LAUNCH Learning (Leading Advanced Understanding Through Connected Hands-on Learning)

LAUNCH Learning
(Leading Advanced Understanding Through Connected Hands-on Learning)

Chris van Beurden
Science Teacher
LAUNCH Learning
Guelph Collegiate-Vocational Institute
519-824-9800 x 481
christopher.vanbeurden@ugdsb.on.ca

Description of how you shape the learning experience –what you are doing that is of focus in the this short sharing

LAUNCH is a 4-credit, integrated program for grade 9 students that focuses on developing the learning skills necessary to helps them discover pathways to their own success in an academic curriculum. Run in semester 1 at the Guelph Collegiate-Vocational Institute, courses include SNC1D, ENG1D, CGC1D, & PPL1O. Two teachers, who share the school day with students, provide support and an opportunity to engage in an innovative, integrated curriculum. Lessons and units are structured to deliver curriculum goals in addition to the development of essential skills such as organization, study habits, collaboration, self-advocacy, goal setting, and accountability. Students engage in hands-on, experiential learning through field trips, collaborative activities, and community engagement.

Some of the results/impacts

• Through a series of field trips to different areas of Guelph, students engage with members of neighbourhood groups, the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition, and the City of Guelph Planning Department to get a sense of the diversity within the city.  They analyze assets and challenges of each community relating to the physical development (e.g. transportation options, land uses, food security), natural environment (e.g. parkland, urban forests, storm water management), and social aspects (e.g. access to services, community space, public art, support networks).  Ultimately, students collaborate to develop creative solutions to the challenges they have identified.
• Students organize an Amazing Race for other classes at GCVI.  LAUNCH students learn about effective planning, collaboration, and accountability.  The teachers scaffold the process in order to move toward student-directed engagement, learning, and project development; this process allows students to experience and cope with time pressures, mistakes, conflict, and real deadlines.  Ultimately, this is a formative activity to prepare students to develop a Healthy Living Symposium for grade 8 students at a local elementary school.
• While LAUNCH is a program designed to help students transition into high school, it is recognized that we are also helping parents transition into a different role as their child(ren) grow.  We spend significant amounts of time communicating with parents and students about the realities of the learning process (e.g. it is difficult, frustrating, time consuming, inconvenient, requires mistakes and failures), and how this is just as important as learning outcomes.

 

Benefits and what you are working on learning to apply or modify.

• We are using LAUNCH as a “learning lab” for teaching strategies based on professional development and research to assist other teachers in our school and the UGDSB to improve their practice.  We attempt different methods of teaching, and share the results with the staff at PD days, staff meetings, and through informal conversations.
• We are determining ways of formally integrating learning skills development into existing lessons through how they are presented/communicated to students (i.e. no lesson or test is ever exclusively about course content).
• We developed a set of Big Ideas for the program based on learning skills:  

A. The process of learning is of equal importance to the products of learning.
B. Teamwork, collaboration, and mutual respect for one another are essential for life-long success in education, career, and relationships.
C. It is important to discover your strengths and use them to improve the world around you.  It is equally important to discover your challenges and strive to overcome them.
D. Great achievement involves risk and resiliency; it is your responsibility to rise to your own vision of greatness.

Taking Environmental Science, SVN3M Outdoors

Taking Environmental Science, SVN3M Outdoors

By Melissa Hunter, SMCDSB

I am NEVER tired of teaching this course.  I have never taught the same unit in the same “way” twice.  Every time brings new experiences and new adventures.  

My students help me to design the course with their interests and they stay engaged because they are interested.   Students remember this course.  The lessons they learn and experiences they live last long after they earn their credit.  I aim to teach my students to become a part of the environment without leaving a negative ecological footprint.  I want them to become stewards of the Earth.  They learn to appreciate the planet and its resources, as well as foster new friendships.

Basically, it’s fun!  I am engaged.  Students are engaged.  It’s a win-win!

