Meet the Teachers
- Cheryl Andrews
- Joan Beeson and Cindy Meagher
- George Brasovan, Allan Molnar and Mary Lou Sicoly
- Judy Chapman
- Patricia Clifford and Sharon Friesen
- Tami Dowler-Coltman
- Eileen Kiriazidis
- Richard Lonsdale
- Stephen MacKinnon
- Ken Marland
- James Moore
- James Myles
- Peter Sol
- Patrick Wells
- Michael Zanibbi
I've learned a lot in 28 years of teaching, most of it from my students. I've come to see my role as helping children become lifelong learners. I encourage children to ask questions, seek answers and solve problems.
I use the project approach to bring these principles together. I do six classroom projects a year - three science and three social studies - following a six-step process (see The Six-step Project Program). Each project lasts for six to eight weeks and occupies the better part of each day. I spend the first 90 minutes on core topics such as math and spelling. I've used this fully integrated approach with students in grades 2 and 3, but I believe it could work in any elementary grade.
Using a project approach implies student-led activities and teacher guidance rather than teacher-directed learning. A supportive administration allows you to be flexible with timetabling, to do without textbooks, and to use the large amounts of library time and resources that are essential.
Patience, energy and good humour are critical. It takes children time to adapt to learning this way, and you must be patient. When they are involved in a project, they can be very excited. You need enough energy to keep up with them. Maintaining a sense of humour will help you overcome the occasional hurdles that are common to any busy classroom.
The project approach produces results. In 1997, all my students wrote the Grade 3 provincial achievement tests and more than 90 percent achieved the acceptable level. The project approach is also enormously rewarding. It is truly marvellous to see young children's self-esteem grow as they set and meet realistic and meaningful goals. The children realize they are teachers as well as learners and what they have to say is important. I know that I have made a difference in their learning for their whole lives.
Central Elementary School
Bag 257
Brooks, Alberta T1R 0G1
Telephone: 403-362-2219
Fax: 403-362-0378
Email: Cheryla@grasslands.ab.ca
Our aim is to encourage our students to head back to regular classrooms, get their high school diploma and develop skills that will enable them to join the workforce or move on to higher education.
Bridge Network students take courses at their own speed. Typically, a student completes four courses in a year. Being allowed to set their own pace teaches the students to become responsible for themselves. Once they find ways to succeed, they can turn around and use these skills to complete their high school education.
For example, one student struggled with her language and writing skills. Our flexibility allowed her the time she needed (more than a year) to complete her English course. However, during the same period, she was able to complete several other courses. She is the first in a large family to graduate from high school.
Her success and perseverance aren't unique. For example, other students initially refuse to touch math courses, saying that they are afraid of them or that the subject is too difficult. But after some success in other courses, they are willing to take the risk to try what they formerly considered a "too difficult course." The vast majority of students receive final marks of about 60 percent with more than 20 receiving marks of about 90 percent in 1997-98.
It is our dream that every student achieves educational success and that schools and programs are provided to meet the diverse needs of young people today. We know that the success we've seen our students achieve is a universal opportunity for every student.
Bridge Network
Grande Prairie District School Board
9922-112 Avenue
Grande Prairie, Alberta T8V 6V7
Email: Joan Beeson (jbeeson@gppsd.ab.ca) and Cindy Meagher (cmeagher@gppsd.ab.ca)
When the three of us first met in 1991, it seemed entirely possible that music classes would fall victim to budget cuts and restructuring. At the same time, the push to introduce computer technology in education was placing even more demands on core curriculum teachers.
To address these issues, we set about developing a new curriculum that integrates the arts and technology and provides opportunities for students to collaborate on projects involving a variety of subjects.
Using computers and keyboards to speed up the acquisition of fundamental skills motivates students and rewards them promptly with a sense of their own progress. We have taken advantage of this when integrating technology and music education across all areas of the curriculum. For example, students entering Grade 9 get the chance to participate in the music program even if they have never taken a music course before or cannot read music.
These students have the option of taking a daily half-semester course that puts them to work on the keyboards immediately. At first, all work silently with headsets on, their keyboards hooked up to a central soundboard that lets the teacher listen in on individual progress. They tap out the song's rhythm, coordinating both hands as they work through more and more complicated exercises. In a matter of hours, three or four students are working together as a band. Within a couple of weeks, they are playing simplified versions of rock songs.
At the end of Grade 9, students who show musical talent are recommended for performance classes, while other students continue to participate in multimedia projects in other ways. A sufficient number of students entering Grade 10 continues to pursue music to support several bands and vocal groups. In the last three years, in fact, the number of students enrolled in the Dante Alighieri music program has tripled.
