Inspired by the Teachers Guild

A couple of weeks ago, I had the humbling honour to visit the Teachers Guild at IDEO's San Francisco offices. The Teachers Guild is an online collaborative environment where teachers can work together to solve our biggest challenges in education today. The Guild sparks the conversation by offering a design challenge, and teachers go through phases of Discovery, Ideate, Build, and Select. The ideas...

At the Confluence

My creativity is in full practice, though I haven't stopped much to write about it here! I hope to get back into that habit. I did write an article on Medium for the Teachers Guild about Design the Shift, a summer professional learning event I helped organize. You can find out more about Design the Shift. You can read my article entitled At the Confluen...

Français Intensif...ça vaut la peine!

By Stephanie Bartlett How many of you learned French in school and didn't have a chance to speak it?  In our French Immersion program, we dedicate regular time and professional development to keep current on best practice. We want our French Immersion students to speak the language and be able to express themselves from the beginning of their language acquisition.  We have moved away...

Some Thoughts on Play, Sound and Music

By Stephanie Bartlett Dimples were deeper than normal as Sienna found her rhythm. She and some friends were joyfully banging copper pipes against the bike racks in our school yard. Metal on metal unleashed a joy in her that I have yet to see inside the classroom. Wide eyed, she looked at me as if to ask “Can I do this?” or perhaps expecting me to be upset. I grinned back at her and asked if she...

Further Thoughts About Kairotic Time

By Stephanie Bartlett I don't think you can plan these moments. Or perhaps the planning comes from the very action of NOT planning our day down to the minute. Had I written my day plan today, it would have looked like this: 8:15 Greet students outside, français intensif, songs, check in with each other 8:30 Play outside 8:50 Enter into classroom, flow of the day on the carpet, ABC and numeracy...