I am forced to stay connected and up to date on contemporary environmental issues.  It allows me to continue my own personal education while teaching the required curriculum.

The Learning Experiences

Teaching environmental science is a truly wonderful opportunity to get kids excited about the outside world.  This course is not officially an outdoor education course, but can be presented in ways that get students outside and experiencing nature!  I shape the learning experience around student curiosity about environmental topics (curriculum linked).  This involves not only providing background information and instruction on the various topics, but also getting the students outside and experiencing authentic learning.  From here, curiosity becomes my guide and I let the direction flow to what the students want to find out about.

Example from the Agriculture and Forestry Unit

Indoor experience learning: Bring in produce from local grocery store.  Students find out what the sticker codes mean using various strategies, including Internet research, consulting with a grocer and textbook referencing.  This leads to a discussion on several issues relating to agriculture including GMO’s, pesticide use, exporting goods, fertilizers, eating local, organic foods, sustainable choices.  Students let me know what interests them most about the food they eat, and I plan subsequent lessons accordingly.

Outdoor learning experience: What is involved with growing food?  Students plant bean seeds and find out how different factors affect growth.  We also explore soil by collecting samples and testing them for pH, porosity, texture, % organic content,nutrient levels, etc…  Students can do much of the testing outdoors and analyze the data back in class.

Conventional instruction leading outdoors: Mechanized agriculture methods (monoculture, pesticide and fertilizer use, GMO’s, livestock production,etc…).   Once learning some background on these topics, most students let me know that they had never been to a farm.  I contacted a local farmer and we headed out to the farm for the day.

Outdoor Education: The students had a wonderful day outdoors, on a farm, learning about the food they eat from the perspective of the farmer.  It was enlightening and most of what they remember from this unit came from their experiences out on the farm.

This course can be taught dynamically so that every topic leads to outdoors.

Some more examples of activities that can be paired with learning about each topic:

Biodiversity: Tree and wildflower identification activities, water quality analysis looking for biological  indicator species to give information on water quality,  quadrant sampling in a field, a nature hike through a local urban forest, etc…

Waste Management: Build a model landfill (outdoors or indoors) and test the decomposition rate of various materials, take a field trip to the local landfill / recycling / e-waste facility / water treatment facility, get creative by making something “new” from recycled materials, painting rainbarrels, etc..

Energy Conservation; Build solar ovens and have a class cook-off (it does work!), energy audits, explore alternatives to fossil fuels by visiting a solar or wind farm, etc..

Outdoor experiential learning: Go on small hikes to learn about forest values, conduct outdoor wilderness survival training (build a fire, build a lean-to, etc..), snowshoeing, planting trees, etc..

The Results

...in Photos!  Look at all the happy faces learning ABOUT the environment while IN the environment!

Valuable Resource:

Textbook: Environmental Science: A Canadian Perspective (McGraw-Hill Ryerson)   

        * I acted as an Educational Consultant on this resource as well.  

https://www.mheducation.ca/school/products/9781259067778/environmental+science:+a+canadian+perspective/

Applying Inquiry in Grade 9 Geography

Sarah McLeod has provided a nice overview of how she has applied inquiry learning with grade 9 students using technology to assist in pursuing the questions her students have raised. Click here to view the presentation.

How might you follow this example for your courses?  Comments invited below.

Enviroventure

Mark Gaynik
mgaynik@scdsb.on.ca

Enviroventure  

www.nssenviroventure.weebly.com

Grade/Focus

This grade 12, 4-credit integrated curriculum program combines the following credits- English, Environment and Resource Management, Recreation and Fitness Leadership, and Nutrition and Health. The program is very experiential with a major focus on environmental stewardship, character development and leadership. It is also a Specialist High-Skills Major Program (SHSM) under the Environment focus.

Twenty four students apply to participate each year during Semester 2. The majority of the students are in Grade 12 with a handful of Grade 11’s each year. They are together all day for the entire semester.

