10 Careers (GLC2O) to allow for personalization of the curriculum.
- Development of integrated, cross-curricular projects for students in Grade 7 & 8.
- Visionary investigation and planning for an enhanced Grade 7 & 8 program. Teachers looked at the new classroom spaces that will be ready in September 2016 and how these can be used to provide Grade 7 & 8 students with age-appropriate and integrated learning opportunities.
Principal
Vice-Principal, Student Learning
Monday 16 December 2013
235 Years Old and Still Innovating
- Teachers use student readiness and interests to develop learning activities.
- Technology is used as a tool to facilitate and enhance learning.
- As much as possible, learning is linked with real-life applications.
As described on the Andover website, Connected Learning is a research-based model of learning that maintains successful traditional standards and introduces new ways of doing things that tap into the potential created by globalization and technology.” As in Greenwood’s introduction of blended learning, Andover also faced concerns about technology replacing teachers in the classroom and that all teaching would be done using technology.
Allan Hardy
Principal
Friday 19 October 2012
Professional Growth Focuses On Personalizing For Student Readiness
One of these ongoing sessions focused on the development of personalized lessons based on student readiness. To start the group off, we discussed personalized learning as a concept, developing the understanding that to personalize, one must first understand the students’ individual strengths, weaknesses and interests. Personalizing for readiness involves allowing students to work either at their own pace or to build on a skill once they have mastered initial concepts or both. We looked at a learning cycle that could be linked to the practice of personalizing for skill readiness.
When students are learning a certain skill such as writing paragraphs, solving equations or shading to add contour, a teacher who is personalizing their experience would first assess the students’ proficiency with the skill. Based on this pre-assessment, the teacher would identify what needs to be worked on in order to reach the end goal. For example, a teacher working on paragraph writing might follow these steps with a student:
- The student writes one or two paragraphs.
- From this writing, the teacher would see that the student needs practice with sentence structure.
- The student practices creating sentences with proper structure and concise ideation.
- The student is asked to write another paragraph for the teacher (re-assessment).
- The teacher gives feedback about sentence structure and if there is sufficient improvement the student is given new next steps. For example, the next steps could be that the student needs to work on good opening and closing sentences.
This cycle would continue, each student working on skills specific to their needs until the evaluation for this skill is reached. The assessments can be the same for each student, but the teacher would focus on the individual student’s next steps at that time when assessing. Alternatively, the assessments vary from student to student if this better assesses individual student progress. The idea is that each student gets individual feedback and practice in order to improve their skills in their area of need.
In the professional growth group that I worked with, each teacher will use the cycle described above to create lessons that are personalized for the student based on their readiness and then share these lessons with their colleagues. As teachers practice these methods in their classroom as well as dialogue about their experiences, we are hoping to build on the culture of personalized learning here at Greenwood College School.Director of Personalized Learning
Friday 27 April 2012
Is the PD Day Broken?
One of the commission’s 48 recommendations urged schools to “take a long hard look at professional development (PD) days as their effectiveness is questionable at best.” What the commission - as well as many parents and educators - object to is the isolated or random nature of PD days. In many cases, solitary PD days rarely connect to student learning or student improvement. In other cases, PD days focus overly on the latest fad or trend in education.
Whelan and his team concluded that the ideal professional development model “would see teacher training ramped up and built right into the school week.” Whelan adds that collaboration between master teachers with beginning teachers on a weekly basis should be an essential component of professional development. This collaboration would be enhanced if beginning teachers had time to observe the teaching practices of their more experienced colleagues. In his opinion, given the proper support, this type of job-embedded professional development would replace the traditional PD days.So, what does this discussion about PD days have to do with our ongoing dialogue about personalized learning? Well, as has been observed in previous blog postings, the success of any personalized learning program is directly related to the training and development of teachers. Breaking the hold of the century-old, one-size-fits-all approach to classroom teaching is a monumental task, as it represents a fundamental rethinking of the way schools work. Change of this magnitude requires a systematic and sustained approach.
It is refreshing to hear that educators in other parts of Canada are arriving at this conclusion. More importantly, it lets us know that the innovative work being done here at Greenwood has merit and meaning.
Principal
Monday 2 April 2012
Teachers Need to Focus on Deliberate Practice
Director of Teacher Development
Thursday 8 March 2012
Adapting to Meet the Needs of Personalized Learning
As Heather, Jennifer and Kyle have described in their entries, the shift in ownership of learning from student to teacher is at the heart of personalized learning. Aside from creating course content, teachers work closely with students on a range of learning needs. A teacher’s understanding of these needs relies heavily on the use of ongoing assessment, as the emphasis is more on student mastery of learning rather than coverage of content.
This change in emphasis is one of the more pronounced differences between personalized learning and a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather than staging evaluation in timed intervals (i.e. at the end of a unit), teachers instead assess student progress on an ongoing basis. These results are used to determine day-to-day student programming, with the student playing a far greater role in deciding what to do next.
Schools intending to move towards a personalized learning approach will need to ensure that teachers have the necessary time and support to refine their knowledge and skills, as the demands upon teachers to keep pace with this rapid pace of change will be significant. Schools may find as well that some degree of specialization within its teaching cohort is a more efficient way to proceed.
Presently, we are utilizing this approach at Greenwood. Our expert teachers are developing course content and teachers in the early years of their career oversee the face-to-face component of the classroom. Thus far, this approach has provided those teachers involved in the program with a great opportunity for dialogue and collaboration.
You can learn more about how the changing role of the teacher by listening to this NPR broadcast which examines the use of blended learning in Northern California.
