All Day Kindergarten

Hello Lotties,

I have a bee in my bonnet about the prospect of all day kindergarten in multi-grade classrooms and I want to know what anyone else out there thinks about it. We know it's coming, so it's no use denying it any longer. This year I have 10 ks, 6 1s, and 5 2s, so it makes a busy morning, but at 11 am, when the ks go home I have the small group, so we get a lot of learning done, despite the fact that they are half way through the day already. If the ks were there all day, they would be tired, so there would be a lot of management and the 1s and 2s would not get what they are now. I'm trying to not be negative, so I'm looking for ideas from anyone who is doing all day K in a multi-grade classroom. HELP!

On-Line Lottie

Hello Everyone,

Well, it's half way through October and hopefully our classes are up and running somewhat smoothly. Just in time for Halloween! I have two questions/requests. The first is a request. If anyone is going to the Rural Renewal Conference in Vancouver on the provincial pro-d day, would they stop me somewhere along the way and say hello. I will be wearing a committee name tag. I would also appreciate if you are a member of this blog if you could post a quick blurb to everyone after the conference about it: what you learned, what you liked/disliked, was the food good? The second is a question. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in participating in an "on-line Lottie?" The Rural Strategy committee has a very good mentorship program set up for new-to-rural educators, but not all rural teachers are able to participate. If you would like to be an on-line mentor, or you would like to have an on-line mentor, either post it here, or e-mail me at vcivey@xplornet.com. This is a very informal mentoring idea. I have a list of teachers already that are willing to participate, so I can match you up with someone who has a similar assignment. How you communicate with each other will be up to both participants.

I hope you all have a great Halloween. I'll post to you later.

Virginia Ivey
President BC Rural & Small Schools Teacher's Association

Pre-service Teacher Training Advice

At a recent gathering in Quatsino of new and experienced rural educators, the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) teacher education department asked for advice pertaining to pre-service training for teachers whose first classrooms might be rural and/or multi-graded. A collation of their ideas and advice fell into three categories; resources, coursework, and support.

RESOURCES

"be resourceful with the resources you can make available

"resources that are useful for teaching ie. Provide strategies that work for multi-grade classes.

"Learn what resources are out there to keep you current/ ongoing PD, what does it look like/ know what's available to help before they leave school to teach

"sharing of units and themes

"resource center for multi-grade themes

COURSEWORK

"learn how to teach a common lesson/concept and adapt for individual needs

"courses for open-ended multi-leveled lessons (cross-curricular)

"technology- know how to use it and solve problems

"everyone to have coursework in special education

"recognizing and being familiar with special needs

"exposure to examples of yearly plans in multi-grade

"less theory, more practical

"child development

"strategies to teach all grades together

"simplify lesson/theme, long term

"one concept with different expectations

"classroom management

"planning, schedules, see sample year plans

"curriculum overlap

"sample classroom – visits to classrooms

"how to set up expectations for each grade, what would that look like

"sample unit plans for multi-grade

"where to start – big picture, looping, 3 year cycle

"teach specific thinking and learning skills, not all specific outcomes

"how to plan for a TOC who is not a teacher

"what does it look like to "adapt?"/ how do you do it at all grades?/adapting for a lower grade level vs. special needs

"what does it look like to teach a whole group – differentiation? Adaptation?

"Curriculum formatting, big picture

"special education designations

"behaviour plans in multi-grade

"child development

"social capital/ poverty

"observations in challenging classrooms

"multi-grade teaching as a specialty

"philosophy of multi-grade

"coursework on social skills of acceptance of all peers and creating a classroom of children with empathy, inclusion, support, etc.

