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Sunday 3 June 2012

Calgary Science School and ConnectEd Canada

While sitting on the plane I remember wondering what to expect.  I knew I was going to an innovative school, but honestly, I wasn't even sure if I knew what that even meant.  I have been working with a wonderful group of teachers on various projects around our school, but I always felt a bit restricted by different structures such as schedules and curriculum.  Needless to say, my visit to Calgary Science School opened my eyes to new possibilities, inspired me beyond comprehension, and changed the way I see education and how I teach.
But, I guess I should start from the beginning so that you consider my naivety, and thus understand the learning I experienced.
I was approached by my principal, Sheila Morissette ( viewfrommyschool.wordpress.com/ ) about 2 weeks before ConnectEd, asking me to accompany her and Elisa Carlson (http://innovativelearningdesigns.ca/wordpress/ ) on a trip to Calgary.  As a member of the FH Innovative Learning Design Team, I thought this would be a great opportunity to see inquiry based learning in action.  Two weeks later I was on a plane headed for Calgary.  About an hour after we landed, I was face to face with people I had only heard about on twitter.  This was my first A-Ha moment.
As a teacher of Information Technology, I have been working to help my students understand the educational power of social media.  I am new to twitter and blogging, but I worked with my classes to uncover the potential of these tools in research and collaboration all year.  However, I wasn't experienced enough to truly understand it myself, until now.
At the "tweet up" I met some of the most interesting people, who were just as enthusiastic, if not more, to witness innovative teaching practices.  Here, we not only met for the first time face to face, but also discussed some of our interests and ideas around inquiry based learning.  It is amazing how collaboration on twitter can create relationships, partnerships, and connections that can change your practice so profoundly.  I realized, in meeting these educators, that there were people out there who share a similar passion with me.  There are others who want to see change in education, and give students a chance to succeed.
The following day was spent at Calgary Science School.  Again, I had no idea what to expect.  I figured it would just be another seminar, where we sat in a room and someone told us about the "next best thing in teaching."  To my surprise, we were given an opportunity to walk around the school all day and actually watch collaborative, technology-imbedded, inquiry-based learning in action.  I was immediately struck by the way the school was organized.  Groups of students stayed together and moved from class to class.  The classes also incorporated several subjects in various projects.  In particular I was fascinated by the Humanities class that was studying Canadian History.  The project was to create a monument.  This was a project for which they were obliged to understand Canadian history, develop a symbolic representation of one aspect of it, draw and develop it using technology such as Walkabout 3D and Google Sketchup, and then enjoy the work that they had produced.  The kids were essentially given the learning outcomes and had to develop their project step by step, using various skills they had learned from their teachers.
The school, teachers, and students made me really contemplate my own practice.  I do a lot of project-based learning, and I try to collaborate as often as possible, but I feel as though it needs to happen on a wider scale.  I incorporate technology in order to engage my students more, but that isn't always what is best for the project, or my students.  My attempts to engage my kids often leads me to develop projects that incorporate play, and other popular themes that my kids mention along the way, such as my QR code scavenger hunt that was a massive hit, and a repeat is still requested almost once a week.  Yet, it all seems so miniscule.  I want to go bigger.  I want to incorporate more subjects, more skills, more brains.  I want to eliminate the structure of the schedule and develop a place where students are using their own brains (not one the expectations of the current education system have led them to assume is "'A' quality").  I want to create a place where skills and understandings are used to tackle real world problems.  I want my students to think for themselves.  I want my students to challenge themselves.
At lunch on Friday I was inspired, yet again, by another presentation.  George Couros blew my mind with his powerful words and emotional connection with social media and education.  George's passion for learning and teaching our kids the value of social media as a tool in education made me want to learn it, try it, and know it all.  I probably signed up for a dozen different things online, and quickly realized that I needed to just sit back, take it one step at a time, and not get overwhelmed with the possibilities for enhancing my (and my students') learning.  However, George reminded me of that passion I have for learning.  He reminded me that student engagement and choice in learning is necessary if I want my kids to be successful.  And most importantly he reminded me not to be afraid to share my ideas, my learning, my successes and my failures because that's the only way I'm going to grow as an educator.  Read George's Blog at  http://georgecouros.ca/blog/ and follow him on twitter @gcouros
On Friday night we heard from four amazing speakers: Susan Eaton, Dr. MaryAnn Moser, Dr. Alex Bruton, and Shelley Wright, who again made me want to do better.   And on Saturday we sat in various seminars and had rather enlightening conversations.  I was sad to have to leave early, but so excited to get home and start planning.  I am currently working to maintain many of the connections I made in Calgary via twitter, and can only imagine how this collaboration and this experience will improve my teaching practice.
I will end this post with one of the most memorable moments from CSS and ConnectED, which pretty much sums up the way this innovative school engages kids and guides them towards successful learning:  I was standing outside of a grade 4 class by myself, about to walk in, when a little girl walks out of the classroom and stares at me for a moment before very confidently saying "hello."
I replied and she asked me, "What are you doing?"
I told her I was about to come into her classroom to see what they were working on.  She stared at me for a bit longer and said "Well then come in.  I am going to show you what I am doing."  She walked me over to her desk, looking back at me and explaining some of the project to me with a steady voice and solid eye contact.  She then opened her computer and tugged on my arm for me to bend down to get a closer look. "This is what we learned, this is my project, and this is how my project explains what I learned." Amazing.

For more information on Calgary Science School visit www.calgaryscienceschool.com/
For more information on ConnectEd Canada follow #connectedCA on twitter or visit http://connectedcanada.org/
Thanks to @gcouros, @Neilstephenson and @ErinCouillard

1 comment:

  1. Good for you Jess. Can't wait to see where all this new learning takes you.

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