Grade 7 iHistory Projects - Trailer #1

by Rick Fawcett - Grade 7 Humanities

The Grade 7 Humanities teachers are supporting students in the creation of powerful documentaries that communicate an important aspect of their family's history. Using the iMovie program, students have included personal interviews and a variety of media and images to create visually compelling videos that honour the historical accomplishments of their family.

In addition to crafting creative iMovies, students were challenged to research their chosen topic from a critical, historical, and geographical standpoint. Extensive work was done to help students develop these important thinking skills and strategies, and they have provided evidence of their use of these skills and strategies throughout the learning process. Students were challenged to develop their work around a central theme that spoke to the emotional heart of the story.  One way this was accomplished was through the title.  Students worked rigorously on creating an impactful title that connected the topic of the story with the historical theme (sacrifice, bravery, perseverance, etc.) We are excited to see what our students will create. Here is a little "Hollywood"-style trailer that gives you a sense of what they are striving for.  Enjoy.

Grade 4 Folk Song Unit: Making Alberta's History Sing (Part 4: Going Further)

by Rick Fawcett 

In this fourth installment of Grade 4’s Folk Song Unit series, I speak with Heather Fawcett and Jessica Kelly about the real “meat and potatoes” of their inquiry unit. They address the challenges a multi-dimensional project can present along with the manner in which student success is being measured.

In my role as Curriculum Portfolio Leader, I have been involved in each stage of this unit’s planning and I have been impressed with the amount of careful thought given by our Grade 4 team to each phase of this dynamic project.

Students are quickly entering the stage of the project that will see their songs being published. I believe you will be as impressed as I have been with the depth of learning that is happening in our Grade 4 Humanities program.

Student Learning Profiles (SLP’s) Part 4

By Tanya Stogre and Abby Saadeh

Continuing the Journey with Pathbrite, we took up the challenge of finding See our second blog the most meaningful platform. After exploring a variety of platforms, Pathbrite emerged as one that could work best for all individuals and groups at our school. With this information, we launched into a pilot study with all 100 Grade 7 students, their parents, and teachers to track their experiences with this new platform. Initial survey results from all groups indicated a frustration with different platforms being used across and within grades and a lack of cohesion with requirements of the Student Learning Plans (SLP’s). There was also a disconnect between parents and their child concerning the awareness and understanding of SLP’s.
With this information we recognized the overall need for a common digital platform for Student Learning Plans that would meet our criteria as teachers, students, and parents.

Student Learner Profiles: Student Voices

A Path to Digitial Student Learner Profiles: Student Voices
by Tanya Stogre and Abby Saadeh

At approximately the midway point of the Student Learner Profile Pilot using Pathbrite, we wanted to ensure we were hearing what students had to say about their experiences. We endeavoured to include a range of student voices. In an informal conversation, we asked students the following questions:

• Do you like using Pathbrite, why or why not?
• Do you think using Pathbrite for your Student Learner Profile (SLP) has or could help you understand more about yourself as a learner?
• If your teacher next year said that they would be using Pathbrite to continue the work you have started on your SLP, how would feel?

After conversing with 11 Grade 7 students, several insights emerged from our discussions. One of the key ideas arising was that Pathbrite was user friendly. One student commented, “It’s easier than most other websites that we used. It’s more simple than others and straightforward. It doesn’t have a bunch of unnecessary items that you won’t need or ever use.”

Outcomes Based Assessment and Feedback Loops

Cynthia Nilsson~ Grade 9 Math/Science Pre-service teacher
Werklund School of Education

As a graduating student from the Werklund School of Education, experiencing my final practicum
experience at Connect Charter, one of my professional goals was to focus on assessment for learning in a real and meaningful way, rather than only assessment of learning. With the support and mentorship of Louis Cheng, I was able to gain experience in implementing assessment for learning in a Grade 9 Math/Science class, by combining feedback loops with outcomes based assessment.

