I travelled to Moose Jaw to participate in the 2017 Sheta Conference on September 29 and 30th 2017.  I left on the 29 th as it is a very long drive. I love attending this conference as it is the only time I am able to connect with other teachers in my field of Home Economics.  I was able to connect with teachers from our Northern Area as well, and it is nice to share and network with people who have the same issues/ ideas as you. The conference was made up of Sessions covering the areas of nutrition, cooking,...

Development Coach Workshop: Learning the basic elements of volleyball and how to coach athletes in the best possible method using the Volleyball Canada and NCCP models for the long term development of competent and competitive athletes. This knowledge I gained through participating in this workshop will be applied through my extra curricular involvement with my school by running an successful Junior girls Volleyball program, as well as a competitive Club volleyball team throughout the club season (December – May). This will allow for fostering and establishing strong relationships with students, parents and our community throughout the school year. NATA of...

Building Student Engagement in Distance and Blended Learning was a conference held in North Battleford, Saskatchewan on October 23, and 24 2017.  The conference was part of an ongoing yearly distance education conference organized by online educators in Saskatchewan. The focus of this year’s conference was looking at strategies of how to build student engagement in online and blended learning opportunities. The two-day conference featured two keynotes, and multiple breakout sessions.  The strength of this conference comes from the fact that most of the presenters that are sharing ideas are educators that are actively engaged in using the strategies they...

I attended the Teacher’s Institute to develop my teaching practice by integrating greater elements of democratic principles into my daily classroom activities. I believe that helping students engage with the electoral and democratic process, including protest and criticism, can develop student learning and active citizenship. I am currently developing projects to engage with the TRC’s Calls to Action and petitions to the federal government and provincial government within my classroom. I am also developing units on art and social activism as a result of my engagement with this program. This program would easily have applications for a student council or...

For this PD opportunity, I traveled to the University of Regina to attend the UR STARS (University of Regina Student/Teacher Anti-Racism Society) TreatyEdCamp. This year, the event featured a dozen different PD Opportunities, focusing on new resources such as Shattering the Silence, an ebook on Residential Schools released by the UofR. The keynote address from Charlene Bearhead, the Ed Lead for the MMIWG Inquiry and former Ed Lead with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, provided an excellent perspective to examine my own level of understanding in Treaty Education. I came away with a great suite of resources and connections to...

This conference is of interest to Education Leaders, Distance educators, educators using blended learning in the classroom and organizations with an interest in innovative change and student engagement. Many high school teachers are eager to use strategies to keep students engaged and motivated in successful high school completion.  This conference had a variety of speakers with various solutions that looked at digital tools and educational technology. One the many inspirational speakers was Ken Grover. https://youtu.be/iujqRi4xgw0  During his presentation he walked around the school with his laptop so we could see the physical space and the teachers and students in action.  Two...

The annual gathering of Saskatchewan distance educators has been a rich opportunity to network, share, and learn from one another. Our distance learning team attends and contributes through presentations, active participation and leadership.  We consistently return with new ways to immediately improve our practice the following week. This year I worked with Dean Squires as co-chair of the conference and had the opportunity to connect with some high level people in the world of distance education nationally and internationally. Although the biggest highlight is meeting up with distance educators around the province we were able to discuss best practice with...

I had discovered that there is an annual American Sign Language class in Edmonton every summer. This summer was the 11th annual ASL course which was scheduled for July 3rd to the 7th.  I had immediately registered for the program, because of extreme interest to obtain and practice sign language. Our one profoundly deaf student needs support in his area of language. It is crucial that he has advocates to meet his needs in this key area of ASL. Having the training at the ASL program, I now have more knowledge to bring back to our school; I had formulated...

One of my students is profoundly deaf, therefore it is essential that he increase his communicative partners in the school community. I attended the Beginner A-level training in American Sign Language held July 3rd to July 7th in Edmonton at the School for the Deaf. We were only allowed to speak using our voices on Monday July 3rd, which provided the opportunity to practice our new language with one another. We learned to Fingerspell the alphabet and the conventions and pragmatics of ASL when communicating with the Deaf person. We learned how to sign numbers, verbs, colours, months, money, typical...

The Roadways to Literacy Success/Links 2 Learning Conference on March 2 & 3, 2017 in Saskatoon, was presented by Sheila Erickson (Roadways Literacy Studio), Heather Baptie and Terry Dobson (Links 2 Learning). This two-day conference provided a wealth of information about how to implement The Roadways to Literacy program/system, which is designed to target Tier 3 students who are several reading levels below their peers. The Roadways to Literacy Success intervention program/system is 16 weeks in length, designed to accelerate Tier 3 students’ reading progress, and to ensure success for struggling readers. Strategies and resources for Grades 1-8 students were...