Amplifying Youth Voice

Posted on February 27, 2022February 15, 2022 by Rebecca Chambers

By Aldine Emerimana, R.I.S.E. Intern

A showcase is an occasion or celebration at R.I.S.E Academy that takes place at the end of each semester. In comparison, in traditional school exams are provided before the conclusion of the semester, whereas at R.I.S.E Academy, students are given the chance to showcase their work (passion projects) to their family, friends, R.I.S.E. employees, and community members. For roughly 5-10 minutes, students are divided into breakout rooms where they can explain their projects and guests are able to ask questions and learn more about their projects. This gives students a sense of empowerment and is an alternative, less stressful way of evaluating success when compared to the stress of succeeding or failing tests. For example; one student is currently working on creating a new course for R.I.S.E. The modules he created are about different topics Another student was interested in the effects that covid has had on individuals physical/mental wellbeing. That being said, this encouraged her to pursue a career path in sports psychology. These showcase events allow students to share what they are passionate about and how they have incorporated this into their courses with R.I.S.E.

Another benefit of these showcase events is that doing so teaches them how to communicate in front of a crowd, which is a valuable career skill. They prepare content for public presentations and develop their communication skills via practice. Furthermore, students are asked questions throughout the showcase which helps them develop critical thinking skills.

Ultimately, the showcase is empowering and gives guests the opportunity to learn more about the difference between traditional school and R.I.S.E Academy. In addition, they learn about topics that they don’t teach in school such as; mental health, socializing & networking. In fact, at R.I.S.E Academy, students get the chance to do some research about those topics, learn more about them, and teach it to others. R.I.S.E Academy’s mission is to level the field for historically underprivileged students by reducing and eliminating the discriminatory structures that are built within the standard school education concept. This showcase event is helping with this.

R.I.S.E.

REACH INSPIRE SOAR EMPOWER

Posted on February 13, 2022February 13, 2022 by Rebecca Chambers

Well it has been quite some time since I last posted, I have been a little busy. Between May 19, 2020 (my last post) and now a lot has changed. In a nutshell, I took a leave without pay from my job and opened up a Not-for-Profit, virtual, alternative high school called R.I.S.E. (Reach Inspire Soar Empower) Academy and it has been quite the ride. Between September 2020 and today we moved from a very small team of me a student teacher a few part time staff and some volunteers to a team of Board of Directors, a Principal / Facilitator (me), two full time facilitators, one math / science specialist, two Social Work students, Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Manager, three student teachers, 5 + volunteers and soon to be 10 + student interns. Last year were were able to have youth accumulate 95 credits between September and July and this year we are projected to have youth accumulate 200 credits by the end of July.

The goal of R.I.S.E. is to provide students a learning experience that compliments their public school or homeschooling experience. We want to find ways to take the “system” out of learning and recognize, celebrate and utilize their individual passions, strengths and motivators. Below is a breakdown on how the program works.

Partnerships

Last year we partnered with Multifaith Housing Initiative (MHI) and received our very first grant from the Ottawa Community Foundation. MHI exists to build affordable housing that helps fix Ottawa’s housing crisis and gets at-risk people into secure, safe homes. This first grant allowed us us to provide free programming to 18 youth in their neighbourhoods. Next we partnered with Rideau Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre where we received a grant from Ontario Teacher Insurance Plan, here we created a summer pilot Entrepreneurship program where we had 7 youth start businesses and work on a credit. Our partnership with MHI and RRCRC continued into this year where we once again received funding from Ottawa Community Foundation and more recently a grant from the Rideau Hall Foundation. In total we will be able to provide free programming to 100 youth between September 2021 and June 2023.

We are always working on new partnerships, stay tuned for our latest connections!!

Youth Services Bureau Interns

In the fall we connected with Youth Service Bureau where we were able to support at-risk youth by hiring young people to give them meaningful employment and learning experiences. We hired our first group of 4 interns in January and it has been amazing. These youth not only have meaningful employment at R.I.S.E., but those who are high school aged are also working on credits that go towards their O.S.S.D. So far we have a Video Editors, Social Media and Community Outreach workers and Blog writer.

Our blog writer intern has been working hard over the last few months to learn the ins and outs of blog writing and what R.I.S.E. is all about. Please stay tuned for some updates from her, she will be chronicling what has been going on.

Give us a follow on instagram to follow along with us.

Thanks for continuing to Unlearn With Us 🙂

Thank you to all our amazing partners below!!

My Twitter feed doesn’t give the full story

Posted on November 28, 2019 by Rebecca Chambers

Screenshot 2019-11-28 at 7.58.52 PM

On my way home from work today I listened to my students recent Twisted System podcast episode # 8. In it, they talked about mental health and social media. They had a great conversation about how social media impacts their lives. If you would like a look into the teenage world and social media you should have a listen, I heard about apps and things that I had never heard of. In the episode they talk about how people only post the good on social media, how we often compare ourselves to others and what social media is doing to our mental health. This got me thinking about my own Twitter feed. If you follow me, you will know that I love showcasing what we are doing in our classroom. If I go back and look at my feed, things look like they are going great. There is no doubt that my students are doing amazing things. But our classroom is far from perfect. I started this blog two years ago to chronicle mine and my students unlearning journey, all of it, not just the good, I wanted to share the good, the bad and the ugly. So, I will let you in on a secret, my twitter feed does not represent the whole story.

Recently I have been feeling anxious, overwhelmed and exhausted. Sometimes I doubt myself and what I am doing with my students. Sometimes I feel like quitting and finding a different job completely. I struggle daily trying to manage this new way of “teaching”. I am innovating inside the box and sometimes that is really hard. Amongst the good, and there is so much of it, here is what we are dealing with. Here is the reality of innovating inside a box.

Students

I work with amazing students who are super on board with trying out a new way of learning. They have embraced it and are working hard on their passion projects. But they are teenagers. They all come with their different abilities. I want to learn about each and every one of them so that I can help them be successful. I want to give them my undivided attention to help them with their individual projects, but it is not always possible. These things are hard to do when you have 30 students in a class. (Can you imagine if we end up with 40, don’t get me started on that). Sometimes I feel like a complete failure. I feel like I am letting them down, that I am not doing enough and then I realize that I just don’t have anymore to give. I’m exhausted.

