"Leave it to the City to mess up something as basic as a bike rack" was one of many frustrated comments we overheard while convening with other cyclists around the much-anticipated and finally-installed bike rack at the east end of the Humber Bay Shores Farmers' Market in Mimico this morning.

Alongside three picnic tables installed on a carefully constructed cement base stands the newly erected bicycle rack, an awkward metal contraption determined in its dimensions to prevent any sort of regular sized tire from sliding through its rungs and allowing the attached bike to be properly parked or safely locked up.

As my partner -- a former Program Coordinator for the City of Toronto's CanBike program -- exclaimed in disgust, "they've been doing bike parking for well over a decade in this city, you'd think they'd have it figured out by now!"

Apparently not.

Happily, this is west end Toronto, not Philly or Amsterdam, and so we felt reasonably confident that our bikes would survive our short meander through the market without being carted away.  (They did.)

Nevertheless, it seems strange that the city would clearly have invested a significant chunk of change in a bike parking pad for this well-visited location, and then fail so miserably in adequately providing said amenity!

Recently, my instructional coach and I completed a Measurement unit with my Grade 7 and 8 students.  As a culminating task, we decided to have students consider the capacity of various popcorn containers, and -- based on the volume of popcorn each container could hold -- decide which would constitute the best deal, assuming they were all the same price.

The Grade 7s were given several rectangular and triangular prisms to choose from, while the Grade 8s got a cylindrical container thrown into the mix.

While students worked on the task, my coach and I wandered the room with our clipboards, observing students working independently on the task.  Occasionally, we'd ask questions to clarify our understanding of student thinking.  We made notes in a different colour, on the same recording sheet that we had used a week earlier, when students had worked in groups on another, similar problem.  This allowed us to observe growth (or lack thereof) over time, based on feedback we had given them on the previous task and two quizzes they had taken in between.

My coach had worked long, hard hours to create differentiated task sheets that included measurements for some of the containers to scaffold and accommodate the task for some students.  In one of my Grade 7 classes, we also used a third task that was a grade below level, as well as an alternative task, several grades below level, that a small group of students did in a separate space, with our in-school support teacher (instead of the popcorn prism task). 

Taking into consideration 3 students who were absent that day, this left approximately 16 students in the room for us to observe, converse with and assess.

As we circulated the room, pausing to make notes on our clipboard, I marveled at two things:

1. the rich, authentic assessment data we were collecting (while doing personalized, precision teaching in the moment!)
   
2. the near impossibility of the teacher task, had there been only one teacher in the room!!!
   

Even with two teachers and several students missing, we just barely got around to see all 16 remaining students in ways that allowed for reliable observational assessment.  But the assessment data we did manage to collect gave us and incredibly fulsome picture of what each student knew and could do when it came to thinking about and measuring volume of various prisms.

Even the lesson itself was better for us having talked it over multiple times and refined it based on the things we had observed students doing and saying during previous lessons in the unit.

Experiences like this one confirm for me the complexity of teaching in a diverse learning environment and the necessity of putting into place systems whereby those educators who want to can partner regularly with other teachers to co-plan, co-teach and co-assess.

Snagged a few caches in the park this evening while biking through with the boys... one was even hidden in a tree (terrain 4, difficulty 4.5!) -- we found it.

In celebration of Ireland's YES vote, I thought I'd post a few pics of the beaver we've seen recently paddling along the shore here in Mimico.  She seems to enjoy coming to munch on the tender greens on the little island near our apartment before heading back "home" near the park by the EYC.

What to do with students who have reached level 4?

It's a question that's troubled me most of my career... I remember with discomfort the conversation I had with an anxious parent my first or second year of teaching, assuring her that her Gifted son was being challenged in my class, as I had prepared extra work for when he was finished his regular work early, and also encouraged him to help others in the class.

*Cringe!*

I found out a few summers later in my Spec Ed AQ course that those are exactly the things one is NOT supposed to do for Gifted learners.  (Mrs. Robbins, I know your boy is all grown up now, but if it makes you feel any better, my own two were identified Gifted in Grade 3, and until we got them into a contained class, one of my sons spent his school days "helping others because he's so smart and capable".  I now feel your pain as a parent, and I have been duly punished for my early transgressions as a new teacher, lol!)

Even when students are not formally identified, but succeed in demonstrating level 4 achievement of all expectations/success criteria in a unit, how can we as teachers continue to move these students forward as learners?

Recently, I had my Grade 8s complete a "culminating task" where they had to share digitally one or more success criteria which they hadn't yet demonstrated during the preceding math unit.  Several apps were suggested.  

A student came to me and asked if she could do a Prezi instead.  She was comfortable with Prezi, as she had used it many times before.

She'd also already demonstrated all the success criteria for the unit, and had already achieved a Level 4, or an A, for her work in the unit.  

It was clear that this student needed my help to move outside of her comfort zone, move her thinking outside the box, learn something new...