Project Discovery extends technology and the arts into the broader curriculum in a 10-week unit involving six elementary schools. At the end of the project, the students create and stage manage a multimedia production celebrating what they have learned for their parents and school community. Celebrating Mother Earth, for example, involved 200 students from junior kindergarten through Grade 8 performing original songs, interpretative dance, poems and stories.
Dante Alighieri Academy
60 Playfair Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M6B 2P9
Telephone: 416-393-5522
Fax: 416-397-6123
Email: Mary Lou Sicoly (msicoly@interhop.net)
When my principal asked me to create a program for the school's high-risk students - academically capable students unlikely to earn their high school diploma - I was initially interested but also reluctant to leave a job I loved teaching Grade 6 students. Eventually, intrigued by the challenge and the obvious need, I agreed to the idea.
The Integrated Studies Program (ISP) I developed provides the structure and individual attention of an elementary classroom in a high school setting, with high school courses and academic expectations. There is one main classroom, and one group of students stays together for two years (grades 11 and 12).
Twelve reluctant Grade 11 students were in the program in the Fall of 1997. In the second year, the program expanded to two teachers and two classrooms with a total of 40 students (17 of whom were in my class). Some students also take electives in the regular system. One student took a full complement of French courses and scored the highest marks in the school.
The change in these kids is truly amazing. For many, the relationships they build are the first positive connections in their lives. They have their individual social, emotional and academic needs met in a safe, risk-free environment and build the "social capital" of respectful behaviour, dress and speech they need to survive in the adult world.
After two years, every one of my Grade 12 students walked across the stage at graduation to receive a full academic diploma after passing all provincial exams. They have registered in colleges and trade schools, earned more than $10 000 in scholarships and bursaries from the community, and have full- and part-time jobs lined up. For seven of these graduates, graduation day was especially significant; they were the first in their family ever to graduate from high school.
Abbotsford Senior Secondary School
2329 Crescent Way
Abbotsford, British Columbia V2S 3M1
Telephone: 604-853-3367
Fax: 604-853-3045
Email: judy_chapman@sd34.bc.ca
One way we are changing our school system is through projects. Our classes immerse themselves in a theme for weeks at a time, and their work is proudly posted on the Internet. The questions that students ask are what launch us on a project. Below, inspired by an entry in the guest book for our website, we have created a fictional dialogue with a Grade 7 teacher who was interested in how you inspire students to come up with good questions.
On Starting a Long Journey
Name: Mary Smith
Website: http://www.rockyview.ab.ca/bpeak
Comments: I was looking for some information on the Middle Ages and came to your site. In Virginia, we have only a short section on the Middle Ages in our book. The huge project your Grade 2 kids did on the Middle Ages gave me lots of useful information, and inspired me to try to emulate it. How do you get kids to think like that?
Dear Mary:
Your question goes to the heart of why we think education has to change. We know
our students do think in surprising ways. Far too often, schools don't encourage
kids to want to think well, turning them instead into consumers of facts. We
want them to be creative producers of new knowledge.
In order to get this kind of work from students, you have to think big. Young children love to ask big questions about life. They want to know, "Where are the women in all these knight stories?" or "Why did the Middle Ages end?" We always start projects with really big questions like these, ones that form the basis of months of study across many subjects.
Galileo Educational Network
846 EdT
2500 University Drive N.W.
Calgary, Alberta T2N 1R4
Telephone: 403-220-8942
Email: pclifford@home.com
The arts, with their potential for illuminating all aspects of life, should be at the core of any young person's education. The guiding principle of my work with the Theatre School is to help students understand that their education is about them and how they relate to the world. An excellent example of life lessons learned through the arts is a theatre course for student directors.
The process of directing involves using one's imagination, knowledge and experience, bringing the elements of a play to life, and engaging an audience's senses. It also requires acting, movement, improvisation, speech and stage design experience. An ideal approach to teaching these skills in a single high school course is to have students actually direct a dramatic presentation, making all the decisions from script selection to casting and rehearsals to directing the performance and preparing a critical analysis of it.
In 1998, my students directed 18 performances. Besides the school performances, two of our productions represented the school in the Zone 8 DramaFest, featuring productions from across Edmonton. One of these two plays then took part in the Alberta High School Drama Festival, which included 17 plays from schools across the province. Nine of our students received awards, scholarships and congratulations for their part in the production.
Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts
10210-108 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta T5H 1A8
Telephone: 780-498-8731
Fax: 780-498-8727
"Hello, Mrs. LaRue. My name is Eileen Kiriazidis. I am the mathematics resource teacher at Howard S. Billings Regional High School. I am calling because Jason's* math teacher is concerned about Jason's progress in math."
This is how I begin the 40 or so phone calls I make at the beginning of each term.
Most of the students referred to the mathematics resource program are under emotional stress. A few have mild learning disabilities. Many are at least one year behind in basic math and English skills.
This initial phone call explains the student's problems in math and recruits parents into the process of convincing their child that we care. Jason, for example, has done poorly on class tests and standardized tests, which indicates he has weak calculation skills.
The remedial program for each of our four terms complements the regular program of studies. It is a full resource program with instructional time and scheduled visits for the students. Because each student has an individual set of difficulties in math, it is necessary to develop individual lesson plans for each of the 35 to 40 students in the program and to personally mark their work. This is time-consuming, but it is essential to convincing the students that we care about their learning.
I am delighted to report that Jason achieved a term-three mark that will pass him in math this year. He has stayed in resource for two terms, at his own requeSt. He has learned that people care and will give time and energy to help him.
* Jason is a composite of several students.
Howard S. Billings Regional High School
210 McLeod Street
Châteauguay, Quebec J6J 2H4
Telephone: 450-691-3230
Fax: 450-691-3234
As much as I enjoy teaching history and social studies, I see the subjects as a way to teach important learning skills. Students will find that effective study and research skills, public speaking experience, and the ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines are more useful to them after high school and later in life than knowing the causes of some battle.
Mock parliaments are a great way to foster these skills. Our mock parliament is part of the Grade 11 social studies course. Students learn how to work together in political parties, and they gain leadership and teamwork experience while researching current issues, writing bills and creating questions for question period. They learn about each other - sometimes surprising things - as long-time friends occasionally end up on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Just Remember to Start Small!
Mock parliaments suit schools of many different sizes and circumstances. One class of 25 students could do one, though two classes or more work better. If you start small with one or two classes and gradually expand, you will find that things proceed smoothly and run themselves.
Don't just throw students into the debate, however. There are a few things to do first:
- Teach students the fundamentals of Canadian politics and government functions: federalism, the structure of Parliament, the roles of legislators and the Cabinet, the Constitution, the political spectrum, Canada's major political parties and the way laws are passed.
- Have students complete a survey of their political beliefs to help them choose which political party to join.
- Hold elections for party leaders, and then set the parties loose to develop a platform and write bills (this will take several periods). Hold a mini mock parliament as a trial run.
At the beginning of the week before the real session takes place, hold party conventions. Each party signs up members, elects the party leadership (i.e. house leader and whip), and selects Cabinet ministers or critics.
The rest of the week is devoted to caucus meetings. Parties use these sessions to fill out the party platform, write the speech from the throne (give copies to all parties so they can develop criticisms of it), finalize bills and develop arguments to support their bills and oppose those of the other parties.
Pleasant Valley Secondary School
P.O. Box 544
Armstrong, British Columbia V0E 1B0
Telephone: 250-546-3114
Fax: 250-546-8640
Email: sulonsdale@sd22.bc.ca
Teaching in cyberspace is an important new development and will be even more so in the future, requiring teachers to acquire many new communication skills and adopt new teaching methods. The interactive nature of computer technology provides an ideal environment for the collaborative learning that projects involve.
This is not difficult to do in a school like ours, where I find students as a whole eager to learn. The young people I work with have a strong work ethic, and many are willing to go beyond what is usually expected in a classroom.
I realized early on that successful project-based learning absolutely requires that students be allowed to make significant decisions about classroom procedures and priorities. This is the most fundamental advice I can give to a teacher: let the students take control. If you want to have a Web project that the kids will feel is special - something that they and other teenagers care about - let them conceive and develop it.
Advantages of student-led project-based learning:
- students are highly motivated
- all learning is relevant
- the project can be presented to others and shared
- students learn more and learn faster.
Advantages of using the Internet for project-based learning:
- the web is a great way to present the project to millions of people
- students have access to vast resources and people beyond the classroom
- the web permits dialogue between the audience and the authors.
The real proof, however, is in the product. Have a look at some of the things my students have done at the Athens District High School web page. Here you will find several award-winning sites, including Mission 2000, a Web game based on the Year 2000 problem, The Peace Adventure, Delta Maple Syrup Festival and Canadian Aid for Chernobyl.