Principal
Wednesday 11 January 2012
A Tiered Approach to Teacher Growth and Development
But how does a teacher in their first year do that?
Interestingly enough, I have found that the way to support a teacher in this standard is to apply the same standard to the teacher. I see the first term as a pre-assessment of the teacher’s ability. Frequent visits to see how teachers work in the classroom at different stages of a lesson provides a great deal of information. Follow-up conversations with the teacher also allows me to learn about the teacher’s strengths and areas for growth. I also learn how coachable the teacher is and how open they are to collaboration and to growth. The feedback from the class visits can be seen as formative assessment.
We have a built-in schedule for professional development for all teachers. During the first term we have two or three sessions where teachers are divided according to their length of service … which allows me to meet with first-year teachers as a group to deliver professional development that is pertinent to their needs.
This could be seen as similar to creating homogeneous groupings in a class based on students’ readiness for learning.
The first summative assessment comes in December when the first-year teachers undergo an evaluation. Administrators provide feedback on how the teacher performs in duties and responsibilities outside of the classroom. Students complete course and teacher evaluations through a standardized survey, and in a meeting with me, the teacher reviews all the data and we set goals for further growth.From this point on, the professional development becomes more personalized as the first-year teachers will now have different needs. It is still necessary to group them according to their needs as would be the case with students in a class, but with just a few exceptions, the weekly professional development, and the focus of class visits and follow up conferences will be personalized.
My job is to relate this process to the classroom so that the teacher can see how the experience she is having can be replicated in the classroom for students.
Director of Teacher Development
Sunday 11 December 2011
Our Teachers Grow with Personalized Learning
We want our teachers to use their classrooms as laboratories. We encourage them to test personalized learning approaches with their students. Last week during a PD session, we had the opportunity to share the many successes and obstacles encountered as we try to personalize our classrooms. I believe both the successes and obstacles are important to discuss - perhaps the obstacles more so at this stage. Discussing these challenges helps teachers grow further and pushes us to think creatively as professionals. I will outline a couple of the conversations that the teachers had in this session.
The Grade 8 Social Studies teacher is nearing the end of a water unit which combined traditional lessons and technology-based resources so that students could complete the unit at their own pace. He found that self-pacing worked well for students who are self-motivated, but many other students did not complete the unit in the time allotted. This led us to discuss the management of a self-paced personalized approach.We saw that students need:
- firm intermediary deadlines
- to be assessed or involved in individual conferences with the teacher at regular intervals
- to be provided with a timeline indicating the slowest acceptable pace
About a quarter of the class completed the unit early. The teacher initially saw this as an obstacle, but we discussed how self-pacing will leave time for enrichment and further study for some students.
With the help of his colleagues, the teacher came up with a plan for these students. As they complete the unit, students finishing early will be given above grade-level texts on the topic and asked to run a seminar with the rest of the class.
The Grade 10 French teacher used blended learning tools to help personalize her grammar units. She began the unit with a pre-assessment and moved students into a program based on their individual needs.
Students who achieved over 80 per cent on the pre-assessment began a video lesson covering new material. The concepts learned from the video were then applied to reading, writing and oral dialogue. Some students mastered the new content very quickly.To challenge them further, they investigated pronoun use in an authentic Francophone scenario of interest to them (article, television, movie). These students then shared their findings orally and in writing with the rest of the class.
By setting up her classroom to allow faster students to progress independently, the teacher had more time to work with students who scored below 80 per cent on the pre-assessment. She retaught and reassessed this content in various ways until each student showed a strong enough understanding of the base concepts to be able to succeed with the new content.
When this understanding was demonstrated, the student proceeded to the concept video lesson and application activities. The French teacher shared some of the things she learned through the development and implementation of this unit:
- creating a personalized experience requires a lot of front loading and pre-planning
- the pathways need to be structured and clear enough for students to easily follow
- allowing for self-pacing gave the teacher time to work with each student until she was sure that they had the foundation needed to be successful with the new material
The personalized learning PD session last week is one of the many ways that the teachers at Greenwood College School are growing to further meet the varying needs of their students.
Many teachers are still exploring what personalized learning means and how it will work in their classrooms. This session gave them a chance to ask questions and help each other push further into personalizing the classroom experience of their students.
Director of Personalized Learning
Thursday 17 November 2011
Personalizing Teacher Growth
At Greenwood College School, we are committed to life-long learning for our students and for our teachers. We have developed a tiered model for teacher growth and appraisal which provides intense support in the first three years of teaching at the school - and then allows greater self-direction from the fourth year on.
Teachers in this latter group are encouraged to personalize their growth in the profession by setting annual learning goals aimed at increasing student learning.
What does this mean?
Well, this year, one teacher has set a goal to see how she can use portfolios in science. She will read about and experiment with different portfolio formats to determine which is most effective for students to collect, reflect on and store their work.
The most important aspect is developing a process for students to reflect on an assignment and set learning goals. The teacher will then use the reflection to personalize instruction based on the student’s goals and readiness.
Another teacher is exploring co-operative learning structures and how to use these to help personalize instruction. Different co-operative learning structures can be used in a classroom based on student readiness. Some students could be exploring new material because they are ready to move ahead, while others are using a structure that has them reviewing different material to develop mastery before they move on.In this phase of the growth plan, teachers select a peer with whom to share and check in on the process. We are moving toward sharing all teachers’ progress and learning at the end of the year to celebrate their growth. In our weekly professional development sessions on Wednesday mornings, teachers share new ideas or tips on things they have tried.
For example, we have learned how a course calendar can be used to allow students to work ahead, how to upload and mark assignments in Moodle, and how to use cellphones for quizzes to check for understanding.
Director of Teacher Development