Goal #2: Curriculum Development
This year, high schools throughout British Columbia will be working with the Ministry of Education's new curriculum. Our DL staff are excited to continue on this journey of curriculum change and development and plan to use this opportunity to create engaging and authentic student learning experiences and new courses. Engaging courses will support successful course completion and help students meet graduation requirements and that is why we have made curriculum development one of our school goals for the coming year. Throughout the year, DL staff will be adding to this page to report on the exciting curriculum changes that are taking place in North Vancouver Distributed Learning courses.
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of the page.
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of the page.
In April, we had the opportunity to come together with our School Planning team to look at our progress, share our ideas and begin the process of “tweaking” our goals. Supported by our Learning Services Director, Arlene Martin, we participated in a School Planning dinner and dialogue. Four other schools from the Carson Family of Schools joined us. We were given a brief overview of the School Planning process from Pius Ryan, one of our Assistant Superintendents, and were then given some guiding questions to start the conversations. Our team consisted of Maureen, our Principal, Lucas, our Vice-Principal, Khatija, our Academic Advisor, Naresh our DL Teacher Leader, and Jacob, one of our full time DL students. The highlight for us was receiving feedback from Jacob on the school plan and his suggestions for improvements. He also really brought to light the DL experience from a student lens, giving us kudos for certain things and critical feedback on others. He definitely “blew up” some of our assumptions of our DL students and got us thinking in a deeper way about the ways we communicate and the ways we are trying to engage students through curriculum. He also asked about our data and evidence of progress with our goals. We left the meeting with purpose and more ideas that we want to implement: including more online forums for student interaction and the idea of a DL teacher “travelling roadshow” to go to each mainstream secondary school in the fall to connect with our students earlier. Thank you to Jacob for his insights and suggestions!
“Blending” the Curriculum
One of the challenges in DL is making sure that we do not lose sight of the experiential nature of learning. This has been at the forefront for our amazing senior science teacher, Naresh. Naresh has been working to provide students with “blended” learning opportunities in our DL science lab. Students in his Chemistry 11 and 12 courses have to sign up for 6 mandatory labs throughout their time in the course. These labs combine face to face experiential activities with the foundational concepts they have learned throughout the course. When the students come to the lab, they get personalized attention from Naresh and our lab technician, Rachel, and are able to put their learning to the test in an authentic way. Sounds like a perfect combination!
Supporting the New Numeracy Exam in DL
Billy, our senior Math teacher and one of our tech support teachers, spent some time taking apart the Ministry’s Numeracy sample exam and inserting questions into Moodle, our DL School’s Learning Management System. His goal was to chunk the questions and attach them to certain math units to help students practice and review materials while working on their course. He spent some time including drop and drag test features and reformatted questions to make them more user friendly and to provide more clarity for students. We are hoping to embed sample question throughout our DL Math courses. Great work Billy!
Curriculum Walk and Talk: DL Style
During our May Pro-D Day, the DL Staff had the opportunity to listen to Shelley Moore present on “inclusive education”. The presentation was excellent and really got us thinking about how to make our DL School and our DL courses more inclusive. What does inclusion really mean in the DL environment? Are there particular courses that we need to offer that would help to make our program more inclusive? Are course adaptations enough to support inclusion for our students with a wide variety Ministry Special Education designations? Is DL inherently exclusive due to the personalized delivery model? These were some of the questions we wrestled with during our curriculum “walk and talk”” after Shelley’s session. Stay tuned for more thoughts on our plans for new courses and a more detailed approach to inclusion.
Indigenization of the curriculum
At NVDLS, we have been working to create a deeper understanding for staff and students of Aboriginal Ways of Knowing and the First Peoples Principles of Learning. Our journey began last Spring with the following initiatives and have continued throughout the first term:
DL Administrators and staff had the opportunity to participate in the Blanket Exercise. This experience allowed us to be immersed in the history and perspective of aboriginal people, their contact with settlers, and their experiences with residential schools. This powerful experience really helped us to engage more authentically in the First Peoples Principles.
DL Administrators and staff shared a day of culture and narrative by participating in the Takaya Tours paddling experience out of Deep Cove. This allowed us to see the land, and hear the stories, of the of Tsleil Waututh people and to gain a deeper appreciation and respect their culture.
We have also used staff meetings, collaborative time and additional release time to work on infusing the First Peoples Principles into all of our DL courses. We identified principles that match with each unit/big idea in all of our DL courses and we are creating reflection questions for students that highlight the integration of the core competencies and the FPPs.
