Tools to support school-wide inquiry

Network schools are now fully engaged in their school inquiries, collaborating across roles and schools to improve teaching and learning in their districts. Please take a few moments to scan through the list of topics for this school year so you can see the breadth of learning taking place across the province, as well as potentially connect with another school and/or district working on similar learning goals. There are three lists of inquiry topics to explore:

Aboriginal Enhancement Schools Network
Schools focused specifically on Indigenous ways of knowing and worldviews. For example, history/culture, residential schools, place-based learning, self-identity, etc.

AESN Impact Study
Secondary schools focused on student transitions for Aboriginal learners. These schools are also engaged in a research study looking at the impact of their inquiry work. 

Network of Inquiry and Innovation
Schools focused on a variety of topics linked to specific school needs. For example, self-regulated learning, the new curriculum, student engagement, math, co-teaching and collaboration, etc. 

We also want to share a great new resource from the New Zealand Ministry of Education focused on the Spiral of Inquiry. Their new website features resources to support all stages of the Spiral, including collaborative inquiry examples, videos, links to the work in BC, and more. Certainly worth checking out and sharing widely! You can find this and other materials linked on our Resources page on the website. 

Regional Meetings Update (lots of resources!)

The Networks have been busy over the last week with regional meetings happening all over the world (yes, world!), including Nanaimo, Smithers, the Lower Mainland and Australia (yes, Australia!).  We have a lot to share from the discussions and networking over the last week.

Judy and Linda, and AESN Impact Study leader Debbie Leighton-Stephens were in Smithers with the North West Regional group for a day of professional learning and networking. Judy and Linda shared the brand-spanking-new Spiral Playbook, which they were asked to write by C21 Canada aimed at Canadian Superintendents.  There are a bunch of resources that accompany the Playbook which we hope you will find useful, including the Spiral Playbook Quick Reference Guide.  Debbie shared more about the AESN Impact Study, and specifically how schools involved with the study are focusing their inquiry work around transitions for learners. You will hear more about how this work is going at the NOII Symposium in May.

The central Vancouver Island Network meeting was held in conjunction with the regional Canadian Assessment for Learning Network (CAfLN) event – two great events in one! The CAfLN conference is in Nova Scotia this year in early May.

The Extended Lower Mainland group meet in Burnaby, with Network Leaders Brooke Moore (Delta) and Lynne Tomlinson (West Vancouver) focusing a part of the discussion around assessment and sharing a bunch of ready-to-use tools and resources. Check out the Embedded Critique and Feedback Rubric (developed from Ron Berger’s Leaders of Their Own Learning), this Science 10 Lab Rubric developed by Michelle Wood, and this visual rubric developed by Kelly Skehill. We also thought this Grade 1 Term Overview by Annieville Elementary is a really helpful way to communicate student learning and focus for the term. (See what you miss when you don’t attend meetings??!! – I missed attending this one and was so disappointed!). The next Extending Lower Mainland meeting will be on Jan. 23^rd (lock it in!).

Last but not least, NOII Australia kicked off their first meeting as an official region of the Network – go team! We’re thrilled to learn with and from this great group lead by Network Leaders Natalie Mansour and David Sim. Make sure you plan to attend the NOII Symposium on May 12 – 13 in Richmond in order to meet and network with some members of this Australian team.

If you held a meeting that we’ve missed (or you have one upcoming) please let us know by dropping us a line along with a few details (and even better, some resources) to noii.aesn@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone involved – especially those hosting meetings, sharing during discussions and attending for the first time – for all your great work in supporting inquiry, teamwork and curiosity. And please keep in mind that submission of your school inquiry focus is due by November 25th. See more about how to do that here.

Update from Network Leader Meeting

Earlier this month we held a Network Leaders meeting in Vancouver, with over 40 educators from across the province gathered to deepen our conversations about inquiry and planning our Network activities for this school year.

As a Network, we discussed how we might put more formal coaching practices into place this year, with Leaders taking on coaching roles within and across districts. Lynne Tomlinson shared this helpful document outlining an approach to coaching calls that Leaders can use with Network school teams. We think you will find her 5-4-3-2-1 framework provides a very accessible approach to coaching calls. We also had one of our colleagues – Rosie Palmer – from the Whole Education Network (WEN) in the UK share how they have been structuring support for their schools engaging in the Spirals of Inquiry through coaching. Rosie kindly shared her presentation with us, which outlines their approach. She also provided some good insight and tips, including sending out a simple agenda ahead of the call in order to allow everyone to think about the discussion ahead of time. Both of these resources will be helpful as you plan your coaching practices this year.  Rosie noted that one of the most common coaching questions they engage is “what are the learners telling you?”