Athens District High School
Box 279
Athens, ON K0E 1B0
Telephone: 613-924-2618
Fax: 613-924-1525
Email: MacKinnonS@ucdsb.on.ca
My educational philosophy is best expressed as an image: the Tree of Knowledge with an unbroken circle, representing children, around it. I believe that all children should have equal access to the Tree of Knowledge. If lessons are based on actual or vicarious experiences - such as drama, reconstructions or experiments - as well as text, then all students have an equal opportunity to learn.
In my classroom, I focus on keeping learning accessible to all my students. I use a variety of media (song, dance, art, manipulation, text, experience and experimentation) and promote the development of a wide range of learning skills. I use unit themes of study to bring it all together.
The Bats in the Class project was one such unit theme that offered plenty of experiential, activity-based learning for my Grade 2 class.
Late in the winter, a young bat was found flying around the halls of the local community centre. It had come out of hibernation early, and was in danger of starving or freezing to death. I was called to catch it. Once I had it in a cage, I took it back to the classroom. A few days later, the mother of one of my students called to say there was a bat in her living room. So now I had two bats and a classroom full of interested, curious children.
Buena Vista Elementary School
1306 Lorne Avenue
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7H 1X8
Telephone: 306-683-7140
Fax: 306-683-7147
Email: marland.ken@sbe.saskatoon.sk.ca
There are many creative ways to meet students' needs. If students display an aptitude in an area other than literary, teachers can empower them to develop their strengths while still enabling them to meet course requirements. At Bishops, we do this in a first-year literature course by building on Howard Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences. (Gardner has described the characteristics of individuals who have strengths in a particular intelligence in eight categories, such as verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical.)
This course is intended for all students entering high school who lack a strong background in reading and writing. The class includes some students who will fast-track to university as well as others who are 19 and have never read a novel. The course is a challenge to the teacher - one tries strategy after strategy.
One thing that does work is the multiple intelligences assignment. Students first read Cassie Brown's novel Death on the Ice: the Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914. Then I ask them to choose a "vehicle" for expressing what they feel and think about the novel. The good writers write: essays, poems, newspaper articles. Those with computer skills create multimedia presentations. Several might form a group and debate some aspect of the seal hunt. Musicians write themes and lyrics, artists paint or sketch, and sculptors sculpt. Others create posters for a proposed film, design and present a display of sealing artifacts or collaborate on writing a dramatic script.
As you may imagine, students are far more receptive to this assignment than if I had asked them to just read the book and take a quiz on it. High attendance and a high pass rate (98 percent) in my classes tells me that students are motivated. Moreover, I keep their interest and reward their diligence by having a show of all the projects and inviting guests, including other classes, teachers and parents.
Bishops College
Pennywell Road
St. John's, Newfoundland A1C 2L6
Telephone: 709-579-4107
Fax: 709-579-4109
Email: jggmoore@bishops.ntc.nf.ca or jgmoore@roadrunner.nf.net
Whether teaching biology in the classroom (which is what I do during school hours), leading a field trip or directing on the stage, my objective is to instil a sense of pride, success and confidence in every kid. When I began to direct musicals 17 years ago, the shows were the exclusive province of the Glee Club, a small group of music and drama students. Now they are an inclusion opportunity.
If students have been brave enough to show up for auditions, I won't turn them away. Even if they can't act, sing, or even walk across the stage without tripping, I find some way to include them. I solicit auditions too, usually from students recommended by a fellow teacher. These teachers have seen the transformation in other students who have been given an opportunity to perform and succeed, and they know which students need that boost or are too shy to come forward.
If I've spotted hidden talent in a previous production, I'll encourage that student to take a lead role. One young woman had no self-confidence and stayed at the back of the chorus line. I noticed, however, that she did have a beautiful singing voice, so the next year I encouraged her to audition for a lead role. She is now at the University of Toronto studying opera.
But what about the kid who can't sing or dance? In Oklahoma, we dressed him in American Gothic style and had him stand on stage with a pitchfork, scowling the whole time. We called him Waldo, and it became the trademark of the play - "Where's Waldo?" We hid him in obscure places in every scene. The audience loved it and gave him his own standing ovation. For Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, we made one student into a mummy by wrapping him in gauze and sent him across the stage during every scene with a placard featuring a political comment or anecdote. He became quite a star.
Fredericton High School
300 Priestman Street
Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 6J8
Telephone: 506-453-5435
Fax: 506-453-3050
I like the expression "Lead, follow or get out of the way!" In every project, I do a bit of all three. I arrange class projects so students need to learn and teach each other in order to solve the built-in challenges and complications.
Acme Acres Books Inc. is a good example. On the face of it, it's a desktop publishing unit in a Grade 11 data processing course. I turn it into a book publishing project to give the students a sense of accomplishment by letting them participate in a real-life production.