Student Learning Plans: Choosing a Platform

The Quest for the “Perfect” Platform at Connect

by Tanya Stogre and Abby Saadeh

Through formal and informal conversations with colleagues, students, parents, and administrators over the past two years we have determined the characteristics necessary in a platform for our student learning plans (SLP's). Although recognizing some classes at Connect house their SLP’s in binders and duotangs (as a paper format), we realized early on in our process that a digital platform was critical in ensuring information is easily transferable between and amongst all stakeholders. Asking questions such as: What are the different platforms available? And, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each? were important in our process to find a platform that would meet the majority of student, parent, and teacher needs. The specific characteristics we felt were most important to our school were the following:

• Security
• Access - ipad/laptop & home/parents/teachers
• User friendliness
• Transferability between grades & years
• Clear visual/clean...easy to view
• Good “fit” with our Exemplary Learning Framework (ELF) … re: its set-up (Please see our previous blog post discussing our ELF and SLP’s)
• Individuality/Personalization
• Cost
• Options
• Multimedia options
• Living/easy to edit or change
• Age appropriate features

Inquiry and Assessment in Inquiry: Views from an Internationally Trained Teacher

By Joanne Eloho~ Werklund School of Education Bridge to Teaching Program

It was quite the experience partnering with Ms. Pereverzoff at the Connect Charter School, (formerly Calgary Charter School) to teach her seventh grade class in my first practicum as a Bridge to Teaching student from the Werklund School of Education. As an internationally trained teacher, I expected to find significant differences in Alberta classrooms and there was no surprise there, however, I have found that learning through inquiry is such an extreme deviation from my more traditional practice of teaching. For the first time in my practice, I was actively encouraging students to assume more responsibility for their learning and they were working to meet that expectation. I was stepping back and allowing them the opportunity to expand their knowledge by exploring the curriculum through their interests. Inquiry, from what I have experienced in five short weeks, is indeed an innovation in how we want our students to learn; ultimately as teachers our aim is to help students develop as independent, critical thinking citizens of society, inquiry not only initiates the process, it affords every student the opportunity to be independent and think critically by stressing the importance of the “Why” in whatever it is students are learning.

Profiling SLP’s - Student Learner Profiles at Connect!

Tanya Stogre and Abby Saadeh

Students and teachers at Connect Charter School have focused on creating Student Learner Profiles (SLP) for the past few years. More recently, at Connect, these SLP’s have become a more significant focus. In the spirit of Personalized Learning from the Inspiring Action on Education, SLP’s are gaining momentum in Alberta. See http://education.alberta.ca/teachers/aisi/themes/personalized-learning-.aspx for more information on this provincial initiative.

With greater time and attention being placed on SLP’s, it is important for us to have discussions regarding the ways they might inform and impact learning at our school. Over the course of the past few years, each grade has explored a variety of platforms to house these profiles. In our second blog post, we will further discuss the strengths and limitations of some of the platforms available, but first we would like to discuss what a Student Learner Profile (SLP) is and why they are important.

Grade 7 Canadian History: Post 2

Jody Pereverzoff and Chris Dittman - Grade 7 Humanities

In our last blog post, we described the genesis of our Grade 7 Humanities project focusing on early Canadian (pre-confederation) history. We left off with students having just determined the most historically significant event in their debate group, each of which consisted of 4-5 students, each seeking to prove the historical significance of their specific event.  

