Category: Professional Development

Professional Development opportunities and ideas.

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Learn with Carole Fullerton on November 7

On November 7th, Burnaby teachers will have an opportunity for professional growth with Carole Fullerton.  For those who are unfamiliar, Carole is a private consultant working with teachers around British Columbia (and beyond!) in the area of numeracy. She works with districts, whole school staffs, with school-based learning teams, in classrooms and with parents in an effort to promote mathematical thinking.  

Sign up for either the Multiplicative Thinking for Intermediate Students in the am, or Place Value and Number Sense for Primary in the pm.  Use the staff development calendar to book your spot:  https://learn.sd41.bc.ca/

Here is more detailed information: Carole Fullerton Nov 7 poster

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Four Common Mistakes with Differentiated Instruction

Robyn Jackson has written a lot on differentiated instruction and her first book, Never Work Harder Than Your Students, suggested  many ways in which the students can take ownership of their own learning.  Recently, she posted a blog about common mistakes when trying to differentiate lessons and highlighted four common areas.  These are: Creating multiple assignments rather than multiple pathways;  Differentiating by learning style versus learning needs; Differentiating by achievement level rather than by students’ current learning level;  and Differentiating up rather than down.   click here for more info

These four common mistakes really deal with the concept of differentiation:  knowing your students and creating multiple pathways for each learner to achieve the learning outcomes.  By posing purposeful questions and problems in mathematics, students at any level can enter into the problem (multiple entry points), delve deeper into the mathematics (multiple pathways) and reach the conceptual understanding of the mathematics.

Just some ideas and thoughts.  Please let me know what you think.