The following was written to be shared as part of our application to the Cmolik Prize for the Enhancement of Public Education in BC. It is an exploration into the ways in which our model has ‘fit’ nicely with the new BC Curriculum, and to share some of the influence that we have had in our […]
Category: restructuring
Creating the time and space for self-directed, personalized, inquiry learning.
Background (Part 1 – Purpose) The following image and description were created for an application for an award. ‘Assignments’ like this are great because they force us (teachers John Sarte, Alan Soiseth and myself) to think about what it is we value, and strive towards as we build our program at Inquiry Hub Secondary School. […]
Transforming Our Classrooms – Ignite Presentation
Here is an Ignite presentation that I did in Delta on January 2oth, 2016, titled ‘Transforming Our Classrooms’. It is based on the presentation ‘7 Ways to Transform Your Classroom‘, but squeezed into less than 5 minutes, after I describe what our team has been working on at Inquiry Hub Secondary School over the last three and […]
Getting it right
When you work in a small, innovative school, you are always looking at the things that still need to be done. To use a sailing analogy, you are constantly tacking and maneuvering to adjust to the changing winds. This is easier to do in a ‘small ship’ and is often required to be done more […]
Teaching is dead, long live the teacher!
Teaching is dead, long live the teacher! Technology is creeping into every classroom. I say ‘creeping’ because a large part of a typical student’s day at many schools can still be defined by activities involving paper, a pen or pencils, and worksheets or textbooks… Useful tools that should only have a small role in teaching […]
The 2015 CEA Ken Spencer Award goes to Inquiry Hub
The Canadian Education Association's 2015 Ken Spencer Award has awarded Inquiry Hub Secondary School with first place. This is a great honour for our school, in just its 3rd year! Special thanks goes to teacher John Sarte who oversaw the application process. Special thanks also goes to our parent community, and of course our students […]
Transforming Our Learning Metaphors #yvrignite
I made a sound recording of the presentation that I did at the Discovery Education YVR Ignite Session yesterday, and then I added the recording to my timed slides. This was an inspiring event, thank you to Dean Shareski for organizing it and providing me with the honour of presenting. I’ll have more to blog […]
Not Yet Blended Learning
There is a lot of talk these days about Blended Learning. However: “Increasing student opportunities to engage with technology — such as teachers using flipped classroom strategies, a school computer lab, and computers using digital curriculum in the classroom – are all steps in the right direction, but don’t meet the full potential of blended […]
Embracing Change
[Update: See more on the topic of Embracing Change in my May 19/2014 post on Leading Change.] I’m working on my Spotlight Presentation for Connect 2014: Canada’s Learning and Technology Conference. Here is my presentation description: Shifting Education – Embracing the Transformation A quick 3-part journey into my ‘Shifting’ series of blog posts that looks […]
Siphoning Off of Public Education
I try very hard to be positive about the future of education. I whole-heatedly believe that this is an exciting time to be an educator and that we are witnessing a Transformation in education. However, I can’t help but feel that, at least in BC, Canada, we are being threatened by a model where chronic […]