It starts with an apparently simple proposal. The students are to visit a nearby Grade 1 class in the next week to read children's stories. "OK, what's so hard about that?" they wonder. I tell them that they're going to write the stories themselves using a Grade 1 word liSt. "OK," they think, "not so simple, but we can still handle this."
When they come back from reading their stories to the Grade 1 class, there is another surprise for them. "I forgot to mention…. Now we're going to put all the stories together into a book." Suddenly the students have to think beyond their individual work towards a collaborative effort.
After some discussion and a few suggestions from their consultant (me), the class elects an editorial team. This team is now in charge. When the stories are finished, the editorial team realizes that there's still more work to do. The stories need to be edited and corrected, kept to a similar length, and set in the same font and layout style. The team makes these decisions quite easily and delegates different jobs to various people. All of the work is done in groups. The students share the learning and the work and are assessed as a group. They learn to choose their groups wisely, and to be trustworthy and responsible themselves so that they're desirable team members.
The most important thing that happens when you abandon the teacher-as-expert system is that the students learn that they have to do the work themselves. They don't learn anything if the teacher does more work than they do. Realizing this begins the transformation of a young person from a student into a lifelong learner.
Alpha Secondary School
4600 Parker Street
Burnaby, British Columbia V5C 3E2
Telephone: 604-664-8535
Fax: 604-664-8541
Email: pmsol@istar.ca
Field trips are an interesting variation on project-based learning, where travelling, exploring and collecting and analyzing data become the project.
The goal of a virtual field trip is to optimize trip time by establishing the major goals of the trip before it takes place. In addition, the web pages provide a survey of organisms that students might encounter. The trip is designed to guide students through the material in a logical manner and introduces topics in appropriate locations.
It prepares students for an actual field trip to an intertidal zone. The material covered is an important part of the survey of plants and animals, ecology curriculum and fisheries elective for Level III Biology.
There are as many possible field trips as there are courses in a school, and the outline of the intertidal zone field trip could be adapted to any of them.
Highlights
- introduction and discussion of central concepts - biomes, tides, ecological niches and ecological zonation
- characteristics of several marine biomes, each illustrated with a photograph (this introductory page demonstrates the most important lesson objective: that physical conditions cause an organism's habitat selection)
- a lab activity page on the collection and analysis of data.
The lab activity page saves time at the seashore, since the students know what they are looking for before going out. I've created a set of questions the students must answer while travelling through the virtual field trip. This encourages them to thoroughly examine the information on the web pages and helps them understand how it fits together. The real field trip then confirms the lesson with practical experience. Students work quickly and efficiently, and are often able to do much of the identification and analysis work independently.
The virtual field trip creates an air of anticipation among the students. In addition, the site teaches those unable to attend the actual field trip, and acts as a reference source for students afterwards.
Bishops College
Pennywell Road
St. John's, Newfoundland A1C 2L6
Telephone: 709-579-4107
Fax: 709-579-4109
Email: pwells@bishops.ntc.nf.ca or pwells@nf.sympatico.ca
My educational philosophy can be summed up in three words: learning by doing. I knew the best way to learn about running a business was to actually run one. Opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures are often disguised as problems. While we were trying to find a business idea, Kingston city council increased tipping fees at the local landfill site. The city has a number of large institutions that dispose of large amounts of office furniture and building materials. This created an opportunity to collect and resell these materials.
Once we had the idea, it still took a year to move Enviroworks out of the classroom. In the first year the class created the business plan, which is updated every year. The students do market surveys and research, carry out a competition analysis, and look into leasing and purchasing equipment. They learn that the first step in running any business is ensuring the basic idea is viable.
Enviroworks is run by 15 to 17 students from around the city. We have a full-time manager who is a former student in the program. The program runs for two semesters in each school year. Typically, students are at Enviroworks all day and receive four credits in one semester for marketing, accounting, entrepreneurial studies, computers, management studies and construction technology (through our demolition service). In the other semester, the students return to school for their compulsory courses. I follow the curriculum guidelines, with everything related to the operation of the business.
Enviroworks keeps regular business hours. This requires a great time commitment from the students. In return, they get real job experience. I've seen a real turnaround in many of the students working at Enviroworks. Many have gone from high-risk, low-attendance students to motivated, interested students with perfect attendance. Many go straight from Enviroworks to paying jobs in the community.
Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute
145 Kirkpatrick Street
Kingston, Ontario K7K 5P4
Telephone: 613-531-0542
Fax: 613-531-0322
Email: enviro@kingston.net