Year End Presentation of Learning

Its the end of the 2013/2014 school year and our students are excited to be putting together "Presentations of Learning". We've asked that they use the three "Core Competencies" in BCs draft curriculum to anchor their presentations and tell stories of their learning with respect to these three competencies. Here's my own Presentation of Learning.


Artifacts and Examples Shared:

• Synergy in Inquiry Blog Post
• Curiosity, Connection, and Creation Blog Post
• PBL Why, What, How Presentation 
• Chemistry Demonstration Project Outline

Last Year's POL

Synergy in Inquiry - a sharing of Experiences and Resources for Inquiry Education in BC

How do we get students owning their learning? Doesn't that question burn on the minds and hearts of all Educators?

Through my work in a Project Based Learning (PBL) program and as a PBL and Student Inquiry Resource Teacher I have come to put a high value on Inquiry as a vehicle by which to get students owning their learning. I have also come to see more clearly the work that it takes to cultivate Inquiry skills. Students need opportunity to explore, to ask, and to create in a risk free classroom environment. Students and Teachers also need a common language for Inquiry learning that reflects the messy, organic nature of learning. The language we use to describe learning becomes powerful when students begin to better understand themselves as learners through it. I want to be able to use a learning language with my students that reflects the way they learn through their life interests and passions, not just academics.

Recently I've had the opportunity to get a close look at a couple emerging resources for BC Educators: the draft curriculum, and the Smarter Science inquiry framework. What I'm seeing is a beautiful pairing of tools to support classroom teachers in getting students owning their learning. The smarter science framework aims to use science inquiry to teach inquiry skills - a skill set analogous to the competencies BC is drafting in its new curriculum. I'm curious to see where the overlap is with the two as well, and have begun that work in an open doc here (http://bit.ly/bcinquiryframework).



Personally I have also seen the interconnectedness of quality learning and quality relationships in the classroom. In order to gain comfort and efficacy in new ways of learning we as Educators need to be able to explore the risks and benefits with the learners we're working with. The environment needs to be one of trust; an environment that embraces mistakes as part of the learning process, and an environment that embraces the iterative nature of learning. While this framework illustrates a Kindergarten to Grade 9 progression in Inquiry skills I believe its crucial that we scaffold the Inquiry experience for each new group of learners we work with to ensure that we create a common language and experience together.

We've been given a common language, now let's create unique experiences

Text from the Creative Thinking Profiles

Text from the Communication Profiles

Text from the Positive Personal and Cultural Identity Profiles

What do we want our learners to be? What do we want out learners to be able to do? Is that your definition of 21st Century Skills? Is there more?

The BC ministry of education recently posted competency profiles describing and illustrating growing capacity for communication, creative thinking, and positive personal and cultural identity. In my mind this is the beginning of a formal definition of 21st Century skills in BC. Does it fit what we want for our learners? Will it be of use in our classrooms, and how? It's up to us to answer these questions together, and it's up to us to leverage this common language to enrich core experiences and shape new experiences for the learners we work with. 

What will this look like for you?

Final Meeting of Communication Competency Workgroup

In late November we finished a series of meetings as a Communication Competency Workgroup. It was a rich experience and the collaboration was organic. Our time was focused on sharing samples of student work and sharing ideas to help define and create a Communication Competency Continua as part of BC's new draft curriculum. It was exciting to be a part of a mix of teachers representing a huge mix of students at various points and on various paths in their learning. It was clear as we met and shared our work that competencies are nothing new. What will be new is the continua, a tool for BC and by BC to help each student grow in the core competencies. The group was one of nine in the province meeting to work on continua for the new competencies. The three competency continua being drafted at this time were Creative Thinking, Positive and Personal Cultural Identity, and Communication Competency. Our group was one of three working on Communication Competency. 

Sharon Joerski, the Researcher working with the Ministry, reported on the work in December and we expect more to be published about the three competencies shortly. The ministry website summarizes our work prior to the November meetings. Unfortunately what has not yet been made public is the collection of samples of student work on which the continua has been built. We've been told that these will be available as resources to us develop our understanding of the continua and find ways to tie our work to it. 

Sharon shared with us some of the attributes of the continua as they are being discussed. Its agreed that the competencies are:

• inclusive: everyone is included in the competencies
• strength-based: they are additive and progressive
• student-centred
• holistic
• interconnected (3 with sub parts are all connected)
• about bringing coherence
• everyone’s responsibility
• BC Classroom Based
• continuous and longitudinal
• authentic

In wrapping up our time together we were asked four questions. I've summarized some of our thoughts here. Hopefully this provides some food for thought as we provide additional feedback to the Ministry on the draft curriculum.  

