It's a Great Time to be a BC Educator

I've been hearing about the "New" BC Curriculum for some time.  I sit on our district's curriculum committee, and am part of administrative and book-club conversations which explore critical thinking skills, and "21st Century" competencies, as we look forward to the K-9 implementation this coming fall.  I've dabbled in the website to see what the face of this new "stuff" looks like.  And I have to admit, I've been cautiously optimistic for some time. 


After this past week, I'm downright excited. 


On Thursday, our administrators and curriculum committee had the good fortune to spend a day with Jan Unwin, Superintendent of Graduation and Student Transitions, and Maureen Dockendorf, Superintendent of Early Years.  They also spoke at our district day on Friday morning.  Listening to the passion and pride -(Maureen even used the word joy)- that these educational leaders have with respect to the direction that the curriculum is taking was infectious.  Knowing that three of our local teachers were directly part of that conversation was the icing on the cake. 


If you're not familiar with the re-designed framework, there's a great "Tools" section on the new website which outlines the core competencies and structures of the curriculum.  In addition to some terrific snapshot pdf documents available for printing out, there is a short series of videos that can give you the broad-strokes overview. (https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/tools).

Curriculum Model



Jan and Maureen opened their presentation with a thought that's had me thinking for the past two days. 


The kindergarten students who enter our doors this fall will be alive in the 22nd Century!


What a lucky thing, for all of our children, that the educators of this province have been given the gift of such an inclusive curriculum to bring to the table.


The three core competencies:  Communication, Thinking and Personal and Social Skills have been organized around a continuum of profiles to help us support our learners in developing these areas.
Each set of profiles is designed to be completely inclusive-  even our most impacted students will find a home within them.  They are NOT arranged around grade levels, but rather individual capacities.  As students develop sophistication with particular skill, they will move up the continuum.


For me, what makes these profiles even better, is that the competencies are the FOUNDATION of all things curriculum.  When we talk about needing to support our learners with self-regulation skills, or to spend time helping kids develop friendships or better ways to explain themselves, we are not creating a bridge to the curriculum, we are EXPLORING curriculum.  All of this important work we do with our learners is a part of what we are supposed to be doing, which means we don't need to feel guilty about the things we "aren't able to get to."   Jan and Maureen were clear-  73% of the Learning Standards are about Curricular COMPETENCIES, (the skills and processes),  not the content.  We've been given the gifts of time and opportunity to explore things in a way that's meaningful for both our students and ourselves. 


Year to year, week to week, group to group, our practice, our content, our focus, can ebb and flow with the needs of the kids.  And it's expected that our students in the room will as diverse in their capacity with the core competencies as they already are with the content focused IRPs.  Which makes it even more relevant, and important, for EVERYONE to be learning together.


Let's consider the Thinking Competency, where the Critical Thinking strand is broken into 6 profile descriptions, framed around "I statements" to allow students to reflect on their own growth.


Level 1 states "I can explore.  I can explore materials and actions.  I can show if I like something or not."


At Level 4, "I can gather and combine new evidence with what I already know to develop reasoned conclusions, judgments, or plans.  I can use what I know and observe to identify problems and ask questions.  I can explain and engage with materials and sources.  I can consider more than one way to proceed and make choices based on my reasoning and what I am trying to do.  I can develop or adapt criteria, check information, assess my thinking, and develop reasoned conclusions, judgments or plans.


While these two profiles are very different in their level of sophistication, they allow a place for ALL students to be part of the exploration.  These profiles are organized with the expectation that students explore all facets of the competency (as defined around the outside of the circle), with whatever level of support they require to be successful (knowing that students in the middle require the most intensive help). 

These core competencies are actualized through curricular competencies-  the stuff students are supposed to DO, and the content, which is the stuff students are supposed to KNOW.  Knowing and doing the activities within the Learning Standards will help students to UNDERSTAND the Big Ideas. 

Let me give you an example of what this might look like in practical terms.  Let's say a grade 6 classroom is working to understand the basic structure and function of the nervous system in their science lesson.

They begin with a short video which defines and describes the nervous system.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dah-4mtAnsQ). 

After watching the video, the kids are exploring the curricular competencies of:

-  Explore and pose questions that lead to investigations

-  With support, plan appropriate investigations to answer their questions or solve problems they have identified.