SUPPORT

"give ourselves permission to move children as far as we can, beginning at the level they are at, instead of feeling the need to "cover" the curriculum

""fish bowl" - constant, keep a low profile, join a club to integrate as "a person," not just the teacher

"have more sponsor teachers from multi-grade situations. Encourage rural districts to take student teachers

"where to look for assistance – lists of self-help/support curriculum

"mentoring networks

"peer coaching

"address the sense of isolation

"connection with a mentor – someone to check in with/ define what "mentor" means

"know the roles of the people in our districts (union and board office)

"how to survive living in a rural/isolated community, in a fishbowl, always seen as "the teacher"

"know what admin duties are/ lists of contacts and resources

"parental communication and inter parental politics

"sponsor teacher training/in service

"revamp practicum eg. Team approach

"partner with a diversity of schools

"more mentorship

Many thanks to everyone for their help and thoughtful insights!

Pre-Service Training advice/input

Hello Lotties,

A few minutes ago I posted a summary of the pre-service training advice that we collected from the participants at the regional conference in Quatsino. I think it's interesting advice. Does anyone have anything to add, or comment on? Just to let you know, I forwarded the info to Pat Pearce and the Rural Steering Committee, as well. I thought it would be food for thought when the mentors get together to train and plan for the New Rural Teachers symposium in October.

Greetings to the Quatsino Crowd!

Hi, Everyone. Now that I know that we want to continue to use the Lottie Blog, I have sent an invitation to Virginia's new email address and she should be able to post soon. A new option has appeared to allow me to grant admin privileges to other members, and I have done so. Now Wendy, Heather, Ivy, and Sandy should be able to change the blog format and edit posts. As soon as Virginia accepts the invitation and becomes a member of the blog, I will do that for her as well. What is really important is that each of you should now have the ability to invite others to the blog. To do this, get the person's email address and go to the "settings" tab. There you will find another tab called "permissions". There is a place there to enter the email address of the person your want to invite. Remind them that they will need to set up a Google account if they don't have one and that it is very important to remember the email address and the password they use when they do it. Sometimes a password has been taken and people have to try several. When one is finally accepted they have forgotten which one it was. I have my students write down each version and cross each one out if it is rejected. If you've ever had a Google account attached to an email address and can't remember the password, it seems to be hard to get it to work. What you can do is ask for an invitation to be sent to another email address, if you have more than one. So...I hope that's not too much information. Have a great time in Quatsino and I look forward to hearing about it.

Scholarship idea

Hi All,
At our recent executive meeting, we talked about a proposal to use some of our interest income for a scholarship (or two) for university/college students. There are a number of questions:

1. For whom should it be awarded? Teacher education students or undergraduates in general? Rural students or those who are interested in teaching in a rural area?
Here's an idea: How about offering it as a stipend/bursary for a student to live-out during the practicum?

2. How much ought it to be? We generate between $700 and $900 annually in interest income. We could offer two $250 bursaries, or maybe one at $500. If the above idea for a living-out allowance is followed, do either of these amounts make sense?

3. What criteria ought to be used to adjudicate the applications? Who would do the adjudication? I wonder if we could ask for a 500-750 word essay on some topic of relevance to rural education? It could be a new topic each year or a standard statement about interest in rural education as a career choice. Would the winning (and maybe runner-up) essays be printed in the Root?

4. Do we want to rule that a person can only earn it once?

We can also consider some other ideas entirely for this money...ideas welcome.

Wendy

Multigrade Learning Outcomes for new Language Arts IRP (K-7)

Hot off the Press! The BC Rural and Small Schools Teachers' Association (that's us!) has been granted "limited permission" from the Ministry of BC "to use and adapt material from the English Language Arts Kindergarten to Grade 7, Integrated Resource Package 2006, for the non-profit educational purpose of preparing instructional guides for the non-profit use of teachers in British Columbia. The contents of this multi-grade format document have not been prepared, endorsed or approved by the Ministry of Education." Okay, okay - so we don't have their endorsement or approval -but at least we have their permission! And now our Multigrade Format is easily accessible and available: either as a pdf file from the Network of Performance Based Schools website (www.npbs.ca) or in printed form from BCTF Lesson Aids www.bctf.ca (LA9186) for $4.50 (which includes postage.)

The Multigrade Format takes each of the 35 Learning Outcomes from K-7 and shows the grade-by-grade increments of skill development for each grade. A great help when planning multigrade lessons for any combination of grades. View online at www.npbs.ca