top of page

Learning Partnerships

Educator Self-Assessment

Limited
Evidence

The learning design does not yet actively promote students and teachers working in a learning partnership. The teacher may assume a directing role. Student voice, choice and agency are limited and this may impact students’ sense of belonging. There is limited demonstration of equity between students, teachers and others; there is no clear shared goal(s) across the learning partners and the learning outcomes are not transparent to all; the measures for success are not explicit to students. 

Emerging

Accelerating

The learning design includes elements of students, teachers and others working in a learning partnership to ensure Deep Learning outcomes. Teachers are starting to facilitate student voice, choice and agency. There are shared goal(s) for the learning that students support; there is growing equity in the learning partnership relationships; learning outcomes are transparent to students with an increasing understanding of how it will be measured. 

The learning design has a clear strategy for students, teachers and other partners to achieve Deep Learning outcomes for all students. Students have a sense of belonging. Student voice, choice and agency and contribution to learning design has been integral; there is equity in the relationships between students, and teachers; learning outcomes, processes and expectations are transparent; and there is consensus about what success looks like and how it will be measured.

Advanced

The learning design is a collaborative partnership between students and teachers and others, with a clear focus on achieving Deep Learning outcomes for all students. Student voice, choice, agency and contribution have been critical to improving the learning design. 

 

All students have a genuine sense of belonging. The learning partnership is driven by high levels of partner equity, transparency and mutual benefit/accountability. There are clear collaborative processes and measures to enable students to persevere and encounter success.

Evidence

Click the photo above to scroll through the gallery.

Teacher/Student Partnerships

Students were in charge of the learning design for the majority of the project, being able to meet the curriculum expectations in any format they wished. They frequently came to me as a sounding board for questions, clarifications, and to solicit my feedback and suggestions.

​

I also sought my student's feedback frequently to ensure they felt supported. I ensured they understood the purpose of the project for both their own learning and my certification process. With this, I asked for feedback in multiple ways, including through their closing checklist and a Peardeck showing the NPDL rubrics and moderation feedback guide questions. 

​

Madame Graham, our Teacher Librarian, visited our class to give a presentation on academic honesty.

​

Interestingly, in making Indigenous connections, one student brought her Inuk (singular of Inuit, one of three main Indigenous groups in Canada, originating from the North) friend to class to engage her in a shared topic of interest and solicit her opinion on the topics she was studying. 

​

​

Board-Level Partnerships

I engaged in two supportive partnerships at the school-board level to guide this learning experience. First was the Deep Learning Certification professional development team. In our school board, our Leading and Learning Journey department allows teachers to become Deep Learning Certified by engaging in an inquiry with students and submitting it to the Canadian Cluster for review, attending four professional development sessions, and completing four out of 15 possible leadership badges. In the professional development sessions our Board consultants guided us through the certification process and connected us with other OCSB Deep Learning Certified educators, and we examined other reviewed projects, discussed our plans, and received feedback. In our final session we celebrated and shared the documentation of our efforts. Throughout the process, we had a group chat where we could ask questions and solicit feedback.

​

Second, our Indigenous Education team facilitated a ReconciliAction Collaborative Inquiry. The purpose of this project was to design and lead a Deep Learning experience answering the question, "How can the OCSB community address one or more of the 94 Calls to Action and, in doing so, actively contribute to Reconciliation?" Over three sessions we heard from an advisory team of Indigenous community members and our board consultant who supported our inquiry in much the same way as above. This group also culminated in a final sharing event. Our Indigenous Studies consultant was integral to the success of our inquiry; I emailed her my students' chosen questions, and she passed them on to the advisory team who provided feedback and helped connect me to artists and scientists who could speak to their questions from an Indigenous lens, as well as other community partners. She also helped me source content to help students engage in their areas of interest, such as suggesting films that would help a student with the question "How has propaganda affected Indigenous people?" as part of her broader question, "Is propaganda art?"  

Community Partnerships

Through contacts already established at the Board level, suggestions from the ReconciliAction Collaborative Inquiry Advisory team, and some Google searching, 

I reached out to a number of Indigenous artists and scientists with our inquiry questions and asked if they would be willing to speak to any. I received more responses than expected and we ended up having four guest speakers, three virtual, and one physical. These visits ranged from doing guided art, listening to what the presenter prepared on our topics, engaging in dialogue, and examining scientific or artistic work. Many of our speakers made connections to Indigenous languages and how the word structure ties the meaning back to the importance of the land. With this, some presenters talked about what reconciliation means to them and the depth and breadth of responses reinforced for students the diversity in Indigenous cultures and worldviews.

 

In addition, we had additional virtual guest speakers speaking to our topics, including a presentation on organ donation, tying Philosophy of Science to ethics, and a professor of Ethnomusicology who seamlessly weaved both topics together.  

​

While we weren't able to take advantage of the opportunity because of timing, I also had one offer from someone to connect via email with a student about their specific inquiry question, I wish we had been able to do so. I wish we would have had more time to connect with our speakers to ask follow up questions and engage in more dialogue, I would definitely ask about this possibility in the future when reaching out to community partners. With this, we need to consider follow-up conversations in the booking process when guests are determining their fees for sharing their knowledge and expertise. 

​

​

Student Voice

"This guided inquiy was accelerating/advanced in learning partnerships. This is because there is a clear strategy to work as a group and with the teacher but i feel that it is not advanced becuase I think more could be done to improve the group work in the socratic seminar and also more oppertunities could be provided to speak with the teacher for more clarification"

"Mrs. Harnick also introduced us to many guest speakers who aided with thought process throughout our guided inquiry."

"It was a very well-thought out learning design with which students were presented a variety of ways to demonstrate their learning."

"There was a lot of [partnerships] that occurred due to the group project portion. We all worked together to get the music video done properly. People were assigned different tasks such as editing the video or like writing lyrics for our parody."

Please also see the ReconciliAction page to see student work and read the concrete connections students made to guest speakers in their work.

bottom of page