We also heard from our Network colleagues in Australia – David Sim and Natalie Mansour. They joined us via videoconference to share how their Network activities are shaping up this year. Earlier in their school year, they hosted an inquiry “master class” led by Judy and Linda, supporting educators to get started get started with the Spirals and plan their inquiries. They have several Network events planned throughout the year, including a full day of pro-d around the Spirals of Inquiry as well as videoconferences showing good practice in action. They will also be hosting first Australia Network Symposium in July 2017 – very exciting!! We’ll share more details soon.

A few articles and books were mentioned as reading for professional learning over the coming weeks. Learn more about the Expeditionary Learning Model by reading this article. Expeditionary Learning is built on ten design principles that reflect the educational values and beliefs of Kurt Hahn, founder of Outward Bound. Also, explore Gregory Cajete’s Rekindling the Teachings of the Seventh Fire – a good book club selection for school teams.

Please also remember to save the date for our BC Network Symposium on May 12 – 13, 2016 in Richmond. We anticipate a full house again this year, so ensure you register early. We’ll let you know when registration opens early in 2017.

Welcome back! Videos, resources and programs for 2016 - 2017

Welcome back to school, everyone. We’re excited about all of the possibility that this new school year offers and hope you are too!

While it may seem like a long way off (and it kind of is…), we are planning ahead for the Network Symposium in May 2017.  Save May 12 – 13, 2017 in your calendar for what is already shaping up to be a great event. Take a look at this awesome video, filmed and produced by 3 videography students from the Argyle Secondary School from the 2016 Network Symposium. Not only does it give you a sense of what happens at a typical Symposium, but it also provides some great thinking from our Network both in BC and around the globe.

Two key resources to revisit early in the school year, in addition to the full text for the Spirals of Inquiry, include the Guide to the Phases of the Spiral of Inquiry and the Four Key Questions that Matter. These serve as good tools for one of your first staff meetings.  You may also want to check out the Resources section of our website. Here, you’ll find links to texts, articles, and other tools to support inquiry and deep thinking over the school year. For instance, many school teams have found the Aboriginal Understandings Learning Progression Rubric – developed by Laura Tait – to be an invaluable tool in their teaching and learning practice.

Stay tuned for more developments as we add an international section to the website, including case studies from around the globe with others involved with the Spirals of Inquiry. Both the Whole Education Network in the UK and groups of schools in Australia are intimately involved in Network activities. 

There is still time to apply for the 2^nd cohort of the UBC Transformative Educational Leadership Program (TELP) which begins in October. This post-graduate program, led by Judy and Linda, was a huge success in its first year and aims to bring together individuals from across the K – 12 system interested in transforming themselves and their communities by exploring and engaging in dialogue and debate about major challenges and opportunities facing school districts. But don’t delay if you want to be involved this year – applications are due on September 11^th.

For those schools and teams specifically addressing school health, check out this new  physical activity documentary featuring Josh Ogilvie – a CIEL and VIU graduate from Burnaby School District, as well as Dr. John Ratey from Harvard. Deep thinking to start off the school year!

We’re once again grateful and impressed at the caliber of work that network school teams are leading. Case studies that were submitted over the summer are almost ready to put up on the website. We’ll post a link here when these are accessible.  We are also preparing templates for submitting your 2016 - 2017 Inquiry Focus - more to come!

We’re grateful to the Ministry of Education, the Irving K Barber Learning Centre at UBC and the Annual Foundation for their funding and support of the Networks. Book sales from Spirals of Inquiry also continue to support the exceptional work of network schools. 

Looking forward to another great year of learning, teaching and inquiring together!

Words worth reading (or listening to...)

This cold, rainy (or snowy, depending on where you live in BC) weather makes it a good time to hunker down and delve into some good reading. Ok, ok, we know it is a busy time of year, but the links below are well worth checking out:

http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/brooke-moore/2015/09/1/school-risky-place

Network leader Brooke Moore (@bmooreintheloop) is an avid blogger with the Canadian Education Association. This is a quick read (with a book suggestion…)

http://www.bcauditor.com/pubs/2015/audit-education-aboriginal-students-bc-public-school-system

Just recently released, the BC Auditor General’s Report of the Education of Aboriginal Students in the BC Public School System is an absolute must read for every BC educator.

https://twitter.com/AKMPeterson

Amelia Peterson (@AKMPeterson) is currently a PhD student at Harvard and Associate with the Innovation Unit. She tweets about neat things with regard to educational reform. And bonus, she’ll be a presenter at the next NOII Symposium (May 13 – 14).

http://www.teachinquiry.com/index/Introduction.html

This website is from a few years ago, but the material is relevant and helpful in thinking about the possibilities inherent in BC’s new curriculum. Neil Stephenson (@Neilstephenson) is Director of Learning Services with the Delta School District.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDHNxaebe8Q

Susan Harris MacKay was a speaker this year at TEDx West Vancouver Ed. In this video (also below), she talks about Opal School, a program of the Portland Children’s Museum, and how spaces that enhance creativity, curiosity and wonder can also enhance deep learning.

