Autism and Behaviour Science

This week I am starting a post grad Certificate in Autism and Behaviour Sciences. It is an online course through Algonquin College. I have taken online courses before, but never full-time  so I am not sure exactly what to expect. I think I will miss face-to-face interactions. That was one of my favorite parts of the past year, taking my Bachelors of Education (and undergrad).

First semester I will be taking five courses including:

• Autism - Introduction to Applied Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• Introduction to Applied Behavioural Analysis
• Parent and Staff Training
• Working With Families and Teams
• Ethics and Professionalism

In January I will do a placement for four weeks. There are a few different types of placements which you can have, including ASD Agencies, IBI settings, School Placements and School Support programs.

I am hoping to be in a school setting and I know a few autism classes in the area. I will be exploring my options. There are two placements so I am hoping to have a range of experiences. We have to set up our own placements which is one of the unique challenges for a Distance Ed program. It is a standard program, so course and expectations are the same at all the schools the program is offered in. I considered going to Mohawk and they seemed to be really great about answering questions, so it is worth looking into if anyone is interested in the program and located in the Hamilton area. Ontario Colleges would have a list of all schools that offer it.

Hands-on Science Robots and Ferris Wheels

As of late, I have been busy finishing my courses at Brock and planning for my placement in a grade eight classroom so I have not had much time to post. I'm not neglecting you!

Today, one of the grade eights made this great robot out of Lego that I wanted to share. It walks backwards and forwards using gears and a battery pack. Very cool! He could even make it dance. Mr. Roboto here was made just for fun after one student completed the given task.

 It was amazing to see what the students came up with given an open ended task during the systems in action unit in science. Students were asked to use Lego to create a carnival ride using gears and pulleys. Hands on learning is a really powerful experience for both students and teachers. The students were engaged and learning through problem solving. It was amazing to see what students could come up with. Each was unique and different in their own way. I will share more pictures of the final products if I can get a hold of them. Inspiring!

All Hands in.

My Leadership Philosophy

Personal Philosophy
For the last few weeks, I have been considering my own personal leadership philosophy. I think my personal philosophy aligns most closely with Participative Leadership. It is important to me that the decision making processes of the group are considered and valued. By engaging all stakeholders in the decision making process, I believe it increases the school effectiveness. This approach gives members of a school community ownership and pride in the school, helping to create a better place for learning to take place.

Making it Meaningful
I have been working on creating my own personal mission statement. I wanted to ensure that my mission statemnet really meant something to me and that it was both authentic and meaningful. It was important for me to remind myself when creating this that it needed to include specific actions that I will take. I need to decide exactly what to do in order to work towards accomplishing my goals. The following is my working mission statement. I have chosen to share it because I think that makes me more accountable.

Personal Mission Statement:
"As a edtech teacher leader I seek to use the participative/distributed approach to leadership because I value the input of all stakeholders. I will support the development of the organization by fostering collaborative processes through social networking sites, specifically those with a focus on education. I will work on modeling a positive attitude to aid in promoting an enjoyable and productive work environment and school culture. In the classroom, I will try varied methods of delivering instruction with a focus on technology integration. I will reflect upon and share these experiences with my colleagues both in the school setting and online using my blog and other social media outlets. I will adapt my practice in response to feedback received as a result of these reflections"

I am open to suggestions and comments, please feel free to share!

In our cohort class we looked at case study 11.1, called "The Discouraging Grade" from the book, Case Studies:
This case study was found on page 87-88.

Case study resources:

Differentiation-Teaching, Learning and Leadership
http://www.scoop.it/t/differentiation-teaching-learning-leadership

Survive and Thrive-  Virtual Conference for Begging Teachers
http://www.survivethrive.on.ca/

Teacher Relationships

http://msan.wceruw.org/resources/Teacher%20Relationships.pdf

Teachers as Leaders

It can be very difficult to define what it means to be a leader. There are several definitions of leadership I have been considering in the last week or so but the one that has the most meaning to me is the following:

"By leadership, I mean influencing others’ actions in achieving desirable ends. Leaders are people who shape the goals, motivations, and actions of others. Frequently they initiate change to reach existing and new goals." - (Cuban 1988)

The question then is how can teachers influence other teachers in achieving desirable ends. I think that an important way teachers can do this is by taking time to teach other educators how to use different tools, strategies and methods in the classroom. 

For example, I am currently working on a presentation for my Methods class in how to use LiveBinders for our own culminating task. We have all been working since September to build a Teacher Candidate Handbook which was divided into two categories, curricular and extracurricular which we subdivided into topics such as: community building, assemblies, tech tools, DPA and many more.  We all worked on them individually. Some of us used paper and pen, some used Google Docs and some used Word programs on their computer but what we want now is to put them together so that we can share the information with our entire class. We each only worked on two sections but we want to see all of it since we have all collaborated. A fellow classmate and I volunteered to help the class set it up on LiveBinders even though neither of us have used the tool in THIS way.  Setting it up included making the accounts and preparing a half hour presentation which would help show our class how to use it themselves. In this way we created a Professional Development presentation as well a solution to our culminating unit issue. Even though we were both familiar with the program, figuring out how we could use it for this project and deciding how to teach our colleagues was a whole other manner. 

We have been working on our PD presentation for a few days now and it is coming together. By teaching our class how to use this tool, we are not only helping them complete a project but also teaching them a tool they can use as teachers. LiveBinder is GREAT for organizing resources and you can even use it with a class, similar to how we are. Preparing this does take extra time but I think it is important because it helps our class move towards our common goal.

Preparing this presentation really made me think about what it means to be a leader when it comes to using technology in education. Even though I am nervous to present because I definitely do not know everything about this tool nor have I used it in this way, I am taking the risk because I think this information is important to share. It will help us reach our common goal and can provide a tool to support a class of future educators in the future. Many of you are likely already teacher leaders and you don't even know it!


 If you haven't checked out LiveBinders before, I suggest you do. You can use it just like you would real binders but it is all online. It is a way to organize links, word documents and images all in one place-public or private. There are also lots of resources available because people have made binders and chosen to share them. For example, here is a LiveBinder that has many different links to SmartBoard resource sharing sites. 

What should a 21st century classroom look like?

I went to the Queens Conference on Education last weekend in Kingston and in the opening activity we were asked to write a list of words that described a 21^st century learner and a 21^st century educator.  I found this comforting because the day before in a Tech Ed. leadership class at Brock we were asked the question, what should a 21^st Century classroom look like? In addition, another one of my classes we created a new teacher handbook and I was responsible for the section on tech tools. With others, I am collaborating to provide examples of helpful tools for new teachers, as well as attempting to answer the question, How can tech tools help to support 21^st century learning skills?

We are all asking the same question. What I am finding is there are many answers and many more ways to organize your answer. At the conference we left it at a short list of five words and moved on to individual workshops that attempted to address this and other compelling issues in education. In Ed. tech class we used Google docs to collaborate a list of words to describe the cultural, physical, academic and technical aspects of the 21^st century classroom. From there we found links to support or explain those words and concepts. In the handbook, I tried to sum up what I knew on the topic into only one page.

There are many ways to answer this question but what I find most helpful is seeing and hearing about teacher’s examples that they are using in the classroom. I use sites such as Pinterest, Livebinder and Twitter because they are rich with examples of 21^st century lessons and ideas. Of course, one must discriminate between what will work for them and what will not, but also they must decide what really supports his/her vision of a 21^st century classroom. I have set my own goal which is to work on really contributing to these sharing communities in the coming months. I want to upload my own lessons and make my own collections that I can share.

-Rachel