Accountability

My students are all working on different passion projects. They have between two or three 75 minute periods a week to work on their projects. For some they are in two of my classes so that means they have between 4 – 6 periods a week to work on their projects. My students are learning time management skills, they set their schedule for the week and are supposed to stick by it. Every Monday they set these goals for themselves. My students are teenagers and regular human beings. They don’t always follow through when they say they are going to, some times they are having a bad day and need a break and other days they work like mad men and women. On the days that they are not working it is hard to watch. On any given day I have students who are working diligently and then on another day they are off task and not working on their projects. This makes me really uncomfortable, however, what I have to remember is that this is how life works. I don’t know about you, but I rarely work diligently every single minute of the day. I often have to motivate myself to get work done. I have options to take a break or work and sometimes I take the option of procrastinating. If I tell my students what to do, how to do it and when to do then I am not allowing them the freedom to learn from their mistakes. But this is hard to watch. I am often there to help keep them motivated, but again I am only one person and so I have to leave it in their hands. Again, this is a constant struggle for me.

So many projects

Between three classes of approximately 25 – 30 students there are a ton of projects going on. In an ideal world I would have the opportunity to sit with each student / group of students and help them plan out their projects every week. I try to touch base with all students at some point throughout the week to see if they need help. I watch their weekly updates and provide suggestions to them every weekend but often I feel like a failure in doing this. The reality is that this model of teaching can happen in this environment, but a lot of onus has to be left on the students. Managing over 30 projects in really hard…period.

The Naysayers

As with any new or out of the box model of thinking there are going to be supporters, those who are curious and the naysayers. I know I have people rooting for me, I know that what I am doing is right for the students, but I often focus on the naysayers. I am super lucky to have admin and a whole experiential learning department and Director who supports what I am doing. I also have some amazing colleagues who have joined the crusade to change the way we educate our youth. It is awesome being able to chat with them about the things that they are trying out in their classrooms and to talk about the future of experiential learning. I have cheerleaders that I have met on Twitter and amazing community members and parents who support me. But I am human and unfortunately I often focus on those who just don’t get it. This is counterproductive and destructive, but sometimes I just can’t stop myself.

Mental Health

I struggle with anxiety and all of the above makes it worse. As mentioned already I often second guess what I am doing, I often feel out of control and I struggle with so many things that go on behind the scenes of my classroom.

It’s definitely not perfect but we will power through because we are rocking our projects, we are making so many community connections, we are learning our curriculum by doing, we are working on time management, we are making a difference, the students are empowered and we are learning from our failures.

We will be resilient and continue to:

Do good deeds and podcast about them. (Stay tuned for their first episode)
Create a prototype of an app to help fight antibiotic resistance.
Pack birthday boxes for a young indigenous girl in the north.
Create a podcast called Human 2.0 about AI awareness.
Connect with mental health partners, fundraise and put together packages for teens who suffer from mental health.
Work with and support students with intellectual disabilities.
Run a kindness program in a middle school.
Give lessons to classes about shark finning.
Collect and donate clothing to the Salvation Army.
Detail teachers cars to raise money for Miracle League.
Rake lawns and collect sports equipment to raise money for Waupoos Family farm.
Collect e-waste as a social enterprise.
Create doggy care packages for the homeless who have pets.
Create a cooking show and health and nutrition podcast.
Run a DIFD hockey game to raise money and awareness for Mental Health.
Support the local Santa Claus parade.
Fundraise to support a family in need at Christmas.
Create a social enterprise called STAIN. (start talking about it now period) to end stigma around women and their periods.
Learn to sew with retired ladies from the community and work with Days for Girls to sew reusable feminine hygiene products for girls who stay home from school because of their periods.
Podcast live on Voiced radio on the Twisted System Podcast.
Take part in an anti anxiety yoga therapy program.
Put on a fun day to raise money and awareness for Leukemia.
Volunteer in elementary classrooms.
Learn to grow an inside garden.
Start a vegetarian blog with yummy recipes for everyone.
Ride 200 kms to raise money and awareness for pancreatic cancer.
Run a sports program for preschoolers weekly for free for parents who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it.
Organize a blood donor clinic and get swabbed campaign.
Volunteer at a retirement home and organize a prom for them.
Interview Veterans and local politicians to help share the veterans concerns.
Interview people and write songs about their stories.
Organize a fundraiser for local housing community.
Become climate change warriors by joining POW.

If you are in the midst of making a change, it is definitely not easy, but don’t give up – as you can see from the list above, it is so worth all the struggles.

Thanks for unlearning with us 🙂

Why Unlearn?

Disruption is necessary, who’s with me?

Posted on April 27, 2019 by Rebecca Chambers

The Breakfast Club

In my last post Dreams do come true if you persevere, my vision of an experiential passion based classroom have come true I gave an overview of the two credit course that I am facilitating called The Experiential Passion Based Study of Child Development and Gerontology. This course is a mish mash of bits and pieces that I have taken from the Independent Project, Iowa Big, Don Wettricks Innovation and Open source learning class and Blue Sky school. If you want the day by day on what happens, check out the last post.

Everyday I am so thankful that I get to work with these students. Each and everyone of them has their own unique story and it is amazing to watch them all shine in and outside of the classroom. Since we are a two credit course we spend a lot of time together. We do a lot of reflecting, discussing, podcasting and supporting of each others passion projects.

The other day we were having one of our informal discussions and one of the students said, “I really feel like this class is like The Breakfast Club, we all come from different groups and backgrounds but we are getting to know each other and we are talking to people that we probably would never have talked to if it wasn’t for this class”. He had no idea how much of a compliment that was to me, I had goosebumps.

Disruption is necessary

However, on the daily I hear about the rumours and discussions that go on behind closed doors about me and what is happening in my classroom. My normal is not everyone’s normal – I get that. I understand that what I am doing challenges people’s identities as educators. I know that I am relentless in getting my way and that I am a disruptor to “how we do things here”. I understand that change takes time, but here’s the thing – we don’t have time.

According to an article from Global News, “While Canada’s economy is on track to add 2.4 million jobs over the next four years, virtually all of them will require a different set of skills than young people are currently learning. According to the study, a growing demand for “human skills” will be more crucial across job sectors. In particular, critical thinking, coordination, social perceptiveness, active listening and complex problem solving — described in the report as “human skills” — were identified as being key characteristics Canadians should develop to prepare for changes to the workforce.”

Unfortunately many educators still believe that rote learning, direct instruction and testing are what is needed to prepare students for the future. The more I research about the future of work, it is evident that simply put, they are wrong.

A recently published article How to make high schools better for students outlines research conducted by Jahl Mehta (associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Sarah Fine (High Tech High Graduate School of Education).

“Our research in 30 public high schools across the country found that great high schools share something essential in common: They cultivate mastery, creativity and identity. In other words, students in these schools are given regular opportunities to develop significant knowledge and skills, to use their knowledge to produce something original, and to connect their learning to who they are and who they seek to become. The presence of these qualities produces deep engagement — the thing that educators so often struggle to foster.”

