Rethinking WHY I Blog

A few weeks ago many of Coquitlam’s Principals and Vice-Principals attended our annual conference. This year’s topic was the power of educational leaders using social media. I was inspired by the thought provoking message George Couros sent about carefully considering the WHY behind educational leaders using social media. While I have been blogging at this address since 2007, I have been quiet since I became a vice-principal. I told myself that I wasn’t posting because I was in a different phase in my new role – a learning phase – I would save posting for when I had learned enough to feel confident … Continue reading Rethinking WHY I Blog

UDL Success!!!

The process of transforming the way we work with our students is gradual. One of the first things we have been working on is moving away from the ‘resource room’ model where kids who are not reading/writing at grade level miss classroom instruction to be involved in extra instruction to work on their areas of weakness. We continued pulling kids but only in short-term focus groups set up for a specific purpose (this term it was phonemic awareness). Some kids who are on our support list did not need this group so the only support they received was to monitor … Continue reading UDL Success!!!

How UDL has changed my job

I am a student services teacher who programs for students with a variety of special learning needs including learning disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy, etc. UDL has turned how we plan for our students upside down. In the past I tried to keep up with what the teachers were doing and plan a program for the students I worked with that was somewhat related to what they were doing. Keeping up with such a variety of programs was exhausting and sometime around December (okay November) I lost track of the classroom programs and the students’ programs became less and less related … Continue reading How UDL has changed my job