Case Studies and Videos

We are so excited the share the 2014 – 2015 NOII and AESN Case Studies, all now posted on our website.  Case studies are rich sources of data, capturing both the process of inquiry with regard to a school’s particular focus for improvement, as well as the learning and observations obtained throughout the journey.  

Take a few minutes to check out a few and see how schools and districts focused on improving teaching and learning for all students. We’re always amazed at the caliber of professional learning being engaged through the Spiral of Inquiry, but this past year is particularly impressive given 2014/2015 started off with job action in BC. When you see what was done, how much was accomplished, and particularly the commitment from teams to further their learning into the future, I think you’ll agree that we have some of the best educators in the world working right here in BC!

We’ve also noted previously that with help from Network leader Angela Stott, we’ve captured ideas around inquiry through short videos filmed at the last Network Symposium.  These videos are organized by themes, such as Impact on Aboriginal Education (see below), Authentic Use of the Spiral and Building Curiosity. All videos are posted here.

Network Leaders Meeting - October 2nd

It was an amazing day of learning and collaboration yesterday at the Fall Network Leaders Meeting. What a treat to have the meeting hosted at ArtStarts in downtown Vancouver – a beautiful location and space to boost curiosity and creative thinking! It was a packed house with over 40 educators volunteering their time to come together, share resources and strategies, and work together on our shared vision of:

EVERY learner walking the stage with dignity, purpose and options.

ALL learners leaving more curious than when they arrived.

Aboriginal education is for everyone.

We talked about some exciting upcoming projects for this year (more to come there…) and reviewed some of the case studies that were submitted through the summer (soon to be posted on the website). JoAnne Chrona also shared the new FNESC resources, including the Indian Residential Schools and Reconciliation Resources just launched in August. The resources are free to download and provide age-appropriate educational materials about Indian Residential Schools (see video below) The secondary level resource guide also serves as a good refresher/introduction for educators who may be teaching this material for the first time. JoAnne noted that FNESC also offers workshops but that these fill up really quickly – check their website regularly for newly scheduled events.   

A few other events/resources shared at the meeting:

• Forms for submitting your school’s inquiry focus for 2015 – 2016 will be available very soon. We’re streamlining the forms this year to make submitting easier.  
• The Lead the Change Series articles from the American Educational Research Association Education Change Special Interest Group (see the column on right side of page). Watch for Helen Timperley’s article in October. These are great resources for staff/Network meetings.
• Neat info about Learning Maps out of New Zealand
• The Ministry of Education’s new Resource Guide on Aboriginal Worldviews and Perspectives in the Classroom
• A formative assessment learning event happening in Nanaimo on October 26^th (more info here)
• DASH BC will be launching Healthy Schools Week starting October 5^th, with school grant opportunities being announced on October 6^th. 

Thanks to everyone who attended yesterday (we missed the mid-Island group who were fogged in!). Looking forward to another great school year of learning, inquiry and collaboration!

Welcome back! New resources, programs and upcoming events for 2015 - 2016

Welcome back to school, everyone. We’re excited about all of the possibility that this new school year offers!

A lot of professional learning took place this past summer – while everyone had a bit of time to engage with deep questions around collaboration, inquiry and learning.   

For instance, Judy and Linda hosted a 2-day Inquiry and Innovation Summer Institute at UBC at the start of July.  Over 50 educators from across BC worked through the Spiral of Inquiry and the OECD Principles of Learning, considering how to use these frameworks to address big questions and make meaning change in their educational contexts.  Check out some thoughts from that event here. 

At Vancouver Island University over the last few weeks, Linda and Judy also welcomed their fifth cohort of Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning (CIEL) participants – a group of 26 outstanding educators from Qatar to Haida Gwaii embracing new learning.  

And now, Judy and Linda are in the midst of preparing for a new post masters level leadership program aimed at system level leaders – this means anyone from teachers to superintendent who is focused on transforming the system for learners. It is an exciting opportunity and a great way to strengthen networking across roles and across the province. Applications are now open for this UBC Transformative Educational Leadership Program.  

