Professional Community Journal

February 11, 2018.

For me it was hard to narrow in on one professional community I wanted to connect with. I will name a few here but see how it goes moving forward. I will most likely have to focus in on one's that either respond to me or give me the most knowledge. Firstly, our grade team has created a theory of action this term in regards to teaching math. Specifically focusing on fractions as we were finding out through data and discussions with junior and intermediate teachers that student’s struggle with this concept. We have already started collaborating together on how we can teach this so that more students find success. We are currently in the stages of visiting other classrooms to get a sense of how they run their math program and if there's anything we should be doing differently as well as resources we will need to gain further knowledge. I am also looking into EduGains to help me with this. As a first year teacher I feel as though there are so many resources available to me that I have not taken advantage of. EduGains being one of them. I am hoping to connect with other teachers around the world that may help my team in this process as well. Secondly, I am very passionate about being active. I have connected with OPHEA on their Facebook page and Twitter page however; I have never received a response. I am hoping through this course that I can somehow connect with them and not only use the resources found on their websites but other creative and new ways of incorporating physical activity into the daily school day.

February 15, 2018.

I have decided to narrow my focus by working with my grade team and collaborating with them to create a unit on fractions that creates learning opportunities that are relevant and hands-on. I decided to focus on this because although being active and using OPHEA as a resource is important, I am currently doing this so I thought that focusing on how to create authentic and meaningful learning opportunities for an area that students usually struggle with would not only benefit me as a teacher collaborating with experienced teachers, but help the students I am working with be more successful. Today with our Common Planning Time, we used the School Success Planning website (Peel District School Board affiliated) to create our goal for this unit and a theory of action. We explored the different tools and manipulatives we would need for each student to be successful and how we were to assess whether students understood the specific curriculum expectations. We then divided what each of us was to gather and research before we could create the unit. I was in charge of finding games and hands-on tasks students could try in centres to consolidate their learning. My other team members were to find the manipulatives needed for this unit, talk with teachers from other schools to see what they’re

doing, look through resources for rich, real-life questions and create the assessment pieces we would need.

Here is what we imputed together:

February 22, 2018.

Before getting to my task of finding games and hands-on tasks to consolidate their learning about fractions, I decided to do some research on my own because this is my first year teaching this. I wanted to have a good handle on not only what students needed to know, but potential lessons or tips to making the concept of fractions easier to understand for students. First, since I am teaching a split grade of 3 / 4, I looked at the different curriculum expectations to ensure that both grades were achieving and learning what they needed. I used the Ontario Curriculum math document to do this. I then decided to explore EduGains and found some very useful lessons and articles that I looked at in more depth:

http://www.edugains.ca/resourcesMath/CE/LessonsSupports/Fractions/SupportDocs/ActionstoDevelopUnderstandingFractions.pdf

http://www.edugains.ca/resourcesDP/Resources/Lessons/representationsLessonBundleJr.pdf

March 3, 2018.

And now it was time to go hunting! Exploring my favourite resources of Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers gave me a lot of results for fun, engaging fraction games. Here are some I found during my search:

March 7, 2018.

During our Common Planning Time today, we consolidated our findings and proceeded with how we were going to layout the unit. We organized our resources, creating daily plans using the 3-part lesson planning and arranged the week so that the first two days are learning concepts as a whole class and pairs, the third and fourth day are centre-based and the last day of the week (Friday) they are to do an independent task. We agreed to try to start the unit 2 weeks after March Break (we agreed we needed a bit more time to wrap up multiplication and division to ensure they had a good grasp on these concepts before starting fractions).

Final Reflection

I really enjoyed this process from start to finish. As a new teacher, I love collaborating with others and I definitely think it is necessary. In particular, my colleagues on my grade team are very experienced with a lot of resources and creative ideas. Holding ourselves accountable by putting our plan and process on the School Success Planning website and delegating tasks allowed us to stay on track (for the most part). It took a little longer than anticipated because we had interruptions as to when we could meet (due to different schedules, missing our Common Planning Time some weeks due to assemblies, and unexpected family things). I learned through this journey that it’s not always smooth but it doesn’t have to be. We picked something far enough in our Long Term Plan that it would give us time to work through the bumps and struggles. Because we had the opportunity to meet and use Google Docs as a way to share information and updates, I didn’t get the chance to explore a new collaborative technology. This is something I wish would have happened. Maybe when we create another unit together we can do this. There are always ways to improve and upon reflecting, I think this may have benefited us all and kept us organized in one central location.

I am looking forward to putting all of our hard work into action in a few weeks. During the unit we will meet to discuss what is going well and what maybe needs to be changed or altered so that students gain more understanding. It is all about tweaking and making changes to ensure the best for the students. After we have taught the 2-3 week unit, we will then again discuss what we could have maybe changed or spent more time doing. Asking questions such as what worked? What didn’t? Where do students still struggle? In the collaboration stages, we have completed framing the problem and creating a design to solve the problem. We are currently in the process of collecting data therefore in order to complete the cycle we still need to analyze the data, reflect and discuss next steps. I am excited to complete this cycle fully and to go through it first-hand with colleagues who are supportive and share the same values as myself. Ultimately, we are all about putting the student’s success at the forefront and through collaborating, I feel I have gained a better understanding and gained growth of knowledge on how to best approach and teach fractions than I would have on my own.