CISVA AFL for Math – March 4, 2011

What can I say?  What a great day with the Catholic School Secondary math teachers yesterday.  What an experience… 28 math teachers, math department heads, and curriculum leaders were at St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary for an ALL-DAY session on Assessment for Learning (AFL) in secondary mathematics.  UN-REAL.  They were all engaged and asked awesome questions.  I felt like I was on my game… authentic… honest… and professional.  I believe in AFL and how it helps kids learn.  I hope that my enthusiasm and passion for kids, math, and public education was evident.

I had a wonderful time at this workshop with good conversation and lots of fun.  We even had the opportunity to play Math Olympiks – A Summative Review Game.  I owe my deepest gratitude to Rose Pillay, the secondary CISVA educational consultant, who made this event and other memorable experiences happen for me… and BIG THANK YOU to the math teachers who attended my BCAMT workshop in the fall and gave me rave reviews and recommendation.  What an opportunity to inspire and influence practicing teachers to improve their practice and help kids learn.  VERY REWARDING.  What was more rewarding were the compliments, inquiries, and genuine interest expressed by the participants.  UNREAL.  Pedagogical dialogue… AWESOME!

Overall review of the day from my feedback forms was a lot of 3’s and 4’s on a 4-point scale.  That’s pretty good, including comments saying thank you… come to our school… and I’m ready to make changes in my classroom.  FANTASTIC.  Schools like York House and Vancouver Tech have expressed an interest in having a workshop come to their school about math instruction and AFL to entire staffs.  That is the greatest compliment of all… Knowing what you are saying is relevent, doable, and worthy of implementation.  THANK YOU CISVA for being a part of my pedagogical journey.