Mr Hammerlund

Today I sat down with my headmaster to talk about my goals for the year. We started talking about how things went, but it was was we started talking about next year that the conversation got interesting. One of my goals this year was about how I taught reading and writing, and my headmaster and I started talking about ways I could better integrate reading and writing, as well as math, into the curriculum. What was to be a 15-20 minute meeting turned into one hour and 10 minutes. Afterwards my head was spinning with ideas for next year like packages of math problems per unit and reading packs. I am also considering having each student build something like a portfolio for every unit where everything from the unit van be put. I think I will have a busy summer.

Today I sat down with my headmaster and talked about my unit plan. I was mostly interested in how the PYP plans looked at other international schools, and we started going through my plan together. When we got to the provocations section, I asked what he did, and he said that he used to ask questions of each of the Key Concepts. That got me thinking about how we read about effective questioning. When I went through the key concepts and came up with questions for each, I could see how these questions could drive my unit. I wish I had discovered this sooner.

I was reading this article , and the first thing I wondered about was what the assessment was like and if it was differentiated for the different needs of the students in the class. This teaching method looks interesting, but I do not think that it would work in an ESL setting. But, maybe it might and I could try it for one or two lessons.

The readings for this week have me thinking about how I can better differentiate my assessments to meet the needs of all my students and to better assess them. I have one student, "M.S.", who seems flighty. She is forgetful, when she is called on she mostly gives a blank stare, and on the surface she seems to not get it. But there are times when she will give in depth answers to questions that leave me wondering where they came from. How can I better assess her and is there a way I can pull out more of those moments of brilliance?

Today I went up to the mountains. I was just driving around, but my wife and I came across this store on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We stopped and got out, and behind it in the woods was a river with a waterfall. I had my camera so I was taking some pictures, and as we walked up to the top part of the waterfall, I saw some fish there. This river is in the mountains in the middle of Japan and the fish were up stream from the waterfall. How did the fish get there? I think they swam up from the ocean and got stuck when the mountains were pushed up ... but it's an interesting question.

The discussions for this week (week 2) have me thinking about parent-teacher communication and how I can improve upon it. I am currently sending home a newsletter once a week and I have experimented with a blog and a website. I have also tried emailing the newsletter. With parents who are not fluent in English, maybe I should translate my communication.

Reading about the inquiry-based units got me wondering if inquiry-based learning would look different in a heavy ESL population like I am currently teaching. I mean, obviously it is different, but I am interested to see how an "expert" would go about teaching my class and how it would differ from the way I teach. That got me thinking about the way I question my students and the sometimes blah responses I get. I wonder how I can get them more fired up about learning and about their education. It seems that motivation could trump language ability when it comes to inquiry learning.

How to better differentiate? How to better assess for prior learning? How can I differentiate without taking up too much time? How can I differentiate without ignoring at-risk students?

I wonder what's going on with me. I feel really unmotivated recently and am finding it hard to push myself. I started a calendar to keep track of assignments. I am going to start checking in on the class more regularly - everyday if I can.

When I think of "inquiry" I think of digging deeper by asking questions. This is a big world and there are many things here that require more thought. Recently I have read some chatter online about how Google is turning people of conversation and turning them into looking for the quick answer. I am guilty of this myself. I often jump online to find the answer to a question I, others, or my students might have. I think that inquiry has an element of wondering/pondering/taking time to think of the answer when possible instead of jumping to it. When I thought about it more, and slept on it, I think that inquiry is finding answers through a journey. Much like Dorothy in Oz and her initial quest to find out how to get home, at the end of her journey she had learned much more than that. Students can also go on a journey in their studies and the result could be learning much more than they intended.