“Unfortunately, these qualities are fairly rare in American high schools today.” (this would go for Canadian schools too, in my opinion) In most of the schools we observed — even those with reputations for being innovative — students saw little purpose or meaning in what they were doing. Some were defiant; others made sophisticated attempts to “play the game of school.” Very few, however, described their schools as places where they could thrive. National studies confirm that the bulk of high school students are bored at school daily.”

The Call to Courage – Brene Brown Netflix Special Brené Brown

Sometimes I give too much time to the naysayers, according to Brené Brown it is only human to want to be liked. However, after watching Brown’s Netflix special called the Call to Courage I am going to try and focus on and surround myself with positive people. I am going to live by the three things she learned from doing her TED Talk on Vulnerability. NOTE If you have not seen this yet, it is a MUST!! Thank you Logan for suggesting I watch it!!

I vow to live by the following and never feel shame because I do:

I am going to live in the arena, I’m going to be brave with my life, I’m going to show up and I am going to take chances. I am going to fall, fail and know heartbreak.
I am going to be vulnerable, it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about having the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome.
And finally to the critics, if you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion because you are being brave, I’m not interested in or open to your feedback about my work.

It is time for all educators to be brave, vulnerable and courageous for the future of our students and society in general. Who is with me?

I can promise you this from my journey, it is messy, it is chaotic and it is scary. But on the flip side I get to hang out with The Breakfast Club and it is so worth it.

Thanks for unlearning with us.
Cheers, R 🙂

Works Cited

Mehta, Jahl, and Sarah Fine. “How to Make High Schools Better for Students.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 26 Apr. 2019, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mehta-fine-education-high-school-excellence-20190426-story.html.

Vomiero, Jessica. “Half of Canadian Jobs Will Be Impacted by Automation in next 10 Years.” Global News, 26 Mar. 2018, globalnews.ca/news/4105713/automation-workforce-canada-human/.

Classroom Examples, Why Unlearn?

Dreams do come true if you persevere, my vision of an experiential passion based classroom have come true.

Posted on March 17, 2019 by Rebecca Chambers

Screenshot 2019-03-17 at 5.16.33 PM

As mentioned in many of my previous posts my desire for change in education was sparked by my own educational experience and my introduction to trailblazers such as Sir Ken Robinson, and closer to home Dr. Peter Gamwell. They have been fighting the good fight for years (in a time when it was even more controversial than today) and paved the way for today’s educators to start making some changes.

I am motivated to make change for my students, but even more so for my daughters in grade 1 and 6. I am on a mission to change the way we do school and have been experimenting within our current system to make some of these changes happen. As a part of my experiment, over the past 10 years I have been busy researching about different learning environments and different ways of doing things that reflect our ever changing modern world.

In 2014 some colleagues and I went to visit Westmount High School in Hamilton Ontario who are one of eight schools that belong to the Canadian Coalition of Self-Directed Learning.

I have read articles and watched videos about places like the Independent School, The MET, Iowa BIG and High Tech High.

I have learned to use Twitter to connect with others out there and have become a part of a Professional Learning Network that I never knew existed. I learn so much from this network, whether it is seeing what they are talking about on their blogs, podcasts or vlogs, joining in Twitter chats / discussions or meeting up for virtual hangouts with educators from around the world. I get so much energy and strength from these people.

Every year the research has inspired me to try something new in my classroom. Each year I slowly let go of the traditional and move to a more modern style of teaching. However, there have been huge obstacles. Working in our archaic system can be challenging, but this semester some of my visions are starting to come true.

My vision starts to come true: Experiential, community connected and passion project based learning in action.

At the beginning of February my students and I embarked on a new journey of experiential learning with our new two credit course that the ministry calls Child Development and Gerontology TOJ4C paired with IDC4O. We have altered the name to The Experiential Passion Based Study of Child Development and Gerontology. All my research and the experimenting with my other classes has lead to this course. I have learned what works and what doesn’t work, what some of the obstacles are and how to overcome them. Over the 10 years of trial and error this is what I hope to have as our focus in the classroom.

Student Driven
Exit Outcomes (Essential Life Skills)
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Technology
Entrepreneurial Mindset
Social Media
Authentic Audience and Community Connections
Course Content as a vessel to work on all of the above

Now that we are a month and half into the course we are starting to get into the swing of things. Generally this is what a week looks like:

Monday

The first ½ of class is dedicated to “Monday Meetings” here we get into randomly selected small groups, play a silly ice breaker game and then we have a very informal discussion about “course” related stuff. We talk about what has been going on with their projects, we talk about issues that they might be having, the students support each other in solving those problems or brainstorming for new projects. They discuss the outings that they had in the previous weeks, they share where they went and what they did, what they liked and what they didn’t like. And finally each student fills out a weekly form that helps them plan for the week. They jot down what they are going to work on, where they are going each day (because we are out in the community a lot) anything I need to know about their week and how they are feeling. I am supported by our Student Success Teacher and our former VP (she’s retired) to help run these meetings. I am SO fortunate to have the support of these amazing ladies to make this happen!! We will refer to them as mentors from here on in.

*Nerdy Teacher Alert* I’ve learned how to use a chrome extension called DocAppender and it has been a game changer for keeping me and my students organized in a PBL classroom. Message me if you want to know more and I will tell you about it!!

During the second part of Monday’s class we have a guest come in from the field of Child Development and Gerontology. These guests give students a look into different careers but also to hear about different issues that they may want to get involved with. So far we have had amazing people come into our classroom to talk about topics such as: Elder Abuse, Children on the Autism Spectrum, Adult programs for people with cognitive disabilities and an amazing Social Entrepreneur Lindsay Barr who has set up an organization called World Changing Kids (WCK).

So far we have had two students get hired to work in a one to one Autism program and another one is working with WCK’s on a podcast. My goal is to provide the students with some inspiration for projects and connections to the community by having these guests in.

Tuesday

Our whole class goes to Woodroffe HS to work with their Junior GLP class. This group of students are between the ages of 14 – 16 and have a variety of intellectual disabilities. They are in a specialized program called the General Learning Program. Every Tuesday we meet up with the students to support them in their learning. For our first two meetups we have worked on building trust and relationships between the two groups of students. Below is what one of my students had to say after their first meetup.

Screenshot 2019-03-14 at 8.24.43 AM

Our last visit started our first “structured” learning experience together. We started a 3 day workshop (given over three weeks of Tuesday’s) by Parkdale Food Centre on how to become solutionaries. We will continue these workshops when we return after the break.

Again, I am hoping to provide my students exposure to different career paths, meeting new people and potentially ideas for their passion projects. So far we have a group of two students who are interested in spending more time within the Woodroffe HS General Learning Program and they have paired up with the Senior GLP class and will be joining them on outings every Friday.