I suggested to the student that she experiment with one of the new presentation apps like Educreations or Explain Everything, that she hadn't used before.

"I'm worried I won't be able to get my assignment done on time", was this student's response.

She was so anxious with getting her work done, that she was not open to learning something new.

I invited her to look at the criteria.  "Have you demonstrated all of these to me so far in your class work and in your quizzes?" I asked.  Her response was affirmative.

"So do you need to show them to me again if I have already seen them, and you are already getting an A"? I pressed.

Now she seemed confounded.

"But what about the assignment?"  She queried.

I gently but firmly assured her that I would far rather have her hand in nothing, but learn a new tool that she could use later on in math or in other subjects to enhance her presentation style, than waste precious learning time using a tool she already knew how to use to create a presentation about things that we both knew she already knew how to do!

Yesterday, I worked with one of my Grade 7 classes to remediate a math concept which most of them seemed to not have gotten.

One of the students in that class clearly had gotten the concept, and I could think of nothing worse for him than having to sit through a step-by-step teacher-directed lesson on how to calculate the surface area and volume of a prism.  So I gave him a math challenge package to work on, with problems from the Waterloo math department.  I had printed it from the Grade 8 section of their website, and the "Grade 8" title was still at the top of the package.

My little friend seemed befuddled:  "But, Ms. Teschow?", he queried, "It says 'Grade 8'!"

"And so it does,"  I told him, and also assured him of my confidence in his abilities to understand and gain something out of it.

Off he went and worked on that, far more engaged than he would have been, had I made him sit through my calculation demonstration with the rest of the class!!

So often as teachers we are consumed with helping to "close the gap" by pulling up the weaker students and spending most/all of our time supporting their learning and social needs.  

But with a little creativity and intentional focus, we can differentiate for those working through Level 4 in our classrooms, too!

I've been engaged in a 4-part book talk series this year, using the Educators' Equity Companion Guide, a small book that invites dialogue on a number of "isms" teachers face in schools and classrooms.

In preparation for the fourth and final part of our book talk, I asked participants to reflect on one or more questions from a list and send me their thoughts in writing.  I took all the reflections and plugged them into wordle.net, to synthesize major themes, and was intrigued that the top word by far was "beliefs", closely followed by "students" and "think". 

Indeed, author and recently retired educator Karen Hume builds her model of differentiated instruction on the cornerstone of teacher beliefs and knowledge.  Everything we do with and for students is founded on our beliefs about what students can do, and about who they are and what defines them.

Equal to "students", though, and only slightly smaller than "beliefs", was the word "think"!!

In these politically heated times, where our beliefs drive not only our instructional decisions but also the decisions of the families of the students we teach, we need to keep a cool head, and THINK about what we are doing and why it makes sense for our kids and our society.

Our beliefs may be the cornerstone of the whole operation, but the rest of the building needs solid building blocks grounded in research and logic... and kindness.

I am looking forward to sharing our final equity session together tomorrow at lunch.

At 10:22 on Friday night, I boarded an AC flight from YYZ to YYG for my first trek of the season to PEI.

I'd brought a friend with me, one who'd not yet visited the island, and it was fun to anticipate our adventures together.  

Although the visit was a short one (2.5 days), we did our best to pack it with Island "stuff"!

Arriving after midnight meant a visit to the all night Sobey's in Ch'town before heading out to the house.  Brian obligingly picked us up and went grocery shopping with us -- never saw a grocery story at 2 a.m. before; they took advantage of the lull in shoppers to restock the shelves! -- before driving us out to St Peter's Harbour, around the corner from his own Red Head Harbour.

The night sky was bejewelled with stars, and the Milky way was clearly visible overhead. One of my favourite things about the island (and one which differentiates it so from Toronto) is the sky, and I felt so much joy at this astronomical greeting from above as we pulled into the driveway and unpacked our bags from Brian's trunk.

The boys downed a Gahan House from the fridge which I had had the foresight to prearrange (the beer, not the fridge) while I unpacked groceries and suitcases, and discovered that somewhere between removing my gloriously noise-cancelling headphones and arriving at the house, the headphones had disappeared.  Crumb!

Thankfully, Brian had the number to the commissionaire memorised (one advantage of having a friend who works at the tower!!), and I wrote it on a scrap to follow up later.

By the time we'd unpacked and finished catching up, it was after 4 a.m., and glimmers of sunrise were hinting at making themselves known on the horizon, so I stayed up a little longer, and captured the pre-sunrise on my iPhone before falling into bed.

The next "morning" (well alright, it was closer to noon!) our house looker after swung by with the plumber to do a few odd jobs.  Then we lounged about and got caught up with the neighbours on one side.  

Afterwards I had a nap in the hammock - nice! 

Then it was time to show Rick the beach and the light house.  We set off into the late afternoon windy sunshine, and snapped a few pics of the old pier en route. How strange it was to be walking in 22-degree sunshine and still see remnants of snow along the treeline!