In consultation with Stephanie Maki, Aboriginal Support Teacher, we selected Aboriginal literature to enhance curriculum units that we are developing for all of our English Language Arts courses from grade 8-12.
We invited Deborah Johnson to come and present her residential school experience to our DL staff. Deborah also agreed to having us film her presentation in order to use it in our senior English and Socials courses. We are working with the Argyle Digital Media Academy to edit and produce the video. The English and Socials teachers will be working closely with Deborah to craft their assignments and activities around the video. It was a moving and meaningful experience for our staff. We hope to use the film in an authentic and real way to help our students have a better understanding of the residential school experience and the impact it had and is still having on survivors and their families from generation to generation.
We recently created a new visual look for our DL Learning Management System (Moodle) which houses our online courses. We have included the traditional welcome and acknowledgement on the homepage as well as two images of Squamish and Tsleil Waututh art to honour and respect where our DL school is located. We also have the traditional welcome and acknowledgment on the DL website.
We continue to partner with the Eslha7an youth program to provide DL course resources for their teacher and students. We still have a long way to go on our journey, but at NVDLS, we are committed to “going forward with courage”.
DL Administrators and staff had the opportunity to participate in the Blanket Exercise. This experience allowed us to be immersed in the history and perspective of aboriginal people, their contact with settlers, and their experiences with residential schools. This powerful experience really helped us to engage more authentically in the First Peoples Principles.
DL Administrators and staff shared a day of culture and narrative by participating in the Takaya Tours paddling experience out of Deep Cove. This allowed us to see the land, and hear the stories, of the of Tsleil Waututh people and to gain a deeper appreciation and respect their culture.
We have also used staff meetings, collaborative time and additional release time to work on infusing the First Peoples Principles into all of our DL courses. We identified principles that match with each unit/big idea in all of our DL courses and we are creating reflection questions for students that highlight the integration of the core competencies and the FPPs.
In consultation with Stephanie Maki, Aboriginal Support Teacher, we selected Aboriginal literature to enhance curriculum units that we are developing for all of our English Language Arts courses from grade 8-12.
We invited Deborah Johnson to come and present her residential school experience to our DL staff. Deborah also agreed to having us film her presentation in order to use it in our senior English and Socials courses. We are working with the Argyle Digital Media Academy to edit and produce the video. The English and Socials teachers will be working closely with Deborah to craft their assignments and activities around the video. It was a moving and meaningful experience for our staff. We hope to use the film in an authentic and real way to help our students have a better understanding of the residential school experience and the impact it had and is still having on survivors and their families from generation to generation.
We recently created a new visual look for our DL Learning Management System (Moodle) which houses our online courses. We have included the traditional welcome and acknowledgement on the homepage as well as two images of Squamish and Tsleil Waututh art to honour and respect where our DL school is located. We also have the traditional welcome and acknowledgment on the DL website.
We continue to partner with the Eslha7an youth program to provide DL course resources for their teacher and students. We still have a long way to go on our journey, but at NVDLS, we are committed to “going forward with courage”.
Designing the new Career Life Connections Course
An important component of British Columbia’s redesigned curriculum is a focus on career education. Province wide, school districts are being asked to shift from their traditional Planning 10 and Graduation Transition 12 courses to a new model of career education that includes two courses titled Career Life Education and Career Life Connections. In addition, all students graduating in the future will have to complete a capstone project in which they will have an opportunity to demonstrate their learning and personal achievements, growth in the core competencies, and their post-graduation plans. While this curriculum is still in draft form, a group of NVDLS staff have been working together to unpack the Big Ideas of the Career Life Connections course and design units that will guide students towards their future goals.
While the curriculum for this course will remain in draft form for the 2018/19 school year, NVLDS plans to have students enroll in this course starting in July 2018.
While the curriculum for this course will remain in draft form for the 2018/19 school year, NVLDS plans to have students enroll in this course starting in July 2018.
Working on the New Curriculum
In July I had the opportunity to work with a small group of teachers and administrators to develop units based on the changes to the new curriculum. The new curriculum is focusing on three key ideas: students must know, understand and do. Knowing suggests that content it still very important as it provides the foundation for deep understanding. Doing something (creating a process or product) to show your understanding provides evidence that students can transfer this understanding into something meaningful that they will remember forever.