Screenshot 2019-03-14 at 8.42.57 AM

Wednesday

I have arranged for my students to rotate (every three weeks they change placements) around six different places. In their rotation there are three different retirement homes right in our community and three different elementary classrooms (grade 1 EFI, grade ⅔ English and a grade 5 English) at the elementary school across the street. We have been through one full rotation and started their second rotation the week before the break. These placements are hopefully giving them more exposure to different careers, but also an opportunity to learn about who they like to work with and who they do not. Just like our connection with the WHS GLP group I had hoped to find more ways to inspire my students to organically find real world problems that they might want to try and solve. Like Don Wettrick I want my students to become “seekers and peekers rather than moaner and groaners”.

So, I got goosebumps when one of the groups came to me and said….

When the guest from NROC came in and talked to us about Elder Abuse she mentioned that one of the biggest issues for seniors is isolation, and when we visited the retirement home we really noticed that this was a problem. So, we want to do something that will bring people together.

After brainstorming with one of the mentors about what they could do they came up with the “Mapping our Roots” Project. The girls set up with the activities coordinator for them to have a slot on the weekly calendar. They went in for an hour after school one day, explained their project to any resident interested in listening / participating and then they chatted with the residents, asked them their names and where they were born. They compiled all the information, bought a map and other items and brought it back to the retirement home at the end of the week. See what they had to say about it below.

Screenshot 2019-03-14 at 8.49.08 AM Screenshot 2019-03-14 at 8.48.44 AM

Another group is in the process of setting up a learn to curl activity for the grade 5 class that they visited. These two girls took something that they are very passionate about and are working on sharing their passion with others.

Thursday and Friday

These two days are Passion Project days. This is where the students choose projects related to the course that they will work on. The project criteria follows Don Wettricks rule of three. Are you passionate about it, will you acquire new skills as you work on it and how will this project benefit others. There is a lot of brainstorming and planning that happens for these projects. Once they have figured out what they want to do they must create a project proposal. In their proposal they have to create a detailed step by step process with short term goals (including dates) along with a final due date. They have to connect course curriculum to their project and then they have to have it looked over and signed off by myself or any of the community mentors. Examples of some of the projects have been mentioned above. The projects are definitely not limited to working with people that we have worked with as a class. Some students have come up with some really amazing things after a lot of brainstorming and soul searching. Some of these include:

Podcasting with Grandma and Grandpa.
Q & A style youtube channel about what it means to be a Muslim teenage girl in Canada.
Sean who wrote The Fault in our Education blog is going to accompany me to talk to a large group of teachers about his thoughts on education.
Organize a toy drive for two different organizations.
Working with Grandma to wash and style wigs for cancer patients.
Making students in our school aware that we have a gender neutral bathroom.
Creating a diversity calendar.
Creating a presentation on body positivity for middle school aged girls and going out into our community middle school and giving the presentation.
Selling clothes on Instagram to raise money for a charity.

The students are asked to chronicle their learning on social media everyday and then rap the week up with a weekly blog, vlog or podcast. (You can check us out at our class hashtag #TOJ4C). As well throughout the course they will complete quarterly reflections. They completed their first reflection right before we headed out on the break. I haven’t had the opportunity to go through all of them but if you are interested in hearing what two of the students have to say click below.

I am so pleased with how this course has unfolded. There are so many things that I have dreamed about for my students that are now becoming a reality. Don’t get me wrong there are still obstacles and keeping everyone motivated is not always easy. But, if I had given up on this 10 year long experiment when I hit roadblocks, this course would not exist. So if you are trying new things out and feel like it’s not working, keep going, don’t give up because you are making a difference even if you feel like there are always obstacles, perseverance will get you where you want to be!!

Thanks for unlearning with us 🙂

Cheers, R

Classroom Examples, Genius Hour, Why Unlearn?

I’ve gone 100% passion based projects this semester….oh my what have I done!?!?

Posted on October 8, 2018November 25, 2018 by Rebecca Chambers

try fail learn repeat

So if you have been reading my blog you will know that Don Wettrick has been a huge inspiration for me and my students. After listening to his podcast for almost a year, I decided it would be a good idea to read his book Pure Genius over the summer. Not surprising, it was exactly what I needed. Rewind to last year and you will understand why.

Over the past five years I have truly transitioned from a traditional classroom to a more student led inquiry based classroom. We have followed an inquiry process where students used the Social Scientific Research Method to research a current issue, become an advocate for it – make their classmates, their parents and the world aware of the issue, research it according to the course that they were in, create media pieces and showcase everything that they were doing via Twitter. I am super fortunate to teach a lot of the same students in grade 10 history then in grade 11 Intro to Anthro, Psych and Soc and then get them for grade 12 Human Growth and development and grade 12 World Issues. For the past few years, I have used the Inquiry Model in all of my classes. The grade 10s take a bit to get to used to it and the grade 11s usually love it. However, what I was finding was that the grade 12s were bored of that process and needed more. Last fall, I spent time volunteering at Blue Sky School in Kanata (Experimental Prototype School) where they allow the students passions to lead their learning. I was very fortunate to watch this process and wanted to try out a similar model in my classroom. So, at the end of semester one I gave my grade 12s some more freedom in their learning and I asked them to create their own projects that were prompted by three questions:

What do you want to learn?
How do you want to learn it?
Once you have learned it what will you do with the information?

Since most of these students had already spent at least two courses with me they didn’t struggle like most students when they were asked what they wanted to learn. They really embraced the idea and jumped into their projects without hesitation. When they were done we had a little show and tell at the end. They showcased what they learned in a variety of ways. We had a lesson on Artificial Intelligence a workshop on finance, a TED talk style presentation on humour and some small discussions. In my opinion it was a success.

Riding out that high I decided, as I do, to jump right in and I attempted to go completely project based with my grade 12s the following semester. I went in a blazin’ with a trial and error mentality and we had some really amazing things happen, but we also had a whole lot of nothing happening. To be completely honest it was a bit of a gong show.

After a semester of trying this out and a lot of reflection I realized that I just couldn’t figure out the right kind of structure to support the students. I was looking for answers to the following questions:

How do I keep track of 25 students doing all kinds of different projects.
How do I get students to stay on task?
How do I get them to follow through on what they want to do?
How much freedom do I give them in creating their projects?
How do I support 25 students as they work on different projects?

We tried so many different things / ways to answer the above questions. Originally we tried out some of the methods they were using at Blue Sky School such as their metaphor of driving their own bus and creating road maps each day but unfortunately they did not work for us. We tried journal writing, goals on twitter, google forms, step by step instructions on the wall, calendars, reflections and binders with their projects listed. By the end of the semester I was exhausted and felt defeated as I never really felt that I was able to get a handle on a student led project based classroom. For the entire semester I was searching for a play book to help me out but I couldn’t seem to find anything…..UNTIL I came across exactly what I was looking for in Don’s book.