As you start to think about your inquiry work this year, here are a few resources and upcoming events to consider as you plan your learning and teaching:

FNESC / FNSA Launch New Resources on Residential Schools

Developed in response to the call by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada for age-appropriate education materials about Indian Residential Schools, these Teacher Resource Guides provide activities and supports for dealing sensitively with the topic of residential schools. Please take a look and make sure to share with your colleagues.

Resource Guide on Aboriginal Worldviews and Perspectives in the Classroom

Inspired by Scott Benwell and Kaleb Child from School District 85 (Vancouver Island North), this project is a call to action for educators and leadership to create and enhance learning environments to serve each learner, family and community. Aboriginal voice is dominant in this resource guide and reflects the opinions of community members.

NOII/AESN Extended Lower Mainland Fall Meeting

Tuesday, October 20th, 2015 – Richmond (near the airport)

4:00 – 6:00 pm

Sea Island School, 1891 Wellington Crescent, Richmond

Note: the school driveway and parking lot are accessed via Templeton Street

(Templeton Street can be accessed via either Miller Road or Grant McConachie Way (the road that takes you to the airport).

Save the Date! - 2016 Network Symposium

May 13 – 14, 2016

Richmond, BC

The 2016 Symposium will again include international speakers and partners, as well as showcase work from school teams, with lots of networking and interactive time. Stay tuned for registration details.

Please visit our website for other important dates/meetings, as well as easy to access resources. 

We’re once again grateful and impressed at the caliber of work that network school teams are leading. Case studies that were submitted over the summer are almost ready to put up on the website. We’ll post a link here when these are accessible.  We are also preparing templates for submitting your 2015 - 2016 Inquiry Questions - more to come!

We’re grateful to both the Ministry of Education and the Irving K Barber Learning Centre at UBC for their continued funding for continued funding to support the AESN. Book sales from Spirals of Inquiry also continue to support the exceptional work of network schools. 

Looking forward to another great year of learning, teaching and inquiring together!

Submitting Your NOII and AESN 2014 - 2015 Case Study

It’s been such an eventful year for Network schools in BC and beyond. Inquiry teams have been sharing learning stories at both the Symposium (more 2015 Symposium presentations now posted on the website) and through many regional Celebrations of Learning.  And the work of Network schools has been highlighted in several research/journal reports, including Creating and Sustaining Inquiry Spaces For Teacher Learning and System Transformation.  

As the school year draws to a close, we welcome Network schools to continue to share their learning over the past year through submitting case studies. Case studies are rich sources of data, capturing both the process of inquiry with regard to a school’s particular focus for improvement, as well as the learning and observations obtained throughout the journey. The templates for submitting NOII Case Studies and AESN Case Studies are now available on the website. In completing your case study, please keep the headings and remove the descriptors for each section. Please use Calibri 12 for the font.  This will simplify the editing process and make our lives a lot easier!

We'd like to get all the case studies in by the end of July so that we can spend some time in August reviewing them and posting them on the website. Then in the fall, we will send out the grants to all the 2014-2015 schools. We are very grateful to the Irving K Barber Learning Centre at UBC for supporting the AESN work on transitions, the BCPVPA for publishing Spirals of Inquiry, and the Ministry of Education for providing funding that will allow us to continue to provide grants to schools that complete their case studies. We know how important it is to acknowledge the contributions you are making and we will continue to find ways to say thank you for all that you do. 

Questions about submitting your case study? Please contact us: dweaving@dccnet.com

First Peoples Principles of Learning - Now en français

The First Peoples Principles of Learning, developed by British Columbia’s First Nations Education Steering Committee, is a key resource to guide both the inquiry process and one’s approach to learning and teaching. It is a useful resource for school/district wide professional learning, as a tool to help shift thinking around using wise ways to develop Aboriginal understandings.

Network members are already very familiar with the First Peoples Principles of Learning, and many have been actively incorporating them into the core of their teaching and learning. Thanks to Richmond School District’s Coordinator for Library and Information Services, Gordon Powell, and Ecole Secondaire R.A. McMath Secondary School teacher Carl Ruest, the Principals have now been translated into French! Check out the French version, as well as the French/English document. 

The First Nations Education Steering Committee website has a number of other resources, including classroom resources and the First Peoples Learning Blog. They are also hosting a Summer Institute in August: Indian Residential Schools & Reconciliation – limited spaces are available.