Take a look at the unit I created for Grade 10 English Language Arts that covers the “Big Idea” of identity. I am hoping to have both DL and face-to-face teachers pilot this unit with students. The unit followed a specific planning template called “Understanding by Design”. It really helped me focus on how I would get students to a deeper understanding and provide a way for them to do something authentic to show this. Notice the shift to a “performance task” at the end of the unit, rather than a final test or exam. For more information about BCs new curriculum, check out this Ministry of Education link: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/
Maureen—DL Principal
Take a look at the unit I created for Grade 10 English Language Arts that covers the “Big Idea” of identity. I am hoping to have both DL and face-to-face teachers pilot this unit with students. The unit followed a specific planning template called “Understanding by Design”. It really helped me focus on how I would get students to a deeper understanding and provide a way for them to do something authentic to show this. Notice the shift to a “performance task” at the end of the unit, rather than a final test or exam. For more information about BCs new curriculum, check out this Ministry of Education link: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/
Maureen—DL Principal
Working with the Re-designed BC Curriculum: Careers 10
In 2018-2019, the new curriculum will officially roll out for all students in BC in grades 10-12. Many of our current courses will be changing and will be enhanced with projects and tasks to support deeper understanding. Please go to the curriculum website to find out more about the new curriculum: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/
With support from Director of Learning Service, Monty Bell, the DL school has gathered together a team of six expert teachers to create the Careers 10 course for both face- to-face and online delivery. Our goal is to create the course and have it ready to pilot in the 2017-2018 school year. We can then make continuous adjustments to the course based on student and parent feedback. We are excited about this important curriculum initiative!
With support from Director of Learning Service, Monty Bell, the DL school has gathered together a team of six expert teachers to create the Careers 10 course for both face- to-face and online delivery. Our goal is to create the course and have it ready to pilot in the 2017-2018 school year. We can then make continuous adjustments to the course based on student and parent feedback. We are excited about this important curriculum initiative!
DL Teachers working Together
The DL staff is committed to shifting the way we structure and teach our online courses to align with BC’s re-designed curriculum. We have been working in groups to collaboratively create units for our courses that follow the “Understanding by Design” framework, created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. Check out their website to learn more about this framework and how it fits with the new curriculum: http://jaymctighe.com/resources/
Our goal is to work on creating new curricular frameworks and units for many of our current courses and continue to update our courses throughout the next school year. DL teachers have been collaborating together to use the Big Ideas from the BC Ministry of Education curriculum to create authentic performance tasks so that students can really show their evidence of deep understanding. We are enjoying working together to create better learning experiences for our students!
Our goal is to work on creating new curricular frameworks and units for many of our current courses and continue to update our courses throughout the next school year. DL teachers have been collaborating together to use the Big Ideas from the BC Ministry of Education curriculum to create authentic performance tasks so that students can really show their evidence of deep understanding. We are enjoying working together to create better learning experiences for our students!
DL Teachers Present at Curriculum Implementation Day: Jan. 20, 2017
DL teachers had an opportunity to share their expertise with other educators at Mountainside Secondary School during our district wide Curriculum Implementation Day. Khatija, Billy, Dee and Maureen created an interactive 3-hour workshop called “Cracking the Curriculum Code”. They were able to lead their colleagues through the process of creating a new unit using the NVSD Unit Planner, based on the UBD framework by Wiggins and McTighe. The day was highly successful and engaging, with teachers working in their specific curricular areas to create a unit plan. Nice to have our DL team showing their leadership abilities with their peers! Take a look at their PowerPoint presentation to learn more.
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DL Collaboration
Change is good, but can be overwhelming. With the introduction of the new curriculum, schools have the exciting (and difficult) chance to completely shift what and how we teach. To make sure that we’re doing this well, we need time. At Distributed Learning, we are lucky enough to be given collaboration time to work with our colleagues to create new curriculum for our many courses. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Maureen (our principal) and Jane (Senior English) to revamp our course offerings for English. We generally lock ourselves into a conference room and bounce ideas off of one another until we come up with a new course that reflects the variety and bigger concepts that we want to focus on. We have a lot more work to do, but we’ve managed to get a great start by working together (without getting too crazy :)
Planning at its best!
The DL teachers have been working together to brainstorm new ways of attacking the new curriculum. Here is an example of how we have been using backwards design to put together a unit for Science 10. What’s great is that we have teachers from all different disciplines coming together to think of new ways to engage students in our courses. We are able to break down the Big Ideas from the new curriculum in to concepts we hope to teach and then come up with authentic tasks that students will be able to complete using their knowledge from the course. This has been an interesting experience as we are looking at the new curriculum and coming up with understandings that students will be able to hopefully use in the future.