My Action Plan is related to Social Studies and the use of collaboration and critical thinking. I plan to evaluate the resources I am currently using in Social Studies and adjust or adapt them to move in the direction of collaboration, critical thinking, and technology.
This is an activity that involves technology, collaboration and critical thinking.

For this assignment, students will create and plan an island. They will consider various aspects of their civilization such as mapping, religion, culture, folklore, art, music, dance, agriculture, industry, government, and law and order. This assignment culminates in an oral presentation of the students’ island which should include artifacts, maps, musical compositions etc. This project meets curriculum outcomes in grade 9 Social Studies, ELA and Arts Education.

This unit teaches students to identify the persuasive techniques used by
advertisers to entice you to buy their products. Students learn to evaluate the
messages they are hearing, differentiate facts and opinions, and determine their
own opinions. I use this unit to lead into persuasive writing.

Students will develop skills needed to work independently and with a group
within Problem Based Work. The skills centered around 21st Century
Competencies and work skills desired by employers. Five skills which will be
learnt, discussed, reflected upon, and executed include: leadership, problem
solving, teamwork, time management and communication.

Summary:
In partners, students researched schools and critically decided how they learn best and designed a school to meet their needs.

Lesson Plan: Creating the School of Your Dreams!

Introduction:The Saskatchewan Government has pledged to build 18 new schools in Saskatchewan. You have been selected to be a part of the design process for one of these schools. You must consider that everyone learns differently and has their own opinion on what the best parts of the school are. Your task is to come up with a proposal for the design team of a school that meets your needs and would allow you to learn to your full potential. Your school must still fulfill the requirements for a proper education to take place. You have an unlimited budget. What would you include in your school? Everyone learns differently and has their own opinion on what the best parts of the school are. Your task is to design a school that meets your needs and would allow you to learn to your full potential. You have an unlimited budget. What would you include in your school?

I wanted to give my grade 9 students the opportunity to show me how they interpret and understand the periodic table. I wanted to come up with a creative and fun way for them to display their knowledge. I attended an amazing session at FETC in Orlando called “Storytelling For The Youtube Generation” that showcased the many opportunities to use popular youtube videos as educational tools (Check out Steve Dembo for more information - he has some great prezis). So I decided to give my students the opportunity to teach me about the periodic table as if I had no prior knowledge by creating videos based off of viral videos.

Students will choose a Canadian historical event, research it thoroughly, and then write a story based on the event placing themselves or a fictitious character(s) within the historical event. Their story will include the historical event setting and characteristics that describe the specific time period and event in history. By reading and analyzing texts and photos of the event they chose, students will gather the background information needed to create their own story. Learning will be enhanced by technology infusion and the incorporation of 21 Century learning competencies. Students will make a “Historical Moment” advertisement for TV using green screen technology as a method of promoting their historical story.

My goal was to have grade 5-8 students incorporate critical thinking in their reader response journals, where they respond to text read independently during Guided Reading stations. I feel reader response journals encourage students to apply strategies taught in class when reading independently to improve their understanding of a variety of text. Our SLIP goal for the past two years focused on reading strategies, so I was also trying to build on the work we were doing for the West Colony PLT.

In our unit on forces and simple machines we incorporated
many different uses of technology. During our unit the students were
given an opportunity to work collaboratively and think critically. After
learning all about simple machine and forces, my class had to
collaboratively design a fair test that would explore one of type of force.
Each group created a fair a test and designed and collected materials to
carry out this experiment. They also had to create a tool to record their
results. During their experiment we had 3 adults with iPads who walked
around the room videoing as the students explained their findings. This
allowed us to check their understanding at this point.
Some ways we used technology throughout this unit
- Used as an instructional tool
- Students used to share their results
- Shared results through pictures and videos
- Present Data
- Generate class discussions
- Final Assessment (students created a PowerPoint)

As a part of our school SWISI program, we work on math skills during our assigned time. For this activity students will be scanning QR codes that align with the unit they are working on in math at the time.

