This year one of our Grade 6 Humanities Teachers, Chris Dittmann, is volunteering for a organization, Hands at Work, that works with HIV orphaned children in Africa.
Chris has dreamed up a project that he's hoping the Calgary Science School community will help support.
A letter from Chris:
Greetings to all of you at CSS from hot and sunny South Africa. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Mr. Dittmann and I am usually a Humanities teacher at CSS. I say “usually” because this school year I have taken a leave of absence from my teaching position at CSS in order to serve as a volunteer with an organization called Hands at Work in Africa. I am currently living near a town called White River in the province of Mpumulanga, which is in northeast South Africa, close to the border with Mozambique.
Hands at Work is a non-governmental (charity) organization that assists communities in eight countries in Africa that have the highest numbers of orphans and vulnerable children and have little or no access to things like hospitals, clinics, and schools. Hands at Work doesn’t deliver any of the services, like food, education, or health care. Rather, people in the community itself get organized to do this and Hands at Work tries to support them and help them to do even more things to help the kids in their community.
Most of my days here are spent helping local Hands at Work volunteers. I try to do whatever I can, like teaching computer skills (not many Macbooks here!), writing proposals and reports about projects that the communities are doing and also writing stories about some of the kids who are getting help in the community. Not many people in the communities own cars or drive so I also spend part of each day driving volunteers around. I enjoy it, although people drive on the opposite side of the road here in comparison to North America, which was a little confusing at first!
Many of the kids in the communities I’m working in face huge challenges in their lives. Many children have lost their parents due to HIV/AIDS. Some of these kids are taken in by relatives, who already have difficulty providing for their families. Other kids end up living on their own. We call these “child headed households”, where the oldest kid becomes the caregiver and head of the family. Some of them are barely teenagers. It’s very difficult for these kids to provide food for themselves. Some are forced to quit school and try to earn money. Safety and security are big issues for these kids living alone.
Even though I’m not at CSS this year, I have had lots of contact with my fellow teachers back home.In fact, we have been busy coming up with some ideas of how you at CSS can connect with what is happening here in Africa.Through technology, we’re looking at ways that CSS teachers and students will be able to see what life is like for some of the kids here and get to know their stories.
There are two households in particular that I’ve been working closely with – and that I’m hoping CSS will support over the next few weeks. These young people are currently living in very unsafe conditions – and it’s my hope to build two secure house for them – at a total cost of $7000.
I am still working out the details of how to collect funds for these families – but I’ll communicate that shortly. The great thing about being here is that I’ll be the project coordinator for buildings – and students at CSS will be able to skype with the families in January as the homes are being built.
Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Sincerely,
Chris Dittmann
Chris made a short video about this project:
Chris has also created this document that adds additional information about two of the orphan boys (Mthandazo and Sipho) he has been closely working with:
Here's another example of students recording their mathematical thinking, this time by a grade 4 student.
We believe that this is one of the most powerful uses of a 1:1 laptop program - how technology can empower students to demonstrate their understanding in multiple ways.
Our grade 5's have just finished using Google Earth to solve a math problem designed to build large number sense.
The students were challenged to find a route across Canada, starting in Calgary, that would take them to each of the capital cities. The trip could go in any order after leaving Calgary, but the students needed to complete their trip using at least 20,000 km and not going over 25,000 km.
In order to complete the trip, the students first needed to know the names and locations of all 14 capital cities, including territories and the capital of Canada, and how to add digits with decimals. Interestingly, many student used print altases to gain remind themselves of the names and locations of the cities. (It was also a great review of the capital cities of Canada - also part of the grade 5 curriculum!)
A Google Earth demonstration was given before the challenge. The class was shown how to fly between locations using addresses as well as the names of locations.
Other tools that shown included: how to measure between two locations using the “line” and “path” function, how to move within the screen, how to zoom in and out of locations and how to mark locations that they had visited.
