ÉCOLE ISABELLA DICKEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL School District 5 Southeast Kootenay School Growth Plan

Transcription

1 ÉCOLE ISABELLA DICKEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL School District 5 Southeast Kootenay School Growth Plan Spirals of Inquiry for equity and quality Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser

2 ÉCOLE ISABELLA DICKEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Ave, PO Box 1559 Fernie, BC V0B 1M School Context Isabella Dicken Elementary School is an active K-6 school of over 400 students that prides itself on being a caring and safe learning community. Built on the cornerstones of belonging and student connectedness, it has an academic concentration on improving all students reading, writing, and numeracy skills through engaging, relevant, and meaningful learning opportunities. IDES provides a full K-6 education program for students supported by energetic and caring staff. Our school offers a late French Immersion program, grade 6 band, music classes, primary grades introduction to French, and an early years Strong Start center. IDES proudly ensures a solid foundation in the core areas of the curriculum for all students, as well as extracurricular opportunities that extend our children s learning. Running Club, Glee Club, Leadership Club, school teams, performances, and celebration assemblies provide many opportunities for students to participate and feel a sense of belonging at IDES. Our school works closely with parents and has a supportive Parent Advisory Council. Isabella Dicken Elementary School PAC provides significant financial support which adds additional resources, equipment and transportation that help to extend learning opportunities for all students beyond our school grounds and into our wider community and area. IDES staff believe in creating and maintaining a culture that is welcoming and safe and that provides a healthy learning environment. We are dedicated to ensuring an engaging learning environment in our classrooms, through our instruction and during a variety of activities. We provide a wide array of learning and growing opportunities for our students and take pride in embracing everything we do with a collaborative and team approach. Introduction / Rationale Our staff began the school year engaging with the New BC Curriculum and our understanding of inquiry and project based learning strategies. Discussions ensued around a number of areas that could be a focus for our school goal including numeracy, community connectedness, growth mindset and student responsibility for learning. We scanned the strengths and challenges of our students and reflected on the wide variety of needs that they have. Research on best strategies to support students in their learning lead staff to look at inquiry as a core teaching design that would support each of our students. Building on our goals and successes from previous years, our collaborative strengths, and our professional learning, IDES staff recognize that increasing student engagement utilizing inquiry strategies will provide for individual student choice and interest and can directly improve learning and skill acquisition for all of our learners.

3 Inquiry Question Will the challenge of personal and authentic learning tasks utilizing the process of inquiry improve student engagement and skills and increase student responsibility for learning? Our goal Our goal at IDES is to increase student engagement, understanding, and learning by using the process of inquiry as a learning, teaching and problem solving strategy. We will implement this approach as we design our lessons and support the learning of every child in our classrooms by creating learning environments that cultivate curiosity and grow young people as confident, capable and creative inquirers. Through the use of an inquiry approach we intend to improve the engagement and interest of students in their learning, allow for personal, relevant and deep connections and understanding to occur, and increase the academic, social and communication skills and overall life chances for every learner. Scanning Successes: Many of our students have good communication skills, like to talk and are not afraid to ask questions. Most of our students like to read, are physically active both at school and away from school and are involved in many activities in the community. Students follow directions and routines relatively well. Students have the opportunity to engage in many activities at school including swimming, skating, skiing, tennis, field hockey, community library and garden visit Students want to be, and work hard to be kind and empathetic. Students like to come to school and most feel safe and connected to their school community. Students enjoy being leaders and big buddies to younger students through reading and other activities. We are seeing a growing and more diverse student community of varying socio-economic backgrounds. Our students enjoy using technology as a learning tool. They like to learn outside of the classroom and especially enjoy field trips. Students are eager to be helpers and be caught being good. They readily volunteer to help and make a difference At IDES we have large participation rates in activities Running club, Glee club, Leadership Club, school fund raising events, teams, intramurals.

4 Challenges: Many students are continuing to learn to regulate their emotions. Students are working on taking responsibility for their learning and being independent workers. Some students struggle with keeping a positive attitude toward learning and their listening skills. Building resilience for many students is an on-going goal. Students are still learning to feel empowered in the larger community. Growing anxiety is seen among some students Challenges still exist connecting and supporting students between home and school. Changing and adapting to new expectations, curriculum and transitions can be a challenge for some students. Basic math skills and understanding are a challenge for some. Remembering what they have learned in math and connecting their math learning to the real world is a consideration for many students. IDES has an Increasing number of students still learning English, which impacts their understanding and comprehension. Bullying behaviours still exist in our school and on our playground. Focusing (Identify the most important work you can do to improve the success of your students. On which key areas of learning will you focus?) Our school focus and goals over the past recent years have included Social Responsibility (Virtues Program), Belonging and Connectedness (Circle of Courage), and Reading and Literacy (Adrienne Gear). As teachers scanned and discussed the variety of strengths and challenges of our students, we recognized that their needs are diverse. A focus on students becoming more engaged in and taking more responsibility for their learning through the use of inquiry design and individualized projects will enable our students to go deeper and relate their learning to the real world. Teachers have committed to learning about the inquiry process through professional development activities in order to better engage students in their learning, help them to take more responsibility for their learning, and to increase their learning. Evidence Teachers at IDES are curious about the impact of planning lessons utilizing an inquiry design and process that will enable students to learn more deeply in a personalized manner and will encourage them to take more responsibility for their learning. The strongest work in schools is when everyone becomes engaged in curiosity driven changes on behalf of young people. Halbert & Kaser Spirals of Inquiry, 2013 Evidence of student engagement and learning will be gathered from teacher assessment, observation, student, and parent feedback. Data from school wide read and writes and report cards is also available to track improvement of student cohorts year to year.

