and so another year of awesome starts!

What an amazing group of students this semester. Funny, entertaining, smart, kind ...

it sounds like I must be exaggerating eh? What high school teacher in the 21st century can say these things without a BUT of some sort?
I can. This group starts work in just 2 days and I have complete confidence that it will be an amazing experience for all of us.
Retail stores, offices, huge computer companies, police, vets, restaurants, hospitals, a local TV station and schools will all benefit from this group of hard working young adults. I am looking forward to watching them grow and learn.

What a lucky lucky person I am. I am them working on a journal topic right now about attitdude. I have really come to accept lately that the only thing I have direct control over is myself - this quotation reinforces that view quite beautifully.

Some other attitude quotes I like:

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo

If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one. ~Cavett Robert

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. ~Winston Churchill

Getting Ready for OCEA

OCEA is an annual conference for coop teachers. For the fourth year I'm doing a presentation - this year with my fabulous colleague Ms. Singh. Our topic is "Practical Uses of Differentiated Instruction in the Pre-Placement Phase of Coop". A big title for what we do regularly, and successfully.

This blog was originally set up to allow a student who wanted to do things her way to see what a blog was so she could blog her journals instead of typing weekly entries. D. did a great job on her blog-journal which encouraged me to allow more freedom in what the product for journals looked like. Most students use the traditional format still but after teaching coop for 13 years or so it's quite interesting to see a little variety in format. Journals are a great example of something that

(The Body Shop is one of our employers this semester - they have worked with many of our students over the years - and have done a great job differentiating for our students.)

Web 2.0 Tools ...

Interesting professional development this morning on Web 2.0 tools. I can see using Moodle, Google Docs, Glogster (http://edu.glogster.com), Wordle (http://www.wordle.net), Symbaloo, Xtranormal, Wallwisher, Prezi, and Survey Monkey in the coop classroom. I'd love it if students started using some of these tools too. It's a great way for me to learn more about then.

Happy March Break Superstars!!

here is a little movie for your viewing pleasure :)

Does it work?

Know Safety, No Injury

No Safety, Know Injury

Our class did a quick assignment yesterday to help them review for their MAJOR safety test. Our students aren't allowed to start at work until they have mastered the key safety concepts (usually demonstrated by achieving a 80% or higher on the unit test, or retest, or retest, or retest). One pair of lovely quiet young ladies walked us through the bolded quotation above. I was so impressed. The play on words was terrific and the fact these young ladies both have English as a third language made their choice of activity even more meaningful.

I was quite impressed with all the students choice of focus. Many reviewed the key concepts of Right to Refuse Unsafe Work; Right to Participate and the Right to Know. They brought these concepts alive in unique and amusing ways. Others chose to focus on specific aspects of safety. Some reviewed the types of hazards for example and provoked some interesting discussions. I'm optimistic that students will recall what a biological hazard is after my quite graphic definition.

We have some nice flash cards, posters and other written material to share in the future as well.

We are quite obsessed with safety in our program. We devote more than the required time to it as the statistics about youth safety at the workplace are really quite frightening. The videos we show and the discussions we have are often quite enlightening for students but it's hard not to worry that they will still make poor choices around personal safety at work. Adolescents often have a sense of immortality that makes them feel safe in any circumstance. Experience can be a very hard teacher of this lesson.

This was the first time we tried letting students review for the test in this way so I'm curious to see if it worked to help them retain central ideas or if we will be moving back to the silent study, teacher lecture model that bores me nearly senseless.

You Don't Have to Be a Sheep

Journals are a mandated part of coop. Most students type a very traditional journal. They write one or two a week. They select a topic (either on their own or from a list of prompts that we email out to students every couple of weeks); tell us what happened; and then reflect on the growth they have demonstrated or what they have learned from it.
Some students get a little creative. They do some oral journals. One kept a blog of her experiences. One chose to hand write her journal as she felt it was more personal that way. Some students want worksheets to fill in. Some students keep daily records and then reflect on one item from the week. As long as there is meaningful reflection and open communication students have met the biggest requirement of the journal assignment. Reflection is personal - and demonstrates growth.
Journals are graded by levels. Any product a student creates that meets the criteria for honest meaningful reflection is evaluated on the same standard.
Any student is welcome to be as creative as they would like when trying journals. Just because we haven't yet read a script; watched a film; had a brochure or poster handed in doesn't mean we wouldn't welcome them! If this is a place a student wants to be creative - GO FOR IT!!