1. How do we see the continua being used?
• assessment (feedback, planning)
• communicating with parents
2. What would be a good starting place?
• build a collection of examples
• open discussion and collaboration on communication
3. What tips do we have in presenting the continua?
• interactive
• user friendly (Teacher, Student, and Parent)
• accessible language
• lots of examples
4. What implementation advice do we have?
• provide time and resources to staff
• slow roll out (perhaps with optional years, pilot years?)
• address questions of Why?

I'm looking forward to the SD57 "Exploring Draft Curriculum" workshops as a forum for discussing the competencies, the continua, and the new curriculum as a whole. I've also enjoyed participating in conversations via the #bccurric hashtag on Twitter. 

How would you see yourself using a continua to supplement your instruction and assessment in the Core Competencies?

Comments, as always, are welcome and encouraged.

Initial Thoughts on the BC Science K-9 Draft Curriculum

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/7369410/BC_Science_K-9_Draft_Curriculum_%28Dec_2013%29
Curriculum Documents: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/

I'm curious to see and hear how people respond to the Draft BC curriculum. Its great to see the Ministry of Education opening channels for public to provide feedback regarding the curriculum too (https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/). I hope we get a sense of what the people of BC think of the changes.

I took some time recently to try digest the Science section of it and condensed it all onto 11 by 17 sheets as seen here. The wordle above illustrates the emphasis within the Science Curriculum. For me the phrase "competency driven and content based" captures the essence of the new drafts perfectly. The shift in emphasis is no doubt dramatic.

After pushing into Project Based Learning in a Bring Your Own Device environment I see all kinds of opportunity in this new curriculum for my own practice. I see the competency driven nature as a stronger structure with which we can continue to develop Educate citizens with the core knowledge and core competencies to be leaders of tomorrow.

What do you think about the change? Have you given feedback to the Ministry?

Cross Curricular Competencies

BC is transforming education, and it's an exciting and curious transformation to be a part of. After seeing the draft "cross curricular competencies" early on, my Teaching partner and I started working them into our practice. With our students we defined the competencies and built assessment rubrics for each one. Throughout the year students assessed their own growth in each competency using evidence from their project work. The work was very rewarding and the conversations were rich. The competencies allowed us to broaden our conversation and the bridge the skills students were gaining both inside and outside our classroom with the work they were doing within it. For me the quote "concept-based and competency-driven" frames the new curriculum perfectly, and it's a model I can get behind.

From my perspective yhis "transformation" in BC been a very open process, and it has been intentionally welcoming to the voices of British Colombians. I have had the privilege of joining the conversation on communication competency at a district level with a curriculum design team. Our team is one of three meeting in the province to give input into the creation of a communication competency continua. A draft of our work is shown here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/uexp3gx6gmg74w4/sj-sept16%20copy.pptx) and the document explains the possible structure and content of the draft continua. Our goal is to create a tool that will help students grow in their communication competency through descriptive, illustrative statements and examples of communication competency. 

BC has invited everyone to join the conversation on curriculum transformation here: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/, but if you have an comments on the communication competency work I'd love to hear them too.

Will this support learners in improving their communication skills in all subject areas and at all grade levels? What more does it need? How can it be improved?

Thanks for your input!

Year End Presentation of Learning

In wrapping up our first year of our Project Based Learning Choice Program students created Presentations of Learning. Here's mine:

Student and Parent Survey on PBL and BYOD

This month wraps up the first year of our Project Based Learning (PBL) Choice Program, the Northern Learning Centre. In the last few weeks of classes we gave students and parents the opportunity to share their perspectives on Project Based Learning as well as our Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model. Here's what they said (click here view the .pdf in its own window):

Reflections on my first year of BYOD

http://www.securedgenetworks.com/Portals/80068/images/byod%20(1).jpg

I've struggled to put this post together because our use of technology is so much a part of life in the Northern Learning Centre that its hard to reflect on how learning would be different without it. In addition, technology is so much a part of the way I work and learn that its almost impossible to separate it from pedagogy. To that end I don't mean to sound at all as if I have it all figured out, I'm learning just like you are! For me, the move to bring your own device (BYOD) this year was an opportunity for me to create a learning environment for my students that looks just like the environment I learn in and have been learning in for years. Here are my reflections on the year in terms of student responsibility, learning tools, and learning resources in a BYOD environment. They are in no particular order.

• Digital Fluency:
• We as a system need to increase students levels of digital fluency. Before entering our program some of our students had not had the opportunity to explore computing efficiencies such as quick keys, shortcuts, browsers capabilities, bookmarking until they entered our classrooms. When it came to sending emails or sharing pictures most students were comfortable with one method at best, so it was exciting to open their eyes to all the possibilities - especially when it lead to increased use and functionality of their phones, iPods or personal devices in school and personal contexts.