They've had a conversation and have decided that their focus for this particular lesson is "what are the parts of the nervous system, and where are they in my body?" 

The student who is working at profile level 1 for Critical Thinking is organizing cut-outs of the parts of the nervous system onto a cut-out of his body that he started when they were working on the muscular system.  He's partnered up with a couple of other students, who also wanted to use their cut-outs, and who are also adding labels with short sentence descriptions to go with the parts.  While an EA is nearby, the kids are working together and the adult stops by when needed for clarification or support. 

At the same time,  the student who is proficient at level 4 of the Critical Thinking Profiles has drawn a quick labeled sketch of the nervous system, and is now working on some additional reading and research to find out some additional details about the spinal cord, because he's interested to know more about why some people are unable to walk. 

The Big Idea they'll all need to cycle back to is:  Multicellular organisms rely on internal systems to survive, reproduce, and interact with their environment.  By the end of this lesson, the students know what the nervous system is and a little bit about how it works.  The student described above isn't the only one who got excited about an individual question- so as they wrap up, the class generates a list of the things they are wondering about, which will form the foundation of the inquiry to follow. 

As the example above shows, this redesigned framework allows to explore new learning at a level that is developmentally appropriate for them as individuals.   As teachers, we will continue to use our favorite units and lessons to continue to explore things we've been excited and engaged about ourselves, we'll just look at it through the lens of curricular competencies, rather than as bits of content.  And, more often, we'll be able to keep our class together as a community as we move forward.

I love the way Shelley Moore recently framed this-  it's not about finishing together....it's about BEGINNING together.  Working within the framework of the Learning Standards gives  teachers more autonomy than ever to meet their students where they are at, and to adjust things as we grow and learn together. 

I'm proud to be part of an education system that is so inclusive and respectful of our students.  Thank you to everyone who worked on it-  you truly understand that THEY ARE ALL OUR KIDS!



Self-Regulated Learning

This week, I spent some time with my 15 year-old son, who was preparing for his English 10 Provincial Exam.  He's held his own in English class this semester, but he's a pretty concrete sequential guy, and this "finding the theme" business is a common source of frustration for him.

This time around, his class had watched the Dead Poet's Society, and they were supposed to be doing movie review which included exploration of the theme, supported with examples from the film.  They knew that going in, and were asked to take notes while they watched, but my analytical guy collected a bit of rag-tag info that was only marginally useful....for example:

          -  one kid needs confidence
          -  other teachers are uncomfortable with Mr. Keating
          -  the Dead Poet's Society meets in the woods
          -  no music at the start, now some music shows up a little
               and is gone right away
          -  away from school is more fun

Not much to build a response from.
 
In steps Mom, with a suggestion that we Google up some clips from the movie and see what we can figure out.  ("But I already watched it.  How will that help?").  A second suggestion that we accept that "Carpe Diem" might be the theme.  ("How do you know that?")  I suggested that he just roll with that one-  not too many movies have a main character who stands on a desk and shouts the theme, repeatedly, as part of the story....

Feeling frustrated, I hand him over to his Dad, who suggested making a web.  They spend over an hour watching the video clips and working on examples for the web.   By this point, my guy has accepted that we might know the theme of the movie, and has had lots of conversation about why the examples on the web have been chosen.   He's now left to craft his response from the questions his mom wrote beside his original notes, and the web he created with his father.

30 minutes later, we have an opening sentence.  "The Dead Poet's Society is a movie."  This is the high-point of the response that he continued to work on for the next 45 minutes.

Fast-forward two days, the evening after he tried to hand his first response in, and his very astute English teacher has sent the paper back home for another go-  wisely pointing out that he hadn't quite mastered the strategy he needed for doing this type of response on his exam.   He sets himself up at the dining room table with the same pile of notes.  He and I take one more read through it, and identify a few things from the original web that he may not have used.  Then I leave him.  Alone.

I phoned home about an hour later, after taking my daughter to her evening's activity, to see how it was going.  He tells me that he laid on the floor for half-an-hour, but he's back at the table, and he's rolling now.  Shortly afterward, I arrived home and was presented with a fairly well-crafted piece, complete with examples from the movie and personal opinions.  ("Look Mom, I even put in a couple of inferences where the movie didn't say.")

I'm as exhausted as he is at this point, we're both glad it's over....but it left me wondering where my learning was in all of this.

