Teacher Extraordinaire - Portfolio of a Teacher and Lifelong Learner

 Genius Hour is not new to teachers. I first came across the concept when I was teaching in Taiwan from 2015-2017, where we had a set time every week for students to explore topics, passions and pursuits they were interested in.  The website  Teachthought  defines Genius Hour as:  "It should be driven by student curiosity and might use a clear driving question to guide inquiry.  It should Involve Research or clear 'new learning' The product, end result or other compelling artifact from the project can be shared/published." Image from  We Are Teachers In the second last week of school I thought, "what better way than to celebrate learning and a culmination of learning than spending some time devoted to Genius Hour during Literacy class?!" Of course, proponents of genius hour will state that it shouldn't be just a once-a-year thing, and I agree, but at my school students are also exposed to / use skills related to inquiry all the time (it is an IB school),

One often forgotten about aspect of teaching is the importance of the school / home connection. The question is then, how do we bridge the gap between home and school?  Of course, the essence of trying to forge this relationship always comes down to clear and respectful communication, centered around the idea that we are on the same team - the team that is looking for their child to be successful and fulfilled, the team that wants their child to develop and grow into the best person they are capable of being.  We also have to remember that with some parents we may never be able to "win them over." Furthermore, some parents may want to be more involved in their child's school life but have factors that make that difficult (such as working multiple jobs, being a caregiver or having mental health issues). At the end of the day, it is important to remember that we are the professionals, and that some perspective taking and empathy may be needed to understand a parents' po

Given that I am currently doing my Masters program, we are constantly in the process of learning, discussing and producing artifacts. The most recent course that I completed was PME 841 Critical Foundations of Literacy. For our final assignment we needed to produce a 9 slide assignment (barring the title page and resource page) outlining three different Literacy concepts, what they are, why they are important and then outlining one or more teaching strategies for each.  Since the school that I teach at is comprised almost entirely of students learning English as an Additional Language, and we frequently get students who are new to English in our classrooms, I thought I'd focus on the K-Grade 3 audience, and the audience of those teaching students who are new to English.  The first two concepts I looked at are related: "Phonological Awareness" and "Phonemic Awareness." My slides define Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness and Phonics, so that practitioners