In the dance craze research project for my Grade 7 Physical Education class there was a large component of collaboration. The students were put into small groups of either 3 or 4 and had to work together to complete the assignment. They needed to collaborate and make sure each individual was on board with the type of dance they were going to do and each do equal amount of work on the project. The collaboration was the largest part of this piece because of the amount to time students needed to discuss and work as a group to complete the assignment and present it to the class. They need some collaboration time outside of the class to practice in order to help teach their peers the steps to the dance as well. This group has a tough time with collaborating with one another, but this activity I would view as a success as most students and groups were able to work together and collectively to finish their project. Each group member completed a peer assessment on each group member to show if each member had done equal amount of work and was a contributing group member and helped the group succeed.

Flash Mob –
Collaboration was highlighted in my classroom when students undertook dancing and pop culture in the arts ed curriculum (This is a major focus at grade 5). Together with my intern, we decided to create something unique with the students that hadn’t previously been done in our school, and that the students could have ownership and pride in.

My plan for my 21st century competency dealt with critical thinking and collaboration in
my Physical Education 9 class. The assignment I had students participate in was in designing a
game that involved offensive and defensive strategies. The students also had to brainstorm
game objectives, physical skills being used, teamwork skill, game rules, penalties, and scoring
system. Before we began developing our games, we looked at the evolution of sport. For
instance, we looked at how volleyball and badminton scoring systems have changes in the past
20 years. We also looked at sports like hockey and football and the rule changes from the early
days of the sport to what we see today. Finally, students developed a game and taught it to the
class. They thought about what worked well and what did not and adjusted their games
according to their findings.

My goal was to create a booklet of creativity challenges to use with Grade 1 to 3 students.
Based on the model of Destination Imagination, I planned challenges that were relevant to the
curricula we were studying at the time. All challenges were chosen from Entry Level activities. I also wanted to foster collaboration, so all challenges were planned with that in mind. My final
artifact is a collection of challenges that I have housed in a duotang. Contact me if you would
like more information. I have included a few sample challenges that were adapted from the
Destination Imagination books, as well as a list of all the activities I collected, at the end of this
document.

Digital Passport is an interactive learning tool for grades three to five that teaches
and tests the basics of digital safety, etiquette, and citizenship. Students learn
foundational skills from online games and videos, while deepening their learning
through collaborative offline activities. Digital Passport has interactive games for
students, a comprehensive teacher dashboard that includes student reporting,
additional downloadable classroom materials and module guide. Digital Passport
consists of five topical modules: (1) Privacy, (2) Cyberbullying, (3) Communication,
(4) Creative Credit, and (5) Search.
*Digital Passport follow the policy guide for Digital Citizenship Education in
Saskatchewan Schools

The Issue: How should the land around water systems be used?
Imagine you live in a town near a lake in Saskatchewan. For drinking water, the town uses
ground water from a local well. The ground water comes from an aquifer that sits below land
that is being developed for a feedlot.

The goal of Genius Hour was to get students more engaged in the learning process and to help instill the idea of lifelong learning. Students were asked to brainstorm what their passion was. Students then had to develop an inquiry question related to their passion. Then they had to decide how they would like to show what they learned. Then, students spent time researching about their projects. They were given one hour each Friday to work on their projects. It was an exciting project that students looked forward to working on each week! Because these projects were quite large, they did not all finish at the same time. As students complete their projects, they were able to present what they did to the class.

Investigate and manipulate elements of music and principles of composition including repetition and variety.

Choose an idea, a storyline, or an object that you want to represent. Create a presentation that shows repetition and variety in at least three different elements of music, and explain how it represents your idea/story/object. The explanation can be verbal, visual, or written. This can be worked on individually or collaboratively as a group.

Throughout the year I have used this as a review for the end of each unit. I create five or six critical thinking questions that apply what we have been learning about. I print them on color paper and spread them around the room. I pair the students up, and have they move about the room solving the questions. I only have ten students in my class so I’m fortunate to have only five pairs at a time. I usually pair them up as sort of a strong and weak combination. This is an attempt to have them collaborate on the problems while using critical thinking.

The purpose of this activity is to preform an analysis on a variety of urine and stool samples in order to understand the procedure and purpose of these tests in the health care world.