We were left around 5 events in each of the 4 classes. Our focus now was to return to our original inquiry question; Why do so many Canadians know and care so little about our nation’s history?  We returned to our original class brainstorm around the importance (or lack of) of knowing Canadian history.  Specifically, we drew students’ attention to the reasons they gave for a lack of interest.  These included:

• History is boring
• People have studied events in history, but often forget
• Events are not relevant
  
  

Grade 9 Identity Poetry Anthology

WHO AM I?: Identity Poetry Anthology Version 2.0 
Jaime Groeller and Ivy Waite- Grade 9 Humanities

Ivy and I are very excited to once again be team teaching grade 9 Humanities this year. We taught this curriculum in our first year together, went back down to grade 8 for our second, then looped back into grade 9 with the same students for the 2013-2014 school year. We went back to our year plan from our first time through grade 9, looked through the projects we created and adapted, and in doing so decided to begin the year once again with a poetry unit on “identity”, an important guiding concept in the grade 9 social studies curriculum. We love this project because it also allows us to meet some ELA objectives and have the students interact with poetry beyond merely “analyzing.” Armed with our detailed reflections from last time, we worked to adapt the activities and projects we used before to meet the needs of our current group of students, and also to improve upon certain aspects of the inquiry. The assignment sheet and graphic organizer look very similar to last time, but we did make some significant changes to how we approached this study, as well as the organization of the anthology itself.

Evolution of Inclusive Practices at Connect Charter School

Abby Saadeh ~ Inclusive Practices Coach

When starting the position of the Inclusive Practices Coach at Connect Charter School in 2012, I was
asked time and time again, “What does Inclusive Practices mean exactly?” And to be honest, at first
there was a struggle to give it a definition. After months of work in this position I have realized that this is a field that is constantly evolving and adapting to respond to the needs of our school.

Some of the things that I learned over the past few years are that it is not only about making sure that every student has an opportunity to learn, it is a proactive process with the intention of valuing and motivating learners while fostering and advocating for their independence in an environment where everyone can feel safe and accepted. How we do this, starts with understanding who our students are. We do this through Learner Profiles, relationship building, Student Resource Group Meetings, past history, student and parent interviews, STAR reading assessments etc. Then, partnered with students and parents, we mutually agree on goals, and come up with an implementation plan that is tailored to the individual student’s learning style.

Inquiry, Assessment and Term 1 Video Report Cards in Physical Education

Deirdre Bailey ~ Physical Education
https://twitter.com/deirdrebailey

This important information bulletin provides details on our new term 1 report card assessments in physical education at CSS. As we hope many parents are aware, this year has provided us with the opportunity to re-think our approach to inquiry-based physical education (see Connect! blog post) as well as our approach to end of semester assessments in PE. 

Earlier this term we shared our proposal for physical education assessment reform with our CSS parent council. The council were in support of this new approach to reporting with the suggestion that we share both our rationale and process with parents via the PE website.

We've put together some information about our program, changes in assessment, and a how to access your child's video on Edmodo video, all of which are included below. We are both very happy to meet with parents during first term interviews next week in order to discuss our program and assessment practices further. We would also welcome any questions via email at deirdre.b@calgaryscienceschool.com or dean.s@calgaryscienceschool.com

Inquiry in PE

Student Teachers Josh Stanley and Matthew Maccagno with Tammy Berry and Dean Schmeichel ~Physical Education grade 4-9

What could an inquiry unit in PE look like? At CSS, we challenged all 600 students from grade 4 to grade 9 to explore the question, “To what extent does training affect performance?” Each student was given the opportunity to choose a sport or activity that they were interested in, and then create a plan to improve a specific skill in that sport or activity. How the students chose to use their time over the course of the unit was entirely up to them. They had access to all the resources that CSS has for physical activity.

The rubric was created collaboratively between teachers and all the students in the school over the first two days of the unit.

Here’s what it looked like daily while students were working on their individual project:

Family Artifact Inquiry- Grade 7

Rick Fawcett and Jared McKenzie~ Grade 7 Humanities.

This project was designed as a way to share the personal connection the students have to Canadian history and to engage them in the process of curating a historical narrative of their own family's history.