I have met some amazing teachers via Twitter and this summer was talking to Eryka Desroisers from Quebec (host of the podcast In a Teacher’s Shoes) and she asked if I had read Don’s book. We were discussing the upcoming school year and I was telling her my dilemma from the previous school year. I told her that I had been racking my brain and resources for ways to get a handle on this type of classroom and she pulled out Don’s book and read a part to me that she thought would be helpful. After we finished out Google Hangout session I immediately downloaded Pure Genius onto my Kindle and read it in about two days. I had almost given up on the idea of running my class like I did last semester and was going to revert back to the inquiry model until I found Don’s blueprint for an innovation class.

So, this semester I am teaching grade 11 Intro to Anthro, Psych and Soc and grade 12 Human Growth and Development and World Issues and we are 100% project based. What I learned from last year was that the students required more help than I could provide them, they needed deadlines, they needed to be working on one project at a time, they needed a value placed on their projects and they needed to show progress on a regular basis. It was like I hit the jackpot when I found Don’s blueprint. I immediately started to wrap my head around how I would use it in my classroom and adapted it accordingly. I created guidelines for the projects that my students would create. You can see them here if you are interested.

In the last month we have been busy learning how to be a 100% student led project based classroom. For the first couple of weeks we learned about the course content and curriculum so that they had an understanding of what they needed to connect their projects to. We then went over the guidelines. As recommended by Don, my students were encouraged to start out with a small project around the school. The students assembled their teams and started the proposal process. I realized that this planning stage was one of the biggest downfalls to last year’s success. One of the issues last year was that there was only one of me and 25 of them so it was really tough to give each student the attention that they needed. As a result the emphasis on a good plan was not there. So this year I made it my mission to make sure that no one started their projects before they had laid out step by step what they were going to do. As well I reached out to some friends and former students and asked if they would come in and help me with the brainstorming and planning process, this was as a huge help. Getting through this process was intense, stressful and a learning curve for both myself and my students but totally worth it.

Now some of my students have been through their first projects, reflected and negotiated their points and are now moving on to their next project. Below are videos that showcase what has been happening in our classroom. You can also see what they have been doing via their vlogs / blogs and podcasts at our class hashtags #jmsshpa11 #jmsshpahhg #jmsshpacgw

This is a video that I took of my grade 12 World Issue class describing the projects that they are working on.

These are two girls from the World Issues class who are combating garbage in our hallways. Check out their journey.

This is a group of grade 11 girls who wanted to brighten up some classrooms and engage some friends from a General Learning program. This is their final vlog.

So far things have been going well, not perfect, but pretty good. However, there are days where I wonder if I made the right decision to go 100% project based. I do know that I love watching my students taking risks, making things happen and feeling like they have a voice. I will therefore put my insecurities aside and soldier on.

I am always looking for others who are interested in chatting about this type of stuff – so if that is you please reach out and let’s connect!!

Thanks for unlearning with us 🙂

Cheers, R

Stay tuned for more examples and thoughts as we move throughout the semester.

Classroom Examples, Genius Hour, Why Unlearn?

Overcoming obstacles when transitioning to a passion based classroom.

Posted on August 27, 2018November 25, 2018 by Rebecca Chambers

motivational-Quote-on-obstacles-doubters-mistake-hardwork

The countdown is on here in Ottawa and we will head back to school in T-minus 1 week. I am super excited to get back into the classroom as I am feeling relaxed and recharged after some time away from school and have enjoyed some amazing family time and travel throughout the summer. I have also been reflecting on the past school year, reading books such as A More Beautiful Question, Social Leadia, Code Breaker, The Wonderwall and Pure Genius, listening to podcasts, chatting with like minded people, connecting with community people and organizations that we will be working with in the fall and have been wrapping my head around what next years classes will look like.

research-roadblocks-hero

Although I am excited and feel rejuvenated I am still anticipating a few roadblocks / obstacles in my unlearning journey. Some obstacles I have already dealt with, while I am sure there will be new ones that pop up as we go. Below are three of the most frequently asked questions I get about transitioning into a passion based / inquiry classroom. If you are not sure about the unlearning that is happening in our classroom you can check out some of my earlier posts that outline our journey.

The art of letting go…how I transitioned to a Student Centred Classroom

Students are suffocating and we need to do something about it.

How do I incorporate inquiry, innovation and all that other stuff they want me to bring into my classroom?

My Students do work even though I don’t give them marks…SAY WHAT???

Creating an Authentic Audience, using Social Media in the Classroom

FAQ

Does your Admin support this type of learning?

YES!! I would argue that most administrators have jumped on this bandwagon and are looking for teachers to take risks and try out new things. They too are unlearning and figuring out how to support these types of classrooms. I have found that communication is key in getting support of your administrators. Explain to them the what, why and how of your vision and I can guarantee that they will be on board.

Roadblock: Board policies – Some of the biggest issues that I have faced when trying to change things up are understanding all the board policies, rules and regulations and staying on top of paperwork. The unlearning process can be tough and these rules can be a huge deterrent for teachers, as most are rule followers. Experiential learning can be tough when there are all kinds of hoops to jump through. Also as a teacher it is often tough to stay on top of all of the paperwork during the school year.

Suggestion: Obviously there are rules that cannot be broken, but having an open dialogue about some of the archaic rules and regulations can help in finding ways to work within them. When it comes to paperwork, work with whoever is in charge of field trips and get them to help you with it at the beginning of the school year. I am super lucky to have an administrator who helps me with it all 🙂 I am hoping to get as much paperwork completed before school starts so that it can be sent home right away, get it collected and let the hands on learning begin.

How do you get Students to buy in?

At the beginning of the course I spend an entire week with my new students in grade 10 (I have taught most of my grade 11s and 12s before so I will have an altered version of this) having them go through an “unlearning” process. Instead of going through a course syllabus we discuss things like skills and characteristics employers are looking for in their new employees, the changing world that they live in that requires a more entrepreneurship and philanthropic mentality, we discuss creativity and innovation and look at how school has conditioned them not to think or be creative and finally we discuss the fact that society has failed them in convincing them that failure is a bad thing. We watch TED Talks by Sir Ken Robinson (Creativity & Innovation), Angela Duckworth (GRIT) , Carol Dweck (Growth Mindset) and I tell them that FAILURE is expected in my classes. We talk about assessment and how it has prevented learning for the sake of learning but “learning” for a grade. We discuss that the process is what we will be focusing on rather than the product. We talk about the need for them to network and learn how to use Social Media in a meaningful way.

