“And then she went to the porridge of the Little Wee Bear, and tasted it, and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right, and she liked it so well that she ate it all up, every bit!” — Goldilocks and the Three Bears For many of us, the sun is shining and we are in the mad dash of wrapping things up before escaping for a well deserved summer. I suspect it would be an easy task if wrapping up was all we had to do, but of course it’s never that simple in a school. We don’t just pack up our class, we need to hand them over to next year’s division and teachers, and get ready to receive our next batch. The data handover is enormous, and figuring out the what and how requires a “Goldilocks” attitude - we’ve got to get it just right. Quantity: Sharing enough to inform, but not so much that it will overwhelm next year’s teachers. Ingredients: Not sharing just numbers, but also anecdotal records and holistic data that will help teachers know students better and sooner. Tempera
“It’s important to remember that behind every data point is a daughter, a mother, a sister – a person with hopes and dreams.” — Melinda French Gates Image and wordcloud from ncec.catholic.edu.au I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to visit a number of schools over the past few weeks, and see first-hand how teachers are making countless decisions every day to personalize learning. It strikes me that one of the positives to come from our years of lockdowns is a deeper understanding that context matters, and a willingness to find out more about the unique context that our students bring with them to our classrooms each day. One aspect of context that I am interested in learning more about is “hopes and dreams”: What do our students wish for their future and how does that impact their learning in the present? How might your grade 10 geography lesson plans change if you knew what career your students were aspiring to? How would you group students in PHE class if you knew each student’s ch