Hello World,
In each edition of this newsletter, I will share five inspiring web resources from the education sector that I have curated after hours of research to ensure that you have the best education coffee in your inbox.
I just started a new job as a Grade 5 Homeroom Teacher. Here are some observations and resources from the first week in the classroom.
1) Establish parent contact and understand their needs
Try to start this conversation with an open ended chat about their child. Ask them about their child and the things that interest their child on a daily basis. Then assure them that you are going to work really hard to give their child the best possible academic year going ahead. Angela Watson on the Truth for Teachers podcast episode number 231 does a great job discussing pro-active parent engagement strategies with Erika Walther.
2) Develop student inquiry files
Find one thing the student is curious about and give them some time and space to explore and study the same further. This gives you a chance to hear about the things the student is interested in and also allows the student to bring part of themselves to the school. I highly recommend reviewing Scott Hoffman’s work on the Curiosity Projects to understand how you can setup something similar for your class. This article by Suzie Boss on Edutopia is a good review of his work.
3) Create a welcoming learning environment
This can include visual displays, a nicely designed door, student work. Here is a picture of my attempt at achieving this objective. This can also include a visual display of the essential agreements that you and your students agreed upon at the start of the year.
4) Build on your peers work through teacher collaboration
Ask co-teachers and other senior teachers in the building for lesson plans and assignments that they implemented going ahead. It is important to understand what worked out in the past to understand what will work going ahead. The article linked above discusses why this collaborative culture is essential for a school working environment of adult professionals.
5) Learning Stories Episode 7 - Sanjana Dushyant
I started a YouTube Channel called ‘Learning Stories’. This is a show where we interview a diverse set of learners from the 21st century. Each guest profiled here has a unique story to share about how they acquired a set of valuable skills and knowledge in a creative and innovative manner. In the process, we hope to uncover a new understanding of learning as conceptualized, imagined, and narrated in these learning stories.
On Episode 7 of #LearningStories we chat with Sanjana Paramhans Sanjana is an Interior Architect and Social Designer. She is an alumnus of Pratt Institute in New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Research for Spatial Design at the University of Arts in London. Over the past few years, she has worked on a variety of residential, commercial, and retail mixed-use projects. As an interior architect she is interested in creating optimal habitable spaces inspired by human interactions with their environment. She strongly believes that design stimulates people to behave a certain way – it can condition and control their actions and reactions. According to her, interior design is not just about pretty lights and wallpapers, it is an enabler of social change. You can follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/sprmhns/.
Abhishek
13th September 2021