Student Teaching: Mentorship and Collaboration - A Video Reflection

Jenna Callaghan and Deirdre Bailey

Deirdre 

Working with a student teacher these past few months has been an exciting and rewarding experience. From our first meeting, it was evident that Jenna and I shared a similar pedagogical philosophy; with a strong focus on reflection and discipline-based inquiry. Jenna’s early ideas and questions were guided by an honest vulnerability that allowed for a number of frank conversations around assessment, engagement and lesson design in an inquiry based classroom. My understanding of collaboration - developed and deepened through a powerful team-teaching relationship with Amy Park - had led to a familiarity with how professional collaborative relationships might evolve and I was excited to incorporate my prior understanding and experiences.

Grade 9 Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Rick Mercer Rant Assignment
David Scott- Grade 9 Humanities

To gain a better appreciation of how The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is relevant to the lives of our grade 9 students, we asked our students to explore a court case where a Charter right or freedom was violated. The specific learning outcomes we sought to target in the Alberta Grade 9 Social Studies Program were as follows:



9.1.6 assess, critically, the impact of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the legislative process in Canada by exploring and reflecting upon the following questions and issues:

• In what ways has the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms fostered recognition of individual rights in Canada? (PADM, I) 

• How does the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms support individuals in exercising their rights? (PADM, C, I)

Inquiry Task: Based on a recent court case involving the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, create a Rick Mercer style rant video outlining whether you think the outcome fostered recognition of individual rights in Canada.

Click here for an example of a Rick Mercer rant

A Different Kind of Test

-by Margaret Leland, Grade 8 Humanities

Over the Spring break I was reading Seth Godin’s “Stop Stealing Dreams (what is school for?)” and began to question how best I could develop the unit final for my students to finish off our Worldviews in Conflict: The Spanish 
and the Aztecs.

I was mulling over the following quotes by Seth Godin:

“The obligation of the new school is to teach reasonable doubt. Not the unreasonable doubt of the wild-eyed heckler, but the evidence-based doubt of the questioning scientist and the reason-based doubt of the skilled debater.” 

“Unfortunately, the things we desperately need (and the things that make us happy) aren’t the same things that are easy to test.”

Video Assessment in Phys. Ed - A Reflection

-by Dean Schmeichel, Phys. Ed Teacher

This is my final blog for the Research project – Video Assessment in PE. This was an extremely worthwhile project and it has shaped the future course of assessment for me in my career. From past experience, I know that I will continue to develop, adapt and modify this process. What works one year, might need to be overhauled the next, depending on the group of students, parents, teachers and my own level of commitment and excitement.

There was an 86% response rate to the survey that I asked the Grade 9 students to complete. I targeted the Grade 9 class specifically because they were given written comments in Term 1. Both the Grade 5 and 7 classes were given recorded (verbal) assessments in Term 1. The survey that Tammy (my teaching partner and co-researcher in this project) and I designed was done collaboratively with Dave Scott (colleague and Ph.D. student) and Dr. Pam Adams from the University of Lethbridge.

Verbal Assessment in PE – Part 2

 By Tammy Berry, CSS Phys. Ed teacher

 For more information on this project, please read the first blog post here.

I have now completed 100 grade 6 Garage Band (converted into iTunes) audio recordings. These audio recordings were placed on the desktops of students’ personal computers. Students received a mark on their written report card and then had an audio recording to replace the written comment for PE Term Two. These recording were about 3-4 minutes long in length.

Why did I do these recordings?

The Cat Food Problem

-by Val Barnes (Grade 5 Math Teacher) and Kevin Sonico (Math Learning Coach)

The Grade 5 students were posed with the task of determining which store, Petland or PetSmart, gave a better deal on the same brand and same size of cat food (Figure 1). Before proceeding with their solutions, students must hypothesize through estimation and rounding which of the two would be the better deal. Students then worked in groups to solve this problem. Each group was also assigned a Grade 8 student who facilitated the discussion. The facilitators’ responsibilities did not include providing hints or strategies, rather to ask questions such as “How do you know this is true?” or “How do we prove this?” and make statements such as “Let’s show proof of this.”