Sunday was more of a cloudy Island day; rain seemed inevitable, but we'd determined to bike into Morell so that I could show Rick the village, and so I could go to the bank and get some money for our house guy, who had presented me with a bill for the winter's work!!

Although Tats' bike had not weathered the winter on PEI particularly well, and was desperately in need of a new chain, my bike seemed okay, as did one of the others, and we set out towards Hwy 2.

Camera-less, Rick took away only memories of the RedHead fishing huts, the Morell River, and the local stretch of the confederation trail (the visitors' centre was not yet open for the season) before stopping at the bank machine to complete my errand.

Once we arrived back home, we fed ourselves a decent lunch, and then it was off to another vigorous nap in the hammock for me and one on the couch for Rick, before our Sunday night Lobster Dinner, which we had been invited to by our new neighbours Syd and Katie.

The dinner was both delicious and entertaining, as it afforded me an opportunity to meet many "from away" neighbours who'd come to the island to open up their summer homes, or who were living there year round and were eager for the first big social event of the season. 

Interestingly, several houses down the road from ours had been purchased by Ontarians over the past 12 months, and I was able to connect with several new neighbours.

Rick endeared himself to all by washing dishes for most of the night.  Being an extreme introvert, this was ideal; he was able to observe the proceedings from his central post at the open concept kitchen sink while avoiding direct conversation for much of the evening!

The next morning we took one more jaunt down to the beach as well as the subdivision at the end of the road, and then prepared for our departure after lunch.  Brian came to enjoy said lunch with us before taking us into town so that Rick could get a lay of the land in Confederation's birthplace.

Finally, sadly, it was time to say good-bye to the island, and head off to the Airport.   

After checking Rick in (he was on a different plane home than I), we popped over to the tower for a quick tour -- Brian showed Rick how aircraft show up on the radar, and we saw a smaller plane land on 03 before heading back down to the terminal to make our way through security.

Who doesn't need a giant, one-metre cube in their classroom?  If you're teaching Grade 7 Measurement, the answer is "NOBODY"!!  Or, at least so my instructional coach argued, as she used up the last of my good chart paper to construct exactly such an object.  :)

Realising that this provocative math prop would not last long on the floor of my classroom, we elected to suspend it from the ceiling instead.

(Critical tip for those thinking of following suit:  Use LOTS of tape to make sure the thing doesn't fall down overnight and set off the school's alarm.  No, seriously!)

My coach was right, btw:  I did need a cubic metre hanging from my classroom ceiling: It's been all the rage, and our unit launch for measurement was a success as students worked in groups to ponder what in the world might take up a cubic meter of space, and refreshing their vocabulary memory describing this paper beast with whiteboard markers on their desks (comes off with a damp cloth)...

The visual provocation for the Grade 8 version of the unit was a little more precarious for a teacher with a refined sugar addiction:  Of the  unspecified (but carefully counted) number of cherry-flavoured nibs my coach and I threw into a cylindrical candy jar the other night in front of a video camera, only a percentage remain; whatever the lovely little Grade 8s estimate or calculate when we get to that lesson, we'll have to subtract 47... as of Thursday afternoon.

After a lengthy centers-based unit on Fractions, Ratios, Decimals and Percents, we are looking forward to co-teaching this unit in a somewhat more traditional manner; although we plan to include a few centers periods later in the unit (to free us up to work remedially with small groups), most of the classes for this unit will comprise 3-part lessons.

It's that time of year again, when the world turns pink and white... at least, the world in which the cherry blossoms bloom for about 10 days in Toronto's sudden spring!

The trees here remind me of the Jacaranda trees we saw for  a short time during springtime in Buenos Aires last October/November!

Like the public parks in BsAs, High Park is packed this time of year, and provides a beautiful snapshot of Toronto's cultural diversity:  Families of all kinds fill the blossoming park to catch the sunshine and soak up the general spring ambiance. 

One fun activity is watching the masses take photographs of and selfies with the cherry blossoms; both the blossoms and the pond provide the perfect backdrop for photo enthusiasts, and we, too, took our share of photos both fun and serious!

Even at twilight, the park was burgeoning with blossom-chasers... as I paused to capture a tree skeleton framed by a symmetrical reflection of buildings and sky in Grenadier pond, I was conscious of the crowds behind me, many posed with cameras of their own!  

It's hard to believe that the tranquil shot below, captured on my phone's camera, was possible for only a brief moment before the thongs of people continued on their way along the path and in the way of my camera's lens.

After the blossoms, Tats, the boys and I walked along a twilight path through the zoo, and enjoyed an evening game of hide and seek at the Adventure playground before heading to the queen streetcar home.  When we discovered that the next streetcar was a 37-minute wait away, the boys -- energized by their nature-filled afternoon and evening -- suggested we continue walking.  

We did, all the way home to Mimico!!!