In "Critical Thinking Classrooms,"  Roland Case has a chapter about self-regulated learning where he defines it as "the ability and inclination to carry out assigned tasks in personally responsible, self-reflective ways, and to exercise reasoned judgement in the pursuit of agreed-upon educational goals" (p.177).  Case goes on to identify four attributes of such learners:  they have a repertoire of strategies to use, they have the ability to judge which of these strategies is appropriate for the given task, they are able to monitor, modify and use the strategies effectively, and they are motivated to regulate their own learning and persist with the task.

Case encourages educators to deliberately introduce strategies as part of a toolkit, in a variety of contexts, with small, manageable criteria students can use to self-assess their effectiveness.    He argues that this will increase the students' confidence with the tools, and help them find personal relevance in their use.  He's provided a wonderful self-assessment tool, allows learners to stay focused on the reasons why self-regulated learning is so valuable for their success.

My son has definitely been introduced to a number of strategies-  there is evidence all over his English book that they've been using graphic organizers, rubrics, and self-assessment tools throughout the semester.  I know it is a class that has lots of discussion and they are encouraged to reflect on each others thinking, as well as their own.

In his case, he doesn't yet know how to self-select  strategies.  He still waits for the teacher to tell him which tool to choose, and how to use it, for each assignment.  He hasn't learned to modify or adjust them for his purposes.  While being coached by his father and I, he was frustrated that we weren't approaching things the same way as one another, or in the way his teacher had done.

Finishing that assignment felt like a breakthrough the other night, though.  He experimented with a variety of strategies, spent some time evaluating which one was going to get him where he needed to be, pushed through the frustration (and thankfully didn't use lying on the floor as a strategy for the provincial exam), finally ending up with a piece he was proud of.  It was really hard work.  And if he only does it once, the lessons learned will be lost.  As educators, we all need to be doing what we can to nurture self-regulated learners.  After all, THEY'RE ALL OUR KIDS.

Planning - for ALL

Just before the holidays, I spent a terrific morning with the team for our Compass Program at Kwalikum Secondary School.  This blended grade 8-10 environment is a cohort of students working together through their math, science, social studies and English coursework.  It's a cohort-based, half-day, linear program.  This supportive environment is team-taught by a classroom teacher, in partnership with a learning services teacher, often supported by an educational assistant.

One of the challenges with a multi-age, multi-ability group such as this is figuring out the best way to approach the curriculum.  The team has experimented with a variety of lesson structures, whole-group, small-group, individual, and partner work.   This group struggles with self-regulation, needing lots of support for social-emotional challenges, in addition to their academic needs.

We've been exploring some of Shelley Moore's ideas around inclusion, looking for ways to find a way in for every learner in the room.  We're also inspired by the changes to the new curriculum, thinking about big ideas and essential understandings. 

Our goal for the morning was to explore ways to support learners with math and science.  We started

the day with a big pile of print-outs from the new curriculum documents, and explored some of the overlapping concepts between the grade levels.   Knowing that math, in particular, is a cumulative skill, we worked toward thinking about the various concepts along a continuum, from a beginning point to increased layers of complexity, rather than according to the grade level they "belonged in."


By working with concentric circles, the teachers developed lesson frameworks that had the big idea for the unit in the center, the essential skills in the first ring, and increasingly complex skills in subsequent circles.  The lesson for ALL is the one that everyone can access in relation to the big idea.  Instruction will initially focus on mastery of the foundational skills and conceptual understandings.  Students who need to stay in that place will continue to explore and practice those concepts, and students who are ready for more will be given opportunities to move on.  There will be space for learners who want to work alongside the support of an adult, and space for learners ready to continue more independently. This will be accomplished by having the students work through self assessment as well as teacher assessment, and self-select the level of support they need.  Groups will not be assigned or static, but rather, they will ebb and flow from big idea to big idea.  Everyone will explore big ideas together, regardless of the grade level they are assigned to, and move on when they are ready.

It's very difficult to provide for such a diverse group of learners, the team is always concerned about the students who need the most significant support and adaptations.  Differentiating by picking the most appropriate starting place will give everyone a way to participate in classroom lessons without needing to work on materials that are separate or stand-alone.  I'm looking forward to seeing where this new way of approaching instruction takes them, this is a classroom where They Are All Our Kids.