Pedagogical Practices

Sharing ways of bringing Indigenous culture into the K-12 curriculum through the inclusion of a land focus, elders/knowledge keepers, Indigenous languages, and Indigenous teaching resources. The session will focus on including Inuit culture specifically and Indigenous culture more generally as three of the four facilitators are Inuit.

In this session I will share my experiences transitioning from more traditional assessment practices to practices that include employing the power of a feedback-focused assessment format and leveraging digital technologies to change how students can engage with and/or share their learning. Examples of student work/reflection will be included. The session will offer educators a chance to reflect on next steps in their assessment journey.

This interactive session will explore the principles of universal design for learning and dive into this framework as the basis for responsive teaching and learning. It will provide an overview of UDL, why we need UDL and ways to begin. The session will model the principles of UDL where a learning conversation will begin, connections will be made with the hope that a professional learning network will be created.

Come and demystify phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. In this session, we will explore different ways to support your students' specific needs to help them perceive, chunk and manipulate sound units such as syllables, rhymes and phonemes. We will discuss how to make instruction intentional and explicit to better target certain skills.

Based on a LLP project where students designed a set of Success Criteria and gave their opinions on their school experiences as well as what they like to see in their schools. This session will look at how a group of students from around the province feel about options in their schools, their thoughts on SBA in their High School classes and how it can look going ahead.

Mathematics is a wonderfully complex discipline and as a result requires flexibility. There are numerous strategies outlined in our curriculum guides to help build conceptual understanding of the concepts. Oftentimes, it may seem overwhelming to decide how to engage our learners in these multiple strategies. How does this look in our daily practice? During this opportunity, we will delve into how this could look and we will explore possible next steps to foster teaching and learning that uses these strategies with flexibility.

During this session, we plan to address the key misconceptions and misunderstandings around the RTL policy that are impacting teacher practice and effective policy implementation in schools. Using feedback from professional learning sessions, policy questionnaires, consultations, and questions arising from schools, we have compiled several key themes and topics which we will discuss. Topics for discussion will include:

a) Special Education

b) Comprehensive Assessment

c) Universal Instruction and Intervention

d) Roles and Responsibilities

e) Teaching and Learning Team Meetings

f) Responsive Teaching and Learning Records

We would start with talking about restorative justice practices and what it entails, how it is about all parties getting what they need from this approach and providing examples. We would then talk about talking circles and do some examples of how to introduce them and building capacity of the teacher and students. We would then talk about lesson plans to implement the talking piece, reflection exercises, and to transfer responsibility to the students to lead the circles. I am hoping to have a couple of students participate and share their experiences as well.

During the Fall of 2021, three miniboats traveled out of the Gulf Stream and landed on the south coast of Newfoundland (https://educationalpassages.org ). One "mini" was the BHS Roweboat (https://educationalpassages.org/boats/bhs_roweboat/) and was launched off Rhode Island in July 2021, by the Burrillville High School Environmental Science class to learn about ocean currents. As Roweboat sailed along, it taught us about currents, surviving Tropical Storm Elsa, and connected Rhode Island students with students from the schools that helped along the way (3 NLESD schools so far). In May 2022, Roweboat was launched off Fogo Island. With MSSIC help, teachers and students of Fogo Island Central Academy added new sensors to document air and water temperature along the new leg of the journey. There are two more miniboats being launched this summer by Villanova Junior High - allowing more students to make connections to ocean science.

What can a "mini" teach us? This session we will examine the miniboat data - temperature, GPS tracks, photos - and discuss lesson plans to teach students about the ocean at and beyond the horizon. Many lessons are possible - climate change, ecology, ocean currents, weather, water, and predicting the physics of motion - where will the miniboat go? If you want your students to look outwards, drop by and we will examine your curriculum. From there we explore Educational Passages science and math resources for inquiry lessons (K-12), to connect your students to the vastness of the ocean.

Discussion of Standards-Based Learning, how it can be applied to any subject/grade level, and how to get started using it.