Miss M's Learning Space

As part of the Affiliate Federation Day (sponsored by OECTA) I had the privilege of attending the ' ICanyet Student Driven Student Portfolios ' workshop. The idea behind the workshop was to learn about the power of having a growth mindset in all subject areas and creating a student portfolio in order to monitor progress. The workshop was packed full of information and resources from Dan Montanaro (@mrm1mr), so I've selected my top 3 take-aways to share here. Student Driven Portfolios in Student-Led Conferences I've heard about student-led conferences before, but only briefly and not in great detail. The idea is that students take ownership of their work and behaviours in order to share with their parents in place of traditional parent-teacher interviews. Dan's method was having students save all of their work through the term in a portfolio and then curate the key pieces they think shows their growth as a student to share in a presentation to their parents. ...

A few weeks ago I was able to attend the professional development workshop called  Creating a Positive Junior/Intermediate Classroom Environment: Using Restorative Practices to enhance Classroom Management and support Mental Health.  It was an incredible experience; I had never really heard about what restorative justice is until this conference. Restorative Justice in a Nutshell If I could summarize in one sentence I would say that restorative justice is a process where the perpetrator and the victim of violence or harassment can meet to hear each other's side of the story and find peace and closure to move forward. In a classroom setting, this can be done fairly quickly with the teacher acting only as a facilitator (i.e. not probing or stating their opinion) while the students involved in the incident can share their perspective on what happened. In it's most formal form , restorative justice is used to help 'restore the harm caused by crime.' The facilitator...