How we shape the learning experience:

• We have an independent space from the rest of the school that is a transient and inviting classroom space- no desks, beanbag chairs, carpeted, coffee/tea station, with artifacts from alumni around the room. Often coined “the coolest classroom” kids have been in. 
• Every day is a different day without the limitations of the school bells, the flexibility of natural breaks in our learning, and the mutual respect that we are learning together alongside each other as students and teachers.
• I teach 3 of 4 credits, with another staff member teaching the English portion. We have it planned that our prep periods offset in the morning, so that she can naturally finish her learning plans either early or later depending on our day, without the wasted time between transitions. We get a lot done!!
• A huge scaffolding of the leadership unfolds over the course of the semester- more and more release of responsibility as the semester goes by, both academically and experientially on trip.
• Learning is highly experiential with 15 or so trips over the course of the semester, with one major winter expedition on the 3rd week into the semester. 
• The SHSM is integral to the functioning of our semester with built in experiences and certifications, as well as a financial offset to the overall fees related to the program.

Results/Impacts

• Seeing the growth in students, personally and academically. is a privilege over the course of a semester. 
• They feel comfortable with us as staff, and often refer to us as “one of them”. 
• The SHSM accreditation and experience through the program enables graduates excellent job opportunities, both directly into environmental/outdoor related fields, and indirectly through leadership gained on expeditions. 
• Alumni have a huge interest in the program. Many return to share their advice and support of current Enviro students. 
• Classroom management, discipline, etc. is very rarely an issue due to the trust and respect that we develop.  Students see us as fellow learners. When you are together for a long period of time in a semester, they see you as a person, ask about your family, etc. and see the passion you have and the investment you make to enable their success. This is something they don’t necessarily get to see a lot of because of the structure of 75 minute ‘normal’ classes. 
• Students leave with confidence and preparation for the real world of learning beyond high school, and a realization that learning doesn’t all come through one method, or medium.

Benefits/What am I working on? 

• It is a constant struggle to convey to prospective students what we exactly do and how we learn in the Enviro semester program.
• There is always a battle between perceptions and reality- we don’t just go camping. We learn about the planet, our impacts, each other, and definitely about oneself.
• We have been involved in the New Pedagogies for Deeper Learning (http://npdl.global/)  and are working to implement an alternative grading system. The core elements are the 6-C’s of Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Citizenship, Character and Communication.
• Overall this is the most rewarding, most meaningful, albeit hardest work of my teaching career. I look forward to seeing my students every day, and seeing them grow through the program. I get to have fun in my classroom every single day. 

Pickering College Global Leadership Program

Pickering College
Noeline Burk, Head of Arts
nburk@pickeringcollege.on.ca

Pickering College Global Leadership Program  - Integrating Experiential Education into the Curriculum 

http://www.pickeringcollege.on.ca/page.cfm?p=790 

Graduates of the Pickering College Global Leadership Program are creative, innovative and courageous agents of ethical and positive change, true to Quaker values.

Description of how it shapes the learning experience –what is the crux of the program that is of focus in this short sharing:

• All students, JK-12, are enrolled in and benefit from the enhanced programming of the GLP
• The GLP is fully integrated into the curriculum 
• Programming is extensively researched and critiqued to ensure academic rigour and 21st century effectiveness.
• Content that facilitates understanding of the world around us and inspires students to take action, skills needed to be global leaders, pedagogy that elicits these content and skills areas

Three recent examples include:

JK to Grade 5 – The Foundation Years

Culminating in Grade 5:  

My Key Idea Project:  The students in grade 5 will choose an area of interest to investigate, generate questions, and explain its significance.  Students will recognize and express their own perspective, examine others’ perspectives and explain the impact.  Students will communicate their ideas effectively and present their project, take action to improve conditions.   So far this year the Grade 5 students have been learning about perspective, empathy and advocating.