Roadblock: By the end of the week I would have to say that I have a quarter of the students who are super pumped, half of the class that are a little confused but intrigued by this new method and then there is the last quarter who have been very successful in school and are very weary and still ask me, so how do I get a 90 % + in this course?

Suggestion: Keep reiterating the importance of process to all students especially the ones who just want to know what they have to do to get the 90%. Eventually they will understand that if they take a step back and try and figure out what they are interested in and passionate about the 90s will come.

How do you get Parents to buy in?

At the beginning of the semester I send an email to all of my students parents introducing myself, explaining what we will be doing over the semester and following it up with my teaching philosophy. My introductory email is intended to have parents “unlearn” how school works and understand that in order to support their child in their learning they will need to “relearn” the way things work. I continue to email parents about once a month about what is happening in the class so that they can continue to support their children. The students are all on Twitter so they should be able to follow what is happening and I share everything that we are doing via Twitter as well.

Roadblock: Even though most parents are supportive of what we are doing, they are still very concerned about the mark. I get where they are coming from, because unfortunately as of right now that is what will get their children into University or College.

Suggestion: Again, I really believe that the more you dialogue with parents, the more they will jump on board. If students are working on passion based projects, it is inevitable that everyone’s “marks” will be great!!

I am NOT an expert, just a teacher trying to model risk taking, trying things out, failing and learning from each failure. I am happy to share the good the bad and the ugly and love chatting with others about what they are doing.

Thanks for unlearning with us.

Cheers, R

Classroom Examples, Why Unlearn?

How do you assess authentic learning?

Posted on July 17, 2018July 17, 2018 by Rebecca Chambers

authetic assessment

Picture from https://abdao.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/traditional-vs-authentic-assessment/

While I don’t think that we really can or should formally assess authentic learning, we still work in a system that requires it. So here is what I am doing until things change….

The third week of summer is here and I have had some time to unwind and I am starting to relax and reflect on the last school year. As crazy as this may sound I have already started to think about how we will do things next year. I am a huge advocate of authentic learning and have been trying to spread these ideas via this blog, on Twitter and by talking to anyone who is interested in listening to me!! I am super excited about the connections that I have made this summer for next school year with Woodroffe HS GLP classes, VIVA Barrhaven Retirement home, Ontario Early Years, CHEO and Barrhaven Kids Spreading Kindness. As mentioned in many other posts, I want to provide my students the opportunity to figure out what they are passionate about, to learn how to learn (on their own), to become more digitally literate, to become creators rather than consumers, to become more globally aware and connected, to be entrepreneurial minded, to focus on the process rather than the final product and to build resilience by learning that failure is good and essential to everything we do in life. A month or so ago my students were interviewed by CBC. In the article they were able to share their thoughts about our classroom, it was super exciting. Since then, I have been fortunate to connect with educators who are interested in finding out what we are doing. I am SO happy to share it with them, everyone listens intently and has lots of questions but the most consistent question that I get is how do you assess your students?
So, how do you assess authentic learning?

I have some answers, but this is still very much trial and error in our classroom. Assessing authentic learning is tricky because in the “Real World” or every day life assessment looks very different than in school. It is super hard to mirror real life assessment when you have to come up with a grade. I believe that our current way of assessing is very outdated, but unfortunately it is still a part of our reality. So until things change, below are some examples of what I have been trying out in my classes.

Informal, one on one discussions

Throughout the semester I am constantly having discussions with students about what they are working on. We discuss successes, failures and I am able to support them one on one which is awesome. However, sometimes there is not enough of me to go around. I am working on getting volunteers / mentors into the classroom to help me with this. By doing this I keep a running tally in my head of where students are at and how they are doing. There is no formal assessment here, but rather feedback – this is in my opinion more reflective of the real world. I have been fortunate over the past couple of years to have peer teachers in my class (grade 11 & 12 students who have been through my classes already). They have been super helpful!!

Formal / Informal assessment Twitter Feedback

On a weekly / biweekly basis students receive feedback on their Twitter feed based on the checklist below. Twitter is where they share all of their learning. I give them feedback to make sure that they are staying on top of things. This gives me the opportunity to get to everyone when I haven’t been able to have a one on one discussion with everyone.

Twitter Checklist

Follow organizations that relate to the course material. Build your network.
Retweet / Quote articles from these organizations – what are your thoughts on it? What do you think people should know about this article / Video / picture etc.
Follow Twitter Accounts of things that you are interested in outside in your real life.
Tweet about things that are happening in your life inside and outside of our class.
Tweet about things happening in class.
Organically interact with your classmates. Comment on things that you think are interesting, ask questions, chat appropriately back and forth.
Tweet about what you are working on.
Ask questions to professionals to help with research.
Connect with people who care about your issue by tweeting at them.
Make people aware of the issue that you are looking at.
Use Hashtags to connect with others who care about the issue that you are looking at.
Get noticed and attempt to make a difference.

Informal / Formal Assessment – Reflection

Throughout anything that we work on the students are informally reflecting on what they have been doing via Twitter. Each day students are given questions that they have to answer and share with the class. These are not assessed. However, at the end of everything that we do the students are asked to reflect on the process on whatever has just been completed. It could be an awareness campaign, Genius Hour or their Social Science Fair. I have been working on a rubric that assesses their ability to really be honest and reflect on what they did and didn’t do well and what their next steps are. This is where the majority of their marks come from. I wouldn’t say this has been perfected but I am going to continue with this next year.

While I think the above is working pretty good, there is always room for improvement. Below is where I hope to take the focus of assessment in our classroom.
Next Steps….

Picture courtesy of Nate Green

I have been SO fortunate to have connected with Nate Green who is a technology integration and information specialist at Flint Hill School in Oakton Virginia. I first heard Nate on Don Wettrick’s StartedUp Podcast and immediately contacted him. Nate teaches a course called “Passion Based Learning Through Social Media” and when I heard him talk about it on the podcast I knew I needed to talk to him. I have jumped right into changing the way we do things in our classroom but have struggled with the whole assessment piece. Nate was kind enough to share how he was doing things. He really focuses on moving students from passive learners to creators and curators and eventually leaders. I plan to use his pyramid seen below to help guide students through the course and for assessment. I am thinking that the pyramid will coincide with our 4 Levels. I do however, believe that the pyramid / assessment piece will look different for the different grades. I am still mulling this over. I am open to suggestions if anyone has any!!

Thanks for unlearning with us 🙂

Cheers,

Why Unlearn?

What do you need for experiential learning to happen? Community partners, open minds and creative timetabling.