The class first explored these tools by locating their homes, the Calgary Science School and the Calgary International Airport. Once all the locations had been found, they were asked to find the distance between their home and the school, the school and the airport and the distance around the school yard.
Armed with these basic measurement skills in Google Earth, the students were let loose to solve the problem:
Here's one of the student's final calculations (you can see the three attempts made):
As with all our projects - we welcome feedback, comments, and suggestions in the comment box below.
At the end of last school year, the Grade 8 Humanities team (Rachelle Savoie and David Scott) and their students embarked on a project examining the question:
If schools got it right for adolescent learners, what would they look like?
To prepare students to respond to this question, we looked at various resources that provided context around traditional approaches to education and the history of schools in North America. This exploration included the following references:
Once students gained a basic understanding of the history, evolution, and shortcomings of schools today, they were given the opportunity to choose one of five areas of interest including the following: 1) learning spaces; 2) relationships between members of a school community; 3) the relationship of the school to the greater community; 4) curriculum/school purpose; 5) ideal assessment practice, and finally 6) a section asking students to design their own inquiry unit. Based on their areas of interest, students were then divided into groups where they were paired with students from other grade 8 classes outside of their pods.
We then further supplemented their background knowledge as to the history of schools, with resources related to thinking about what schools need to look like in the future:
What should a 21st century learner look like (Dr. Garry McKinnon as guest presenter on 21st century skills)
Once students had a broad understanding of some of the big ideas circulating as to how schools need to change, we provided them with a framework of questions specific to their topic area to help guide their research . For example, for the group exploring the purpose or curriculum of an ideal school, they were asked to specifically consider:
What is worth learning/knowing/doing in a 21st century school?
How should this be assessed/evaluated?
Presentation:
As a final part of the project, students were asked to, within their topic area, create a product or presentation to showcase what schools would look like if they got it right for 21st century learners. Using various mediums unique to each presentation, students were then linked with individuals and groups invested in education in our community today as authentic audiences to whom they would present their interpretations/findings. These presentations included the following:
A learning spaces group created a model of the ideal school and presented this to the school architect who has worked on a number of plans for schools in Calgary including the IAC extension at Calgary Science School.
A group looking at curriculum translated the current inquiry rubric at CSS into language accessible to kids and then documented what each criteria of the rubric looks like in an ideal classroom. The group presented their iMovie creation to the entire staff and administration of CSS.
One group looking at curriculum used Dan Meyer’s talk outlining the problem with textbooks to create a sample of the Grade 8 Social Studies textbook transformed into a digital textbook more in tune with 21st century learning.This group presented a PowerPoint outlining their work to a group of prominent educators visiting the school including Dr. Dennis Samara, Dean of Education at the University of Calgary and the head of The Galileo Institute, Dr. Sharon Friesen.
Overall Student Findings:
Emerging from this study were a wide range of findings that students translated into recommendations for Calgary School Science School. Some highlights of student recommendations are as follows:
More fitness resources and education on healthy lifestyles.
Every morning before starting core classes, students should undergo 30 minutes of rigorous exercise. Consequently DPA should be changed to the morning.
The incorporation of greater student voice into decisions that effect students at CSS. This would also include more voice in classroom decisions.
Greater clarity as to what inquiry learning means and greater coherency and collective action towards how we as a school understand, enact, and envision inquiry learning.
More hands-on experiential learning where students have the opportunity to do experiments and activities related to what they are studying.
The replacement of ultra-violet lights in classroom spaces with more efficient lighting systems that resemble natural lights. As well, classrooms colours should be changed from an institutional white to colours such as blues and greens that encourage creativity and calmness.
Implications to the Calgary Science School:
The staff, and particularly the administration at CSS have shown a great willingness to listen to and respond to student recommendations that emerged from this study. As a result of this project, there were a number of concrete initiatives that the school has adopted. These include:
A healthy school initiative spearheaded by Dean Schmeichel that is encouraging students and staff to incorporate fitness training and nutritious meals into their everyday lives.