Students have been learning how to begin a research project by creating a topic web listing of their ideas and information they will need to research.    They have been learning how to create an effective powerpoint presentation.  And Presentation skills as it relates to voice, posture and eye contact.

Grade 6 to 8- The Pillar Years

A student presentation of an experience or piece of inquiry-based research, developed through guided learning, that demonstrates growth in at least one of the three pillars (Wisdom, Adventure, and Community) and that represents a sense of who they are.  

Expression of Self

Format: Presentation (3-5 Minutes) live 

Audience: Teacher/Mentor Panel for first year (goal to bring in students from the MS program currently in Gr 11 and 12s by Year 5 [mentors?])

Content: Three year implementation strategy

Year 1 (Grade 6): 

• Relate your work on this culminating task to at least one MS-GLP pillar
• Reflect on how this assignment impacted your personal development. Students will consult with a mentor and relevant subject specific teacher about tailoring a culminating task they are most proud of into a developed Expression of Self
• Include Grade 10 panelists 

Year 2 (Grade 7):

• Guided learning through tasks to justify an area of focus 
• Use identification of pursuit pillars, focus on a specific pillar
• Link learning between Curriculum and Pillars
• Reflect  on growth from presentation

Year 3 (Grade 8):

• Move from guided to inquiry based learning -- Expression of Self is no longer a favourite culminating task. Expression of Self becomes a cross-disciplinary inquiry-based research project or demonstration of a significant development in skill/s. 

Grade 9 to 12- The Capstone Years

Capstone Project

The Grade 12 GLP Program focuses on developing the skills needed for a successful capstone project: an academic interdisciplinary essay and a pitch presented to an expert panel.  The project tasks students with developing an innovative solution to an issue of local or global significance.  Some students will actually implement their solution, and be able to speak about the impact of their solution at the final pitch competition.

Some of the results/impacts:

Achievement of the Core Competencies

Think Globally	Students are competent in analyzing culture and context, and can identify their own global responsibilities. They appreciate languages and connect languages to culture. They critically connect their learning to the world around them, academically challenging themselves to understand causes and contexts.
Lead and Collaborate	Students know how to apply leadership skills to a range of contexts. They demonstrate empathy and friendship and can independently generate support for a cause. They demonstrate good character, participation, teamwork and resiliency, developing commitment and the joy of effort.
Design and Build	Students research to innovate, invent, and problem solve. They can build models, frameworks and prototypes and use scientific method, mathematical modelling and other design processes. They are interdisciplinary and creative, and competent technology users, and can design to specifications.
Discover and Connect	Students learn through experiences, challenges, outdoor education and authentic classroom simulations. Students are mindful and self-aware, advocating for spiritual, emotional, physical and mental wellbeing. They develop the skills and tools to lead healthy, active lives, pursuing meaningful excursions and committing to long-term pursuits.
Create and Perform	Students connect with the world around them through public performances and publications in debate, the arts, radio, public speaking, writing and sport. They interpret many genres critically, engaging with their audiences and communicating effectively. They speak persuasively to inspire action.
Enact Change	Students actively engage with their community and advocate for important causes through environmental stewardship, social justice, service projects, and effective use of social media. They apply Quaker values to their decision making, as well as the whole school values of community, compassion, integrity, respect and responsibility.

Benefits & What I am Working on Learning to Apply or Modify:

The programme was implemented in 2013, and has become solidly established over the past few years. This year we will have our first class of GLP graduates. This programme has transformed our entire school into a thriving, forward-thinking educational opportunity that focuses on experiential education and servant leadership while satisfying the guidelines from the Ontario Ministry of Education.

For more information, please contact our Director of Global Leadership, Andrea Cleland.

Project Share

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Supporting Colleagues to Change

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Integrated Program Ideas

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Inquiry: Big and Small Steps

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Environmental Education Clubs

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Curriculum-Specific Ideas

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