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Last term, Drama specialist, Heather Melville decided to take her Grade 9 Drama class down a playwriting path with purpose. To begin with, Heather spoke to the Grades 4, 5 and 6 science teachers to find out where teachers were … Continue reading Grade 9 Drama: Playwriting with Purpose
Deirdre Bailey and Jocelyn Monteith “I just feel really confident since the “all-girls” elective. I feel like I could go into the backcountry with boys or girls and do everything and feel strong. Knowing that I am capable is something I will for sure carry … Continue reading Girls in the Backcountry
-a research project by Kevin Sonico and Louis Cheng (grade 8/9 Math teachers) Terms such as benchmarks, competencies, standards, and outcomes are used interchangeably (Brindley, 2001) to indicate objectives that students must achieve. Hereafter referred to as outcomes-based assessment, the … Continue reading Outcomes based assessment: Planning for assessment tasks
“I on the Sky” Brittany Babott ~ Grade 4-9 Fine Arts Pre-service teacherWerklund School of Education https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/BddBZYCetv4&source=udsA reoccurring theme in my drama classes the past term has been the exploration of what a ‘punctum’ is and how it relates to theatre. The word punctum is a Latin word:punc·tumˈpəNGktəm/nountechnicalnoun: punctum; plural noun: puncta1. a small, distinct point. I had first been introduced to this seemingly strange word a few years back when I attended a Ghost River Theatre workshop on devising theatre. Co-Artistic director David Van Belle had asked us to participate in an exercise where we would listen to a … Continue reading Connecting with the Performing Arts
Cynthia Nilsson~ Grade 9 Math/Science Pre-service teacherWerklund School of Education As a graduating student from the Werklund School of Education, experiencing my final practicum experience at Connect Charter, one of my professional goals was to focus on assessment for learning in a real and meaningful way, rather than only assessment of learning. With the support and mentorship of Louis Cheng, I was able to gain experience in implementing assessment for learning in a Grade 9 Math/Science class, by combining feedback loops with outcomes based assessment. The use of a system of feedback loops has been particularly effective throughout a long … Continue reading Outcomes Based Assessment and Feedback Loops
-by Louis Cheng and Cindy Nilsson Today the grade 9 students were given a series of instructions to complete a Master Chef Electricity Challenge. In teams of four, they were provided a box of electrical supplies and had 10 minutes to begin researching how to build some circuits. After their research time, they had to put away their laptops and textbooks to attempt to build the following: A series circuit A parallel circuit Two way and three way switches – a three way switch is the kind of switch you might have in your house, where two different switches in … Continue reading Master Chef Electricity Challenge, Grade 9
WHO AM I?: Identity Poetry Anthology Version 2.0 Jaime Groeller and Ivy Waite- Grade 9 Humanities Ivy and I are very excited to once again be team teaching grade 9 Humanities this year. We taught this curriculum in our first … Continue reading Grade 9 Identity Poetry Anthology
Originally Posted February 6, 2011 Our grade 9 team recently completed a cross-disciplinary ‘challenge-based learning’ project as part of an Apple/New Media Consortium international research study. Challenge Based Learning is an approach to designing classroom work with many similarities to inquiry-based learning. CBL involves students engaging in real-world issues, conducting data-collection and analysis, and then designing and implementing a solution to an issue. You can access more information on Challenge Based Learning here on the Apple site. For our part of the research project, our grade 9s examined a number of issues related to sustainable and ethical food choices. The … Continue reading Making Sustainable Food Choices
Grades: 6-9 Subject: All As part of our Collaboration and Outreach Program, the Calgary Science School is creating and sharing podcasts and PDF handouts of inquiry-based lessons designed by our teachers. We encourage feedback, comments and dialogue on the materials we publish. This podcast contains one approach to assessing website credibility by introducing three criteria for students to use when conducting internet research projects. These materials on website credibility were designed by The Critical Thinking Consortium, and are shared here with their permission. Here’s the accompanying PDF of the handouts. You can download the PDF by clicking on the download … Continue reading CSS Podcasts: Assessing Website Credibility
A Collaborative Action Research ProjectDave Scott & Jason Publack~ Grade 9 Humanities Over the past year, Jason and I have been looking at the potential of the flipped classroom to enhance first installment we explored the nature of the flipped classroom and outlined, with example videos, how we were trying to integrate this approach into our Humanities program. In our second and third posts, through surveys and focus group interviews with our students, we examined both the strengths and weaknesses of using the flipped classroom model. the learning environment of our grade 9 Humanities students. In our last three blog … Continue reading Aligning the Flipped Classroom Approach With Inquiry-Based Learning