I Really Needed This...

For the last couple of days I had been working with a colleague to prepare for a co-teaching opportunity with a Grade 11 World Religion class, working at the workplace level. The first day was spent exclusively with the teacher, ensuring her comfort with blogging that she so enthusiastically wanted to introduce her class to. I had worked with her on a previous occasion to build the blog and in between our meeting tims, she and her class spent some time getting comfortable interfacing with Blogger and the kids practiced responding to postings. (The teacher remarked how engaged the kids were when they were writing for the blog. She couldn't bribe them to do pencil-paper tasks, but the kids apparently took to the blog like ducks to water. Attendance is up and deadlines are being met on a regular basis. How about that!!!)I had also shown her how to upload documents using Slideshare. In the meantime, I had taken the CPT for the course and made it "bloggable". I chunked the summative and creative organizational checklists that the kids could use when they were blogging. I replicated the expectations of the original task so that the students could produce it virtually. I had also included a metacognitive piece, as well as a component that asked students to provided their peers with feedback. The teacher decided to augment the writing by including an artistic/creative component. Lots of good work happening!

When I met with her yesterday, we reviewed the basics so she could more confidently relay information to her students and we also planned for the today's class. The students had completed the first part of the CPT - the writing and the artistic piece. She wanted me to teach her and the kids how to take digital photos and edit them and upload them to the class blog. As well, we got the students started on the next part of the CPT, which was the class' study of Judaism. And that's what we did! The kids had created some truly beautiful artistic pieces to represent their learning about Christianity. A former student of mine had hand-crafted a wooden sconce in the shape of a dynamic cross which held a tea light. Another picked up water colour paint for the first time and painted an absolutely lovely cross. A boy in the class came up with his own clay recipe and created relief of a chalice and grapes. It was just amazing... We took pictures with the digital camera and uploaded them to a photo management program. We cropped,adjusted brightness and contrast until everyone was happy and uploaded them to the class blog. Were those kids ever proud.

This is a special class. Like I mentioned, it's a workplace level class with quite the profile. There are only 8 students in the class but EVERY SINGLE student is on an IEP and has varying degrees of exceptionalities from an array of LDs, to a young girl with severe vision impairment in addition to MID to a boy with autism. A number of students in this class have had problems with behaviour, and having taught some of them, I am aware of the reputations they have been given. In this class, when the kids were posting and creating, none of that mattered. Every students was present, every student was on task and every students was engaged. I truly believe that half the battle is figuring out what these kids respond to. The reality is that these kids are using real world tools to access the curriculum. They are using skills that EVERYONE should be taught. I would argue they've got something of a technical edge on some of their friends who aren't doing this sort of work. The teacher doesn't have behaviour problems because she knew that the kids would respond to this medium. The kids understand what is expected and they keep themselves in check to make sure no one steps out of line with regards to how the blog is used. It's quite remarkable. This is what differentiated instruction is all about, believing that every student can learn given the appropriate challenge and support and meeting kids where they are. I felt so privileged to be a part of this, even if it was for only two days.