Posted on July 4, 2018 by Rebecca Chambers

experiential learning cycle

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/job/passport/CommunityConnected_ExperientialLearningEng.pdf

I am super excited to be teaching a new course next school year. It is called Child Development and Gerontology. The course itself is great, but what I am really excited about is the fact that it is going to be a dual credit course. That means that I get the same students for an entire afternoon!! Wooo Hooo!!

Why am I so excited you may ask?? Well I have been trying for years to build a more experiential hands on approach to learning and it has been tough. It is really hard to go anywhere when you are limited to 75 mins. It is pretty tough to create community connections unless they come to you. But now we will have a whole afternoon to connect and experience, I am so PUMPED!!

I will, however continue to teach 4 sections of regular Social Sciences in 75 minute blocks. I will continue to try and provide an experiential experience for all of my students by arranging doable field trips (to our local elementary school across the street), baby groups with local parents, visits with seniors, guest speakers, BYOG (Bring Your Own Grandparent) and a new one BYOGS (guest speaker) but the reality is they are still not getting their hands dirty and jumping into the community.

So….I will continue to fight to make all of my courses experiential, but in the meantime I will work with what I have got in my dual credit course next year. This is what I am thinking about doing….I’d love to hear any other ideas if you are doing something like this already!!

Dual Credit TOJ4C / IDC4O Child Development and Gerontology

My goal is to expose all of my students to as many careers / experiences with community partners that are willing to connect. We would likely visit these places for the first three weeks or so of the course. My hope would be to have the students interact and get hands on experience in those first three weeks. So far I have connected with an elementary school, WHS General Learning Program and a retirement home. I am have a few other feelers out there right now. From there the students would choose where they would like to work. If a student wants to spend their whole time with one group that is fine but if other students would like to try working with different groups than we will set up mini placements.

Week 1 – Learn about the Inquiry Process, Social Media.

Week 2 & 3 – In small groups go out and meet and work with community partners.

Week 4 – Set up personalized schedules and get into working out in the community and start to look for problems to solve. (Mentors and teachers may need to help with this).

Week 5 – See below – I foresee a mix of in class to work on inquiry, solution and reflection and out of class hands on work.
Task # 1 Inquiry – Research & Social Media

Next steps would be for my students to work within those community organizations and complete an inquiry. After spending time at their placement, they would come up with a question / problem that they want to get an answer for and they would work on getting the answers by completing primary research while at the placement and secondary research while at school. The purpose of this task would be for them to learn research skills, get hands on experience and at the end they would share what they had learned from the inquiry process with their peers and the world via Social Media. They will be required to chronicle their learning via at least one social media platform: Instagram, Twitter, blog, podcast, vlog or anything they want. I am toying with the idea of having all them create Linkedin accounts to start connecting and showcasing what they are doing.

Task # 2 – Find a Solution using Design Thinking & Implement it

content_designthinking

Stanford d.school Design Thinking Process

With the problem that they looked at in Inquiry # 1 students will come back to class and work through the design thinking process to try and come up with a solution to the problem. I am not 100 % sure what this is going to look like – it may well be very different for each student. Some problems may take the entire semester to work through, while others may be more simple and not take as long to solve. My hope is that they will be able to implement their solutions. I’m not sure how this will go, but I am excited to try it out. I am sure there will be some ups and downs, but that is how I roll…..

Task # 3 Showcase, Network, Resume & Linkedin

At the end of the semester we will invite important people to showcase what we have done and share the solutions that came up with and hopefully implemented. We will share our successes and failures and more importantly our growth. This showcase will also work as a networking opportunity for students. They will be able to make more community connections…it’s not about what you know but about who you know, right Don Wettrick? Their final task will be to create or update their resume and Linkedin profiles with their experience from the course. Who knows what the will have created to fix a problem, what I do know is that the experience is going to the most valuable asset to employers.

Concerns

And of course there are all the concerns that are floating around in my head…how will I assess them? How will I keep track of all of them? How will I support 24 students personalized learning? What if students don’t show up? What if we let down our mentors? What if they don’t come up with a solution? My philosophy is to forge ahead and deal with it as it comes. I will have a plan before we get started but I know that I will need to be flexible, that is how life works.

This summer I have meetings lined up to connect with community members that are interested in participating in this experiential learning experiment. If you know anyone or are interested in participating please let me know 🙂

Thanks for unlearning with us 🙂

Cheers,

Classroom Examples, Why Unlearn?

Are exams relevant anymore?

Posted on June 26, 2018June 26, 2018 by Rebecca Chambers

Exams VS

4Cs

Today’s classroom vs Today’s workplace

If 21st Century Competency Skills are leaning towards the 4Cs should we get rid of exams?

At the end of each course in Ontario high schools students have to complete a summative task that is worth approximately 30% of their final mark. Traditionally this included a culminating task for the course and a final exam. Up until about four years ago I abided by this summative task and had my students complete a traditional summative and exam. However, unknowingly to me, my unlearning journey had begun and we made a shift from traditional tasks to more reflective tasks in the traditional model. My students still did their summative and exam but it became a time for reflection that was assessed on their ability to do just that – not what they knew about the course material. Fortunately for me a few years ago teachers were given the greenlight to use their professional judgement and decide what we saw fit for a summative task for our courses. As I continued to unlearn I didn’t think that testing my students on the course content really worked well with what academics were suggesting were 21st century competency skills The 4Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. Many will argue that if we don’t test and give students exams they will not be prepared for University – I call BS on that. I argue that if we teach the students skills and to be lifelong learners they will be able to do anything, including taking tests if they have to. So last year we scrapped the exam completely and moved onto what we call Exit Outcome reflections and the Social Science Fair instead of a traditional exam. For those interested I will explain what we do below :).

21st-Century-Skills-4-Cs-graphic

Summative Task Part I – Course Reflection

In the first part of the summative task students reflect on their experience in the course (what they are proud of, what they learned, favourite experience, challenges and failures) and the OCDSB Exit Outcomes. The Exit Outcomes are five characteristics (Collaborative, Globally Aware, Goal-oriented, Innovative/Creative, Resilient) and five skills (Academically Diverse, Critical Thinkers, Digitally Fluent, Effective Communicators, Ethical Decision-makers) that our board is trying to develop in every student. They are expected to provide examples from course material, experiences and from their personal research to showcase all of the above. They are assessed on their ability to truly reflect and provide examples. I love reading their reflections, to me this is way more valuable than having them write an exam on only course material. It gives them an opportunity to understand the process and really look at the importance of these skills. I know that ever since we have started to define and understand these characteristics and skills in our classroom it has made me think about how I am working on them as well. It really gives the students an understanding of WHY we are doing what we are doing and hopefully trickles out of our classroom into their daily lives as well. Students can reflect any way that they want. This past semester I had written responses, mind maps, vlogs and podcasts – I am open to any way they see fit. Below are some examples of the amazing and honest answers from the reflections.
First year unlearners

