Sue Hellman

I want to congratulate everyone who persevered with this process until the end of the week. I have learned a lot about how different teachers approach the task of writing their TPSs. Thank you for the opportunity to do that.  I'm looking forward to restructuring this course based my observations re: what parts of the process caused various people difficulties. 

The one thing that has been confirmed to me is that how dedicated this group of teachers is to ensuring students receive their best. None have taken an easy path or retreated from the challenges of the job. I wish I'd had the pleasure of being your student. 

(I've made one final addition under tab 4B: a comprehensive checklist cobbled together from 3 different sources. If I responded to your first or second draft, you'll find one attached.)

Parting thought: 

Effective teaching -- "the thoughtful orchestration of conditions to promote and generate long lasting learning" -- is part art, part craft, part science, and a whole lot of alchemy (In Search of Quality Teaching (2007) from http://questioning.org/sep04/qt.html). 

First I want to thank all of you who've shared your work. It's been a privilege to read it. Sylvia has done some reviewing, and I will follow suit tonight.

There's still time to join the discussion in the Open Forum or to share a draft of a new or older version of your TPS. Even if you're not at that stage, I hope you'll still jump in. Your feedback on the statements that have been posted would be most welcome. If your first draft is already up, you can learn a lot by applying a rubric or a checklist to give feedback to a colleague. From a writer's point of view, the wider the range of perspectives one receives, the more one has to think about during the revision process. 

Next, I want to apologize for being late with this announcement. I've been using the 'feedback' I've been receiving from reading your fist drafts to make some revisions and additions to Tabs 4a  (Self Check) & 4b (Give and Get Feedback).  Some of this content should have appeared in the Compose section, but it could still be useful to guide the revision process. 

Finally, I'm asking for your help. I haven't done a great job of providing information about improving writing mechanics as was requested by several participants in the pre-course survey. I've been thinking that crowd sourcing could be the way to go. I've set up a Google Doc with instructions at https://docs.google.com/document/d/12nuvd_IwSFRMfDkUgohUrRELwbGWoUbJH4mtm52u3D0/edit and am asking for your contributions. You can either share an error that drives you nuts (with a 'fix') or a question about some point of grammar that has you confused. After the course, I'll compile these into a Google Slides presentation and share the link with all. 

That's all for tonight.

PS. If anyone would like to collaborate with a 'grammar maven', please message me or reply here or below your TPS.  I'd be more than happy to help. 

We've reached midweek which means, if you're following the time line, that it's time to begin assembling your first draft. Patti and Leone have led the way by posting theirs in the Sharing Forum. These writers have taken very different approaches. One has rooted her statement in the way her own early learning challenges shaped her as a teacher. The other has focussed on how she supports students with learning challenges. However, both writers have given us a look at what's most important to them as educators -- which is the most important theme of any TPS. 

A couple of suggestions: 

1) It's OK to jump right into brainstorming (tab 2) and composing (tab 3). Not everyone is comfortable with starting from 'WHY'. Often this emerges as one works through a set of guiding questions. 

2) The forum is useful for general reactions, but if you'd like more targeted suggestions, you could use a Google Doc with comments enabled and share the link.

3) If you prefer to share your TPS as an example only (no feedback), please add that to the subject line and put an extra reminder at the end of your post. This option is offered as a response to concerns about 'mandatory collaboration' mentioned in the pre-course survey.

4) It's also possible to share a previous TPS written prior to the course. In this case you might provide some direction to us readers as to what kind of feedback you're looking for. 

Finally, we're looking forward to reading your drafts. For there to be enough time to respond thoughtfully, it would be a good idea to set today or midway through Thursday as your goal for sharing your draft. We recognize that this is a 'big ask' but encourage you to try to get a first draft done before the end of the week. 

 

First I want to say hello and welcome to this TPS-writing journey. 

As you may have seen yesterday, there's very little agreement among advise-givers about how to accomplish this task which is partly what makes a TPS so challenging to write. Days 1 & 2 of this week are devoted to reflecting and brainstorming about why teaching is important to you and how that is expressed through what you do and how you do it. 

This mini-course has been designed so you can work through a sequence of writing process steps by following the tabs or browse for content that will help you over your specific hurdles. The Find Your WHY activity (tab 1b) came from an workshop I gave at UNB, Fredericton. You can skip through the topics using the Table of Contents on the right.. 

If there are any resources you hoped to find but are not seeing, please drop a note in the Open Forum. And again ... welcome!

OK. I admit it. Teaching has been my life's work, too. When I was a kid, I would line up my dolls & stuffed animals & teach them stuff. I 'left the profession' 8 years ago and still keep trying to find ways to get back in. I'll be doing a workshop with a group of California math teachers in Feb. about 'math zombieism' and how to help the afflicted recover. Here's what I'm going to tell them about my 'why'. (BTW, if anyone remembers the ad I mention below & can send me a link, that would be a huge help.)

Several years ago there was a tv commercial which portrayed a man tethered to a monstrous, rusted-out boat. He was trying to haul it out of the sea and up onto the beach, but the boat looked too heavy. It seemed fated to slide back into the water where it would inevitably sink pulling the man under. He was doomed to drown. 

Much of my career has been spent working with struggling (what we used to call 'remedial' or 'modified') math students. I used to tell them that story -- likening their history of awful math experiences to the rusted hulk. What I was there to do, I would say, was show them another possibility: they could cut it loose. They could learn the skills and bob to the surface. They might never like math, but they would no longer have to fear being drowned by it.

The most important thing about my teaching is that it has given me the opportunity to help these kinds of learners free themselves from having to drag their load of past math failures into the future. Schooling shouldn't teach people that they can't do stuff. It should affirm to them, over and over and over, that they can.