Our focus for this session will be Aboriginal Worldviews and Perspectives.We are so pleased that Jo-Anne Chrona, Jurisdiction/TEFA Curriculum Coordinator from FNESC (First Nations Education Steering Committee) will be joining us and sharing the new Science First Peoples resource.

There will be an opportunity to explore, discuss and learn about this resource and make connections to the revised curriculum and interdisciplinary learning frameworks. We also welcome Linda Klassen, who will be sharing an “Ignite” session about Aboriginal Education at Gibson Elementary School in Delta.

After this session, teams will have an opportunity to share their inquiry work and case studies to date.

Please join us and bring a friend!

Share this flyer with your colleagues and networks.

Judy and Linda, and AESN Impact Study leader Debbie Leighton-Stephens were in Smithers with the North West Regional group for a day of professional learning and networking. Judy and Linda shared the brand-spanking-new Spiral Playbook, which they were asked to write by C21 Canada aimed at Canadian Superintendents.  There are a bunch of resources that accompany the Playbook which we hope you will find useful, including the Spiral Playbook Quick Reference Guide.  Debbie shared more about the AESN Impact Study, and specifically how schools involved with the study are focusing their inquiry work around transitions for learners. You will hear more about how this work is going at the NOII Symposium in May.

The central Vancouver Island Network meeting was held in conjunction with the regional Canadian Assessment for Learning Network (CAfLN) event – two great events in one! The CAfLN conference is in Nova Scotia this year in early May.

The Extended Lower Mainland group meet in Burnaby, with Network Leaders Brooke Moore (Delta) and Lynne Tomlinson (West Vancouver) focusing a part of the discussion around assessment and sharing a bunch of ready-to-use tools and resources. Check out the Embedded Critique and Feedback Rubric (developed from Ron Berger’s Leaders of Their Own Learning), this Science 10 Lab Rubric developed by Michelle Wood, and this visual rubric developed by Kelly Skehill. We also thought this Grade 1 Term Overview by Annieville Elementary is a really helpful way to communicate student learning and focus for the term. (See what you miss when you don’t attend meetings??!! – I missed attending this one and was so disappointed!). The next Extending Lower Mainland meeting will be on Jan. 23^rd (lock it in!).

Last but not least, NOII Australia kicked off their first meeting as an official region of the Network – go team! We’re thrilled to learn with and from this great group lead by Network Leaders Natalie Mansour and David Sim. Make sure you plan to attend the NOII Symposium on May 12 – 13 in Richmond in order to meet and network with some members of this Australian team.

If you held a meeting that we’ve missed (or you have one upcoming) please let us know by dropping us a line along with a few details (and even better, some resources) to noii.aesn@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone involved – especially those hosting meetings, sharing during discussions and attending for the first time – for all your great work in supporting inquiry, teamwork and curiosity. And please keep in mind that submission of your school inquiry focus is due by November 25th. See more about how to do that here.

As a Network, we discussed how we might put more formal coaching practices into place this year, with Leaders taking on coaching roles within and across districts. Lynne Tomlinson shared this helpful document outlining an approach to coaching calls that Leaders can use with Network school teams. We think you will find her 5-4-3-2-1 framework provides a very accessible approach to coaching calls. We also had one of our colleagues – Rosie Palmer – from the Whole Education Network (WEN) in the UK share how they have been structuring support for their schools engaging in the Spirals of Inquiry through coaching. Rosie kindly shared her presentation with us, which outlines their approach. She also provided some good insight and tips, including sending out a simple agenda ahead of the call in order to allow everyone to think about the discussion ahead of time. Both of these resources will be helpful as you plan your coaching practices this year.  Rosie noted that one of the most common coaching questions they engage is “what are the learners telling you?”

We also heard from our Network colleagues in Australia – David Sim and Natalie Mansour. They joined us via videoconference to share how their Network activities are shaping up this year. Earlier in their school year, they hosted an inquiry “master class” led by Judy and Linda, supporting educators to get started get started with the Spirals and plan their inquiries. They have several Network events planned throughout the year, including a full day of pro-d around the Spirals of Inquiry as well as videoconferences showing good practice in action. They will also be hosting first Australia Network Symposium in July 2017 – very exciting!! We’ll share more details soon.

A few articles and books were mentioned as reading for professional learning over the coming weeks. Learn more about the Expeditionary Learning Model by reading this article. Expeditionary Learning is built on ten design principles that reflect the educational values and beliefs of Kurt Hahn, founder of Outward Bound. Also, explore Gregory Cajete’s Rekindling the Teachings of the Seventh Fire – a good book club selection for school teams.

Please also remember to save the date for our BC Network Symposium on May 12 – 13, 2016 in Richmond. We anticipate a full house again this year, so ensure you register early. We’ll let you know when registration opens early in 2017.

In total we have 175 schools across BC and the Yukon participating in either NOII or AESN this year as well as close to 60 schools in the Healthy Schools Network. Wow! The opportunity to learn from and with each other is a key part of the Network, so it really is amazing to see the ways in which many schools are building on practices they have learned from others.

One way we do this is through regional meetings to share stories, troubleshoot, brainstorm and work together across similar contexts. Meetings provide a boost of energy at a busy time of year when we all could use a bit of extra motivation. We know from experience in BC and beyond that getting together regularly in face-to-face meetings deepens and strengthens the connections and accelerates the pace of new learning.

Thanks to Heidi Wood and the Surrey team for hosting this year’s Lower Mainland regional meeting on January 28^th.  Schools shared resources, discussed progress and were able to hear a bit about all the international work the Network has on the go – including cohorts of schools piloting work with the Spirals in the UK. 

The North West Region held their meeting on Feb 5^th at the Skeena Valley Golf Course. A large group came together from across the region – 37 educators from Nisga’a, Prince Rupert, Hazelton, Kitimat, Terrace and Thornhill were able to make the trek (with Smithers having to miss the event due to inclement weather and bad driving conditions). Thanks to Network Leader Kathy Eades for sharing this synopsis with us: 

We really appreciate hearing about what other regions are up to and how they are structuring their face-to-face time. Please consider putting some brief notes in an email to me us at noii.aesn@gmail.com so that we can share your good work.