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Day 67, Margeaux Montgomery, Teacher, Twelve Mile Coulee School

6/15/2014

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This year, we explored the relationship that humans have with water and our relationship with the rivers that run through Calgary. We asked important questions about how water shapes us and how we shape water, an interconnected relationship that requires serious, thoughtful, consideration, and time to study the topic in depth. The more we learned about the rivers, the more compelling they became. We have become hermeneutic scholars around the rivers’ origin, landforms, myths, civilizations, celebrations, conflicts, disasters and their deep meaning to us and our personal identities as beings living in Calgary at this time in history. The rivers have become a part of us, just as we have become part of the rivers. Everything is the same issue.

A reflection from Zach captures a lasting impression:

Learning about the river changed my thinking about water. I find myself thinking hard about water in different and related ways. I am rethinking local and international water issues and how we treat them. I found that one question would lead to another and once  that question was answered, it led to another, fascinating question.

The lasting impressions from our explorations around water this year have made me respect our rivers a lot more than I did before. I try to waste as little as possible, leaving  a cleaner river and a cleaner earth. I also use less water, knowing that the freshwater supply is finite. Water is a part of us and we need to take care of it. We are the river.


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Margeaux Montgomery is an educator who enjoys exploring, wondering, creating and laughing with her students daily.
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Day 25: David & Lynne, Student Teacher & Partner Teacher, Willow Park School

5/2/2014

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A Universe of Possibilities! Students as Explorers, Researchers and Teachers

We can all be explorers, from our classrooms or from anywhere! Meaningful learning happens when teachers and students alike take risks in learning, and have a willingness to try new things, reflect, and repeat.

No matter where you are as a learner, research is always more than collecting facts. In our Grade 6 class, we used tools like Instagrok to engage learners so they could focus on process -  synthesizing and connecting ideas, rather than taking notes or worrying about proper citations.

And learning is more than just knowing what to do - what’s important is knowing how to learn! In this student-directed inquiry work, students considered and mapped the possibilities that could emerge from “juicy questions”, and only then, when every student had found a research connection they could deeply connect with, did we collaboratively map it back to outcomes in the curriculum.

The powerful capstone of this work was that students recognized that they were teachers, too. The true meaning of teaching and learning came out through sharing and celebrating. Some of the ways we’ve done this were:

  • A student-led research symposium: Students were tasked with creating engaging research sessions around their learning. Other classes were invited to pick sessions that interested them.

  • An “Emerging Learners” Wiki: Students became the Grade 6 experts on Sky Science, and built a knowledge base together using GAFE. Other classes can now learn from what they’ve built, and build off off of their ideas.

See more of our work, discuss, comment, revise and share through our resource in CORE.

David Cloutier (@DavidCloutier) is a student teacher from @MountRoyal4U (and a part of the @CBEILT team) team teaching with Lynne Ursenbach (@LynneUrsenbach), a Learning Leader, at Willow Park School. Both are passionate about empowering students to explore and to create together, build off the work of others, and consider the impact they can have along their learning journeys.

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Day 12 - Jeff Thompson, Learning Leader, Samuel W. Shaw

4/15/2014

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I work with all the students in our school, mostly by coming in to support special projects. The grade 5 students are currently embroiled in an inquiry project, “Why do we dream?”

Their teacher asked me to come in today to help the students gain some focus to share their work. We talked a little bit about what they’ve learned already, one sandy haired boy put up his hand and said “Uh.. I read that different smells can cause different dreams”.

“What?”

He started to perk up a little bit, “Yeah! Like if you smell rotten eggs before you go to sleep you might have a nightmare”

This caused an uproar in the class, with all the students imagining what dreams different types of smells would produce.

“All right, all right, we don’t even know if this is true!” I shouted over the cacophony.

“Why don’t we all do it?” the sandy haired boy said.

Everyone stopped talking at once, and their eyes all latched onto mine expectantly. I looked around the room and smiled. “Okay, why don’t you all find the most horrible or most wonderful smell you can find and take a big whiff before you go to sleep. Then write down your dreams as soon as you wake up. Bring them in and we’ll compare dreams tomorrow.”

The excitement in the room was palpable. It was one of those moments that makes what we do really mean something.


Jeff Thompson is the Learning Commons and CTF Learning leader at Samuel W. Shaw middle school. He is an avid internet addict and dabbler in gadgetry.

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