5 Key Learnings Discipline based inquiry is a focus for deep understanding. It is a systematic investigation into a problem, issue, topic or idea. Discipline based inquiry: - Is rigorous it is hard fun - Is student focused with active research - Reflects a discipline in the real world - Is authentic work that connects to the real world - Allows for personal engagement and meaningful connections to take place - Is relevant and adds value beyond school - Produces a deep understanding of a subject - Is more web-like in how students pursue knowledge - Increases intellectual engagement - Develops habits of the mind an ability to make connections, analyze assumptions and consider ambiguities - Involves collaboration, co-operation and communication - Needs space to take risks, make mistakes, and try again and again Galileo Educational Network Workshop, August 2016 Through inquiry based learning teachers will plan the design of the learning to build on student knowledge and understanding. Work that students will do will be worthy of student time in that it will have purpose and will foster a deep understanding. Clear criteria will be established with academic focus (research, math facts, scientific terms) built into the design. Ongoing feedback and assessment will guide students learning and teachers instructional planning. Students will have opportunities to connect with the outside environment, resources, and experts beyond the classroom. Corrections and re-dos based on feedback and trials are built into the design. Students will be able to demonstrate their learning to audiences and celebrate their process and involvement in their own learning. Developing a Hunch IDES staff would like to see if the use of engaging and authentic learning tasks that connect our students to the real world through the process of inquiry, and that provide opportunities for them to make a difference in our community and school, will assist our students in taking more responsibility for their learning and will encourage them to be more interested and engaged participants.

6 New Professional Learning (Summarize new areas for professional learning and how you will go about designing new learning for yourself and your staff that will impact your learners.) Professional Development Curriculum Day with Leyton Schnellert 2 Days of Inquiry Professional Development with Galileo Institute Collaborative planning and support for using inquiry strategies in class PLC Projects for teachers using inquiry strategies Staff Meeting sharing and discussions of our successes and challenges Professional conversation, sharing and collaboration during staff meetings. Taking Action What will you do differently? Teachers will learn about and utilize an understanding of planning with an inquiry approach as we design our lesson flow and big ideas for our students. Focus will be placed on big Ideas and the process of information seeking. September Pro-D presentation by Leyton Schnellert Engaged in discussions and planning around inquiry, new curriculum And Big Ideas October Professional Learning Round inquiry applications and projects November Pro D Day with Galileo Institute from Calgary Begin designing inquiry instruction and projects for students January Staff meeting check-in on big ideas and projects February Second Pro- D Day with Galileo Institute from Calgary April- June Follow-up and sharing of successes and challenges of inquiry process during staff meetings. Early areas of focus include inquiry planned projects for Math, Community Connectedness, and Growth Mindset.

7 Communication Strategies Staff - focus on our school goal during staff meetings, teacher release time and collaboration opportunities, at School Based Team meetings and during Pro-D opportunities. Collaborative and professional conversations that occur daily in our staffroom and among staff and during staff initiated planning meetings also provide invaluable communication and sharing opportunities. Students explain, teach, and discuss the inquiry process, learning intentions and student role in the inquiry design. Parents School goal will be shared and explained with the IDES PAC. School newsletters, website and Facebook will be used to share our plans and Information. Parental/Community Involvement (How will you work together as a school community to do this work?) Parents and experts from the community will be invited to work with students and inform them and engage with them in their learning. Parents will be invited to attend presentations and unveilings of student work. Projects will directly connect students with our school, community and world. Placed based, outdoor learning projects will use local resources Connection to the District Goals To enable all students to graduate with purpose, options and hope by developing a sense of belonging in all students and enhancing the engagement in learning To develop literacy performance by purposefully engaging diverse learners in the process of reading to understand across all subject areas AND to improve the knowledge, skills and attitudes in numeracy The purpose and intent of our school goal is to support each child and encourage and develop their individual skills through a teaching and instructional design that will build their academic skills, their personal motivation, and their own responsibility for their learning.

8 Connection to the 7 Principles of Learning As we move forward we believe that our school goal fulfills the 7 Principles of Learning in the following manner: Learners at the center The design of inquiry learning is to focus on the individual learner and their needs and interests. Social nature of learning Inquiry allows for social interactions to occur through discussion, research, project building, feedback, assessment, presentations and celebrations Emotions are integral to learning The nature of inquiry learning allows students to be closely connected to their interests and passions as they investigate what is interesting to them. Recognizing individual differences Individual learning allows students to learn with their own interests in mind. Stretching all students All students can be challenged through the inquiry process. Assessment for learning Feedback, discussion and re-dos are part of the process and design of inquiry learning Building horizontal connections Inquiry learning naturally lends itself to cross Curricular connections, real-life connections, multiple questions and web-like, non-linear presentation of learning.

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