Time allotted to service learning where, in collaboration with their homeroom teachers, students have the opportunity to choose an initiative that would enhance the quality of life in the community.
A proposal for greater mentorship opportunities among and between grades. For example, the Humanities department is working on a common writing rubric that would allow older students to peer edit and provide feedback on younger students’ writing.
A number of teachers have posted the student friendly inquiry rubric in their classrooms and are using it to explain the nature of inquiry at CSS.
Led by Principal Lonsberry, a conversation has begun around updating the classroom lighting system at CSS and examining how much it would cost to repaint classrooms with more vivifying colours.
These initiatives attest to the openness and willingness of staff and the administration at CSS to incorporate student voice into decisions that affect the school community. Ideally, we would continue this conversation with students, staff, and administration at CSS.
Examples of Student Work:
One of the groups conducted a series of interviews and survey about inquiry-based learning at the Calgary Science School. This group summarized their findings into a presentation to CSS administration and teachers. One of the interesting key findings of their work was there isn't a consistent understanding of inquiry-based learning amongst the staff. They created this video on Inquiry-Based Learning and this poster to help inquiry-based teaching and learning be more consistent among CSS classrooms.
Here at the Calgary Science School we are currently in our 5th year of 1:1 computing.
As part of our 1:1 program, the University of Calgary, along with the Galileo Educational Network have been researching our 1:1 program.
Below you'll find the full research report from year three of our program:
Citation for 1:1 Report: Jacobsen, M., Friesen, S. & Saar, C. (2010). Teaching and learning in a one‐to‐one mobile computing environment: A research report on the personalized learning initiative At Calgary Science School. Report delivered to the Board of the Calgary Science School, March 2010.
This week, three of our teachers are giving the two morning lectures to 350 first year education students at the University of Calgary.
We are sharing the vision we have for inquiry-based learning at the Calgary Science School, and using some of our classroom projects as a way to illustrate how strong inquiry-based work is carefully and thoughtfully designed.
During the MT lecture we mentioned the Inquiry Rubric developed by the Galileo Educational Network, which is the foundation of our model of Inquiry-Based Learning. More examples of classroom projects, linked up to the inquiry rubric can be found here.
Below are some of the videos used in the presentation.
Here at the Calgary Science School we build our understanding of inquiry-based learning around the Inquiry Rubric developed in conjunction with the Galileo Educational Network.
To help unpack how the Galileo Inquiry Rubric is lived out in specific projects from our school, we've compiled the following list of projects tied to particular elements of the Inquiry Rubric:
If you're familiar with the rubric, you'll notice that Appropriate Use of Technology is absent from the list. This is because technology integration is embedded in each of these illustrative examples.
Assessment has been a hot topic at the Calgary Science School over the last year. (AISI Cycle 4)
Our AISI funding has allowed teachers to meet periodically in 2009-2010 to review the assessment strategies of the school as they pertain to our AISI assessment goals, and to review some of the pillars of the school's assessment philosophy.
The following video is a compilation of numerous assessment-related discussions that occurred during PD days during the the 2009-2010 school year.
In the video you'll see teachers discuss the following three key areas over the course of three professional development days offered over a six-month period:
1) What do report cards tell parents, and how do we consider reporting information to parents? 2) How do we collect data in an effective way that best represents the understanding of students? 3) How do rubrics and exemplars help teachers and students communicate the language of assessment in a classroom context?
As you watch you'll see teachers debate some of their own understanding of assessment in light of some of the assessment data, report card exemplars, grade books, student rubrics and exemplars shared in these PD days. By the end of this professional development time together there seems to be a shared sense of what quality assessment looks like at our school.
This year one of our Grade 6 Humanities Teachers, Chris Dittmann, is volunteering for a organization, Hands at Work, that works with HIV orphaned children in Africa.