I failed big time in this course, but I failed forward and I learned a lot more than I thought I would. I learned that it’s ok to fail and its ok to not succeed in everything as long as you learn from it and fix it for next time. I learned that it’s ok to put yourself out there even if people don’t answer which is something that I had a lot of trouble with. I was very scared to reach out and ask for help because there is always the risk of failure and the fact that they might not answer but that is ok. (KO)

My biggest takeaway from the inquiries was that everyone needs help, the level of help will differ from person to person but so will the ability to ask. People all over the world need help, whether that be because they are hungry, homeless or just need to start a conversation. I also learned that even as grade 10 students we can still make a difference. Obviously we won’t be able to end homelessness overnight but just becoming educated on the subject is a start too changing the issue. (EA)

Through the semester I also learned a lot about who I am as a learner and how hard it is for me to learn independently. I’ve had to learn how to unlearn and while trying to do that I learned a lot about myself and how difficult I found it to focus and stay on task. I’ve learned how talkative I can be and how mark oriented I am and that affected my overall performance but it did help me self reflect in learn new things about myself. (MSS)

Second year unlearners

I will continue to be a moonshot thinker by continuing to believe that nothing is out of reach, to think outside of the box, and to not be afraid to try out new things, because doing all of these things will result in growth. I will choose to be bothered by problems so that I can one day find a solution to the problem. By doing this, I might one day be able to accomplish something that will change the world, because if I believe that I can make it happen, then it will happen. (KV)

Third year unlearners

It has been a challenge to unlearn, we are used to learning in one way but now we are asked to do it differently. I am a bookworm and I like to follow rules and in here we are breaking them and bending them. (ME)
To say it’s been a wild ride would be an understatement, I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to take over six of Mrs. Chambers classes. My first class was grade 10 history when I started out I was just your average student, I knew how to work the system; you give me the work, tell me how you want it done and I’ll get it done just as you asked. The school system had killed any and all creativity inside of me. One day, Mrs. Chambers posed the question “What do you want to learn?” I had no idea how to respond to a question as absurd as that. Impressed at her perseverance and determination; she had finally cracked me. It was a long process filled with more failures than success. I needed to learn how to unlearn. The student I was in that grade 10 history is a completely different student you see today. I don’t need to be told what and how to learn, I have my own ideas, passions and goals for my education. Since beginning this process I have had the opportunity to be able to share my story of how I learned to unlearn with other educators. While speaking to them more often than not I am asked “What about the days you don’t do any work?” I respond with not everyday can be a great day, there are days I am motivated and others where I can’t bring myself to do any work, but it is the exact same if I were to be in a regular classroom. You could give a worksheet and if it’s a day where I’m unmotivated odds are that worksheet is going in my bag and won’t see the light of day until the end of year when I clean out my bag. There have been so many ups and downs and I’m grateful for every up and every down as it has allowed me to grow as a person and only better myself. I think one of the biggest challenges for everyone is not giving up. It’s so easy to quit when things don’t go your way, to give in to the people who want to see you fail. Fail 8 times, get up 9. We are a great group of individuals; each motivated to accomplish a variety of different goals and Mrs. Chambers has been there the entire time, guiding us and shaping us to be successful. (RM)

Summative Task Part II – Social Science Fair

In the second part of the summative task students are asked to come up with a conversation piece that represents their journey throughout the semester that they will present at a drop in style Social Science Fair. The class invited prominent people from the community, our board, parents and pretty much anyone who would listen to them. The guidelines are fairly open but it is suggested that they incorporate the Exit Outcomes, their inquiries / research, course content, genius hour and class activities – ultimately anything they would like to showcase and explain to anyone who comes to see them. The only mandatory rule is that they are NOT allowed to do anything traditional like a poster or a powerpoint. We have done this for the last year and half and it has been amazing.

While an exam is a good way to see what students know about a course, I truly believe that giving the students a place to reflect and showcase their learning is of equal importance if not more than an exam. It allows them to connect with the community, it is a place for students to have a voice and be heard, to share their passions, to share their failures and successes, to get a chance to explain something more than once so that get it right, to engage in meaningful conversations and finally to network. At our first Social Science Fair one of my students was offered a summer position with the local councilor and another was approached to do some work in social media.

Here are few things that the students had to say about it:

I think it was really cool to be able to show adults that teenagers are more than just lazy and that when we’re actually interested in something we will come up with amazing ideas.

The fair was awesome! I talked to a lot of people and informed a lot of people about what we learned and how we incorporated the exit outcomes. My favourite part was seeing everybody else’s summative and seeing my peers interacts with others. I learned that there are a lot of people who care about what high school children have to say.

I really enjoyed it, it was an eye-opening experience none like anything I’ve ever been to before. My favourite part was seeing how interested some guests were in what I had to say. I learnt a lot, it made me better at communicated my ideas since I received feedback and gots lot of practice.

I really enjoyed the Inquiry fair. I thought that everyone did a good job, lots of cool projects. My favourite part was when I got to meet the mayor and talked to him about my school. But I’d say my favourite part was when I got a job offer with Jan Harder. I was talking to her about my plans next year going into urban planning and she told me that she was the chair of the planning committee for the city of Ottawa. She gave me her contact information and told me that she could probably get me a job next summer in the planning department at the city of Ottawa.

I think that it went really well, at first it was a little difficult to really communicate what I wanted to say but then after a few attempts and practice rounds it went well. Something that I found was that people were actually interested in what I had to say which really surprised me a lot! Once I started talking, people were getting really excited and engaged about what I had to say and they were really interested in what I learned. I think that my favorite part of the social science fair is the fact that I was able to showcase all that I have learned and the things that I have gotten out of this course into one big project and the fact that I could share it with the community instead of just our classroom and some random people on social media. I thought it was a good way to learn how to communicate your ideas and thoughts out in an interesting and innovative way that will engage people in the community.

I was super nervous about having to talk to people, and show my summative to all these adults (especially Jim Watson). I think it was because I think of ALL adults as my superiors and they’re smarter, and what if I mess up, and look stupid. (STRESS) But once I started talking it got a lot easier and It just flowed . But overall I actually enjoyed myself more than I thought I would. I think I could say that I learned that putting yourself out there a little bit is always hard, but it’s gratifying as well, because people were very impressed with my work and gave me a lot of compliments (which was nice). I also learned not to stress out as much because even if you make mistakes people are understanding and it’s not the end of the world (even when you mess up your words in front of the mayor). The people that came and listened really seemed genuinely interested in my summative and asked some really good questions, and I enjoyed looking at other peoples projects.
Thanks for unlearning with us 🙂