Project-based Professional Learning Expands at HWDSB

One of Adele Stanfield’s students at Queen Victoria teaching an educator about 21st century tools at the Rewired Conference.

Each year, the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP) supports project-based professional learning opportunities for experienced classroom teachers in Ontario.

Teacher apply for funding if they seek to support peer leadership roles in curriculum, instructional practice or other teachers. Approval comes if the project opens opportunities for teacher professional learning, fosters teacher leadership and helps share exemplary practices for the benefit of Ontario students.

Congratulations to the staff involved in these three successful applications.

Incorporating and Assessing Intercultural Understanding in the revised secondary FSL curriculum.
(Lisa DeLuca, Glendale secondary, $13,863)
The French as a Second Language, Secondary revised curriculum is in full implementation. The overall expectations include integrating Francophone culture throughout the world in all four strands (listening, speaking, reading and writing). Many teachers are familiar with France and Quebec, but are not as comfortable teaching culture from Africa, Asia and smaller Francophone regions in the world and accessing resources from these regions. Our plan is to find, explore, catalogue and evaluate various resources, including community connections and authentic documents for global Francophone culture, to use these resources with our students and then to develop a living document and workshop to share our findings with other teachers. Our team of six teachers plans to collaborate with a variety of people in different roles to expand our own skills and to develop a network of knowledge and support.

Accountable Number Talks: A Tool to Support Student Learning
(Suzie Milinovich, W.H. Ballard elementary, $28,695)
This project will investigate the relationship between accountable number talk and student performance on number sense and numeration tasks. We are focusing on the mathematical process of communication and the application of number sense in problem solving throughout the year and across all math strands. We will explicitly teach “talk moves” and, through professional observation and dialogue, we will explore the question of whether more participation in accountable talk is helpful for students in other academic and social situations. Students and teachers from three different families of schools within HWDSB will be involved, reflecting different demographics and learning needs.

Using a Maker Space in the Classroom
(Adele Stanfield, Queen Victoria, $48,860)
We intend to learn about, determine the benefits of and reflect on the successes and difficulties of having a Maker Space in the classroom. A Maker Space is a place where students can gather to create, invent, tinker, explore and discover using a variety of tools and materials. Students will have the opportunity to use robotics, simple computers, invention kits, traditional building materials, etc. to explore curriculum expectations in two grade 5 classrooms. Group members (teachers) will learn how to use Maker Space materials, investigate how they can be used within curriculum guidelines, and reflect on how they can encourage girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects and engage hard-to-reach boys. We will also be extending the use of this Maker Space to clubs at nutrition breaks. Working with a community partner agency (Golden Horseshoe Green Tech), after school and summer programs will also be offered at our school with a focus on Maker Space.