OTF Professional Development Videos

The OTF has a Professional Development videos web page, that contains videos that you can watch via the Internet, on a whole range of different topics. From what I can tell from my brief review of the page, you don’t have to be a member of the OTF to review them, but you do have to register. Be patient, it takes a time for the videos to load.

The videos:

•  are definitely American,
•  are current and the viewing quality is good,
• providea good introductory overview on a variety of subjects (not just education generally but curriculum subjects),
• are about a half hour in length 
• the 2 videos that I reviewed included interviews with experts (eg Michael Gurian on educating boys).

Check them out,

Rowan

Buying textbooks

The Libary often receives queries about textbooks, either from parents who want to help their kids or LTOs who want to prepare for classes and assignments in advance of their school placement. TDSB does not have a textbook warehouse for new or  old textbooks; there is no central stockpile of these books. 

If you are a parent or an LTO, you can approach the child’s  school or your placement school to see if there are any borrowable copies. Another alternative is to purchase a new or used copy from a bookstore. We know of 2 such locations in Toronto: The Bookman Textbook & Educational Outlet and ALPHA Textbooks. There may be more, but these are the two that we know about to recommend. 

Rowan

Photo of Tippett’s main entrance.

Just in case you visit Tippett, below is a photo of the front entrance.  Notice the FABULOUS garden,  maintained by Library & Learning Resources staff.

Tippett Front Door

Library Summer Hours

The Professional Library is open during July and August to assist TDSB teachers with their AQ courses, prepping for next school year etc. Our hours are 8:30 to 4:30 and at least for the first 2 weeks in July we are fully staffed to accommodate everyone. The Librarians will be available to help you find the articles  and books you need. Give us a call at (416) 395-8289 for more information.  Click on  PL_bro08_Word for our brochure.

Have a great summer,

Rowan

Capacity Building Series

The Ontario Literacy Numeracy Secretariat produces a series of articles or monographs under the series title Capacity Building Series.  I am embarrassed to say that I had never seen these before … don’t ask, maybe it was the exciting series title, or maybe because even tho’ they are mailed across the province to somewhere into the bowels of each of  the Boards of Ed  no one thinks to send copies  to the Professional Library (but that is another story). 

Anyhow,  I would like to mention 2 articles from the series, they are ELL Voices in the Classroom (2009) mainly about oral language strategies in the classroom, and Non-fiction Writing for Junior Students (2008).  Hot topics , short and friendly, easy to read, include bibliographies, research-based with practical tips. What is not to like?

Rowan

Eco schools

The Canadian Council on Learning (I love these guys for their easy to use webpages and easy to read articles/reports) has released a new article titled Making the environmental grade: The benefits of going green in the classroom. Environmental issues used to be relegated to the science clasroom, but now they may be integrated into every course and classroom.  Environmental education is included in the Ontario curriculum and TDSB has embraced it not only as a means of cost savings but as whole school learning experience.

The CCL article examines the existing research on this topic and discusses the benefits of environmental education as going beyond developing knowledge and positive attitudes, to  being associated with learning advantages,  specifically “improvements in achievement, critical thinking, attitudes towards learning, and motivation to learn and achieve in schools”.   The article also includes a handy dandy list of useful (and Canadian) websites.

Rowan

Our Best Future in Mind

Dr Charles Pascal has released his report titled Our Best Future in Mind in which he makes about 20 recommendations regarding full day learning for 4 and 5 year olds, blending kindergarten and day care. 

Rowan

New ESL bibliography

In response to everyone taking ESL-AQ courses and requesting books, we’ve updated our ESL bibliography. The list mainly includes 2008 and 2009 books. We have oodles of other books, but we’ve kept it new and short, since bibliographies are the most boring thing in the entire world.

ESL

Impact of music instruction on literacy

The May 2009 (Monograph #19) Ministry series What Works  Research Into Practice is titled Placing Music at the Centre of Literacy Instruction.  Children benefit from music instruction; it helps with memory, auditory perception, metacognitive and phonolgoical memory. The authors recommend the following techniques to aid in music and literacy learning:  singing, using percussion, melody, expressing song in writing.

Rowan

The Arts (Grades 1-8)curriculum doc revised

The Ministry has released the 2009 revised Arts curriculum document, Grades K-8.

Rowan