How Springwood Middle Incorporated the First Peoples Principles of Learning

A key aspect of the Network has always been the sharing of learning and experiences of Network schools. Network members embrace talking about how their work is going at various points during the school year, as well as through the submission of yearly case studies. This sharing is vitally important. Not only does it reinforce a culture of collaboration, but it allows for collective troubleshooting, support and refinement of practices.

We know that many schools are working on integrating the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) into all aspects of teaching, so we wanted to share how Springwood Middle School (now reconfigured as Springwood Elementary) in SD #69 Qualicum, integrated the FPPL school-wide last year, as well as embraced a truth and reconciliation approach to teaching about residential schools. They started with a specific, straightforward inquiry focus:

“How can we create an integrated, welcoming and all-inclusive community for our learners that values First Nations teachings within the diversity?”

Springwood Middle incorporated the FPPL posters and BC Map of First People into all classrooms and linked the resources to lessons throughout the fall. With Truth and Reconciliation events taking place across BC, and with many of the school district’s community members involved in events, students showed a general curiosity toward what they were witnessing.  As Springwood’s case study notes, students “wanted to understand what was happening and why.”  Students had “many questions about the residential school system for First Peoples along with more general inquiries that fell into three categories: heritage, culture and traditions, and land connections.”

As a result, the inquiry team responded to this curiosity by first presenting a series of lessons about residential schools and then inviting residential school survivors to share their stories with students. This was to align with one of the First Peoples Principles of Learning, which states: “learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors.”

In order to address the need to be “all inclusive,” as outlined in their inquiry, staff members were careful to use a common language – for all students and adults – when engaging with the material. Students also tracked their learning progress using a simple scale: Emerging Awareness, Acquiring Awareness, and Deep Awareness. Regular check-ins with students allowed for learning to be structured and well designed to meet their evolving needs.

A really interesting professional learning that emerged was around how this inquiry approach was also helping prepare the middle school learners for coming transitions: “we learned that preparing children well by answering their questions about important social and cultural experiences is a profoundly effective way to prepare them for transitions, building confidence and sustaining curiosity.”  What a wonderful bit of learning to discover.

To read more about this inquiry, you can access Springwood Middle’s case study.  

Exciting New Resources

We have a few exciting resources to share - hope you enjoy exploring them!

First Peoples Principles of Learning
There is a new blog available that outlines strategies to help us understand and apply the First Peoples Principles of Learning. This is a really brilliant resource, whether you are new to learning about the Principles, or if you are already starting to incorporate them into your classroom.  It's also a work in progress and the developers welcome your feedback.

Toolkit for Innovative Teaching and Learner Success
The Delta School District has developed a set of resources linked the to the OECD principles of learning. Again, this is still a work in progress - and what a lot of progress there is!

Regional Network Meeting - Jan. 19, 2015
We've created a new section on the NOII website to house presentations from our local meetings, or presentations that Network members share with us. Check this out on the Resources page of the website.

2013 - 2014 Network Case Studies - now available!!
We are overwhelmed by the quality and number of case studies showcasing the work of Network schools during 2013 - 2014. This is truly amazing given that all of this happened during a job action year. When you are meeting in your regions, why not showcase a sample of case studies to prompt discussion, and encourage schools to take a closer look at what is happening elsewhere. Both the NOII and AESN case studies are now up on the website.

Have other resources you think we should share? Please pass them on!

Dive into a good book this holiday!

A good book is a great treat at any time of the year, but over the holidays, it’s so nice to be afforded a bit of extra time to curl up with something that sparks our imagination or challenges our perspective.  As you sip you holiday beverage of choice over the next couple of weeks, here are some reading selections for whetting your curiosity and creative thinking:

“Critical Maths for Innovative Societies: The Role of Metacognitive Pedagogies” (Zemira Mevarech and Bracha Kramarski – OECD Publishing)

“InvestigatingCulturally Responsive Mathematics Education” (Cynthia Nicol, Jo-ann Archibald, Jeff Baker)

“Learning from Place: A Return to Traditional Mushkegowuk Ways of Knowing” (John-Paul Restoule, Sheila Gruner, Edmund Metatawabin)

“Make Just One Change: Teach Students to AskTheir Own Questions” (Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana)

“Meeting Wise:Making the Most of Collaborative Time for Educators” (Kathryn Parker Boudett and Elizabeth A. City)

For last minute gift ideas for children, check out these book recommendations from the Self-Regulated Teacher  or visit the Strong Nations bookstore in Nanaimo or online. 

Wishing you all a relaxing and joyous holiday from the NOII!