• Organization:
• Technology provides an excellent way to scaffold students organization skills. They loved storage in the cloud, and could use it with high efficacy. Some students implemented their own time management systems such as using sticky or reminders for deadlines and to track progress on ongoing tasks. We're thinking about replacing rolling out shared calendars as a primary organizational method. Feel free to weigh in with feedback if you've tried it.

• Paper:
• We weren't ready to give up paper. Part way through the year my Teaching partner and I decided we would ask for assignments to be printed. This gave students a tangible end to a piece of work, and gave us a tangible product to assess. Early on some even asked for paperwork, as it was hard to give up cold turkey.

• Distractions:
• We grossly overestimated the problem of devices as distractions. Very rarely did we feel student devices were an added distractions in class. The reality was, they were there anyway. The difference was now they were being used out in the open where previously they had only been hidden. As a practice we would ask students to close or put away technology when it wasn't needed, and when needed we would ask a student to leave their technology on our desks if it had been used inappropriately, but cases of inappropriate use were very rare (no more common then inappropriate use of cell phones in a traditional environment)

• Apps and Extensions:
• Students enjoyed having the ability to find tools like apps (teleprompter, write on calculator), and extensions (speech to text, text to speech). Our public wireless network which our students use doesn't currently allow all apps to function perfectly, but this is one are we are looking at in the future so we can better utilize the many  tools there are out there.

• Responsibility:
• If we truly want to educate students to become leaders of the future we need to teach citizenship. Some of the most exciting teachable moments for my partner and I were those around a students digital footprint. Its so interesting to break down the walls students set up between their lives inside and outside the classroom. Whether its publishing their work, asking questions on shared doc, promoting a cause or event, we want students to feel safe, secure, and confident as they find however and wherever they find their voice and find their identity.

• Critical Consumers:
• The open availability of learning resources demands that we teach students to be critical consumers of what they hear, see and read; and also teach students to more find quality information more efficiently and effectively. Teaching students to do these things requires a great deal of time and effort, and I'm so glad I can teach and model strategies for finding and critically assessing information along the way rather then as lessons unto themselves.

• Sharing Resources:
• The socially responsible action in response to the open availability of learning resources is that we share. Spaces for personalization were beginning to be embraced. Last year it was blogs, next year we'll tweak the way we do social bookmarks and try again (last year we tried Diigo and Moodle Forums, next year I will be trying shared boards on Pinterest). Along with this we need to teach students to acknowledge the work of others and use it responsibly.  Again, a big work worthy of a big investment of time and energy.

• Collaboration:
• We believe one of the greatest uses of technology in the classroom is for collaboration. More and more tasks can be accomplished online with sharable resources and tools: partner and team projects,  peer/ teacher feedback and critique, co-constructing rubrics and projects, surveys, assessments, and sign ups, and shared calendars were all used in the Northern Learning Centre.  Most of these tools were adopted very quickly by students, and collaboration quickly became the norm in our classes!

• Sharing our work:
• Finally we are challenged to learn with our students as they seek to produce work that has lasting value. Not only does technology make it easy to ensure that our work goes through a process of multiple drafts, but it also creates so many opportunities for public exhibition. Publishing work online is intensely visual, and online production is increasingly pushing us to be intentional about the production quality of our work. Digital production allows us to critique and revise a project for its content, structure, and presentation. 

I'd love to share more about my BYOD and hear about yours. Please share your comments, questions, and experiences!

My email address is schase@sd57.bc.ca if you prefer to connect that way. 

Are you becoming an increasingly effective communicator?

Isn`t that the question we want to be asking ourselves? Isn`t it  a question we want our students to be asking themselves?

I have been given the opportunity to work with a local group of educators to help design a communication competency continuum that will be a part of BCs new curriculum. Sharon Joerski is the consultant hired by the Ministry who`s been bringing us together and bringing together our ideas regarding communication competency .

So far we have brought a few samples of student work and have been pulling out the major themes and shifts from pre-K to grade 12. Our goal over the next few months is to identify the major elements in communication competency, and illustrate each of them with examples of student work. Once we have improved our definition of the elements of communication we can begin to more clearly describe levels of proficiency in each of the elements.

The model that`s been proposed to us is of a continuum presented in a series of concentric circles, with  elements extending from the inner circle toward the outer rings. A tree metaphor has been suggested too as an appropriate one in that additional ``rings`` can always been added as a learner improves their communication skills. This graphic would describe communication with a number of I can statements. The statements would link to examples of student work as well as resources for classroom teachers.  

As I look at the work my students are doing, and engage in professional conversations like these regarding communication, I feel more strongly then ever that our new curriculum needs to be focused on competencies that will allow today's learners to reach their full potential in tomorrow's workplaces. So as we seek to improve communication in the 21st century I am confident we are on the right track!