I. General Information
School Name: École Les Mélèzes-dorés
School District: SD#93 Conseil scolaire francophone
Inquiry Team Members: Marie-Pascale Brown : mariepasacale_brown@csf.bc.ca
Bonnie Antoine : bonnie_lepine@csf.bc.ca
Kristiane Albert : kristiane_sormany@csf.bc.ca
Sylvie de Grandpré : sylvie_degrandpre@csf.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: sylvie_degrandpre@csf.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Writing, Mathematics / Numeracy
Focus Addressed: Indigenous Focus (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Formative assessment, Land, Nature or Place-based learning
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Extending the ways in which students draw from land, stories, and being outdoors, to explain their learning in French.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: Through the scanning process we noticed that our students (K-3) required examples of how to answer the questions as a guide. Once we modelled, they understood better and they were able to articulate simple answers. Student’s responses revealed that they could identify what they were learning. They were more inclined to describe parts of their learning in list form rather than ponder how things were going. How their learning was going was equated with how many new tidbits of information they had acquired. Within these short discussions however, students were often able to connect with Land and were aware how many parts of their learning related to place (Indigenous stories; Ktunaxa language; their own experience). We wondered if we could encourage students to establish these links to place and work towards students connecting these “parts” they identified together with other learning while working on improving their French language (we are a francophone school).
Focus: We chose to explore/extend the ability for students to explain “how” they learn in French more in depth while drawing from Ktunaxa “how” stories, problem solving strategies, and step by step learning processes. The goal was for the students to extend the transformations in speaking they already show with the word of the day vocabulary, to the way they explain their learning while outdoors.
Hunch: While emphasizing the words of the days during the morning messages (that we do mostly outside), we noticed students’ ability to respond and generate connections with the school’s learning forest. Students regularly went beyond the visible to describe words such as “renversant” (stunning) for example. We realized that our students spoke French, knew many Ktunaxa words, and could speak forest! This surprised us and we wondered about the ability to use these skills towards other parts of their learning.
New Professional Learning: We focused on the First Peoples Principles of Learning – learning through stories more specifically, and the Core Competencies as designed and presented through a Ktunaxa lens. Our guidance came from Ktunaxa guests who shared stories and modelled their own learning (of plant knowledge, of the Ktunaxa language, and of various skills they are working on). We drew from Monique Gray-Smith’s work/books – especially “Braiding Sweetgrass for young adults.” We also used the performance standards for writing, with our older students. We also delved a little into Peter Liljedahl “Thinking Classroom.” The goal was to focus on thinking, and how “how” thinking can be further developed orally in French.
Taking Action: We were inspired by the “how” stories shared by the Ktunaxa guests who have now visited our school regularly over the last three years. We have used images to remind students of the characters in each story, and what the story teaches. We were also inspired by the way one of our guests openly talks about her processes when learning about ethnobotany, and how she models learning her Ktunaxa language. She also speaks often of the skills she is working at improving and how she is doing. We felt it was important to reinforce this modeling and use stories to strengthen students’ understanding of how they are learning.
For the younger students in our small group we focused on the vocabulary development we had already started at the beginning of the school year. We established a routine where a word of the day relating to ongoing learning/school/events/weather/etc. is featured. As a word was brought up each day, students were encouraged to describe the word and then think of a way this word features in the forest/in nature. Through this project we added an extra moment for students to try and answer “how” questions (ex. “How did you make that connection? How did you know? How is this word connecting to yesterday’s word? How is this helping us learn with owls/stars/plants? etc.).
In addition, we added two year-long strategies with older students. In language arts, we worked on having students assess their own written work and build a sequence of work showing their progress. The idea was for them to start noticing how they improved and be involved in discussions that highlighted their learning process (in French). Students were encouraged to share how they work to improve their learning and monitor their efforts. This was linked to the way a tree grows from seed to mature tree. In math, we consolidated learning by creating math stories that students had to submit to their peers and encourage everyone to solve them. The idea here was to connect the work to the forest either through the creation process and/or the solving process. Here, students were again encouraged to focus on their learning process by working with “how” statements and telling the story of their learning.
Checking: We observed a noted difference in participation during the morning messages (done outdoors) in explaining meanings for words, giving examples, and connecting words to place/nature (for us it’s the forest mostly). As the project progressed, we saw an increasing number of students offering answers at least once a week. The younger students grew in confidence over time and offered their thoughts at least twice a month. As far as participation in verbalizing connections, we feel it was a good beginning.
With the older students, the individual performance standards were created by the students to be able to describe their learning processes with writing. The project was partially successful. While the idea of showing how they were progressing was appealing and worked well, being able to express how learning was going proved a little more challenging. Students were encouraged to use their individual performance standards to take their progress into account. The math stories were a fun part of the project and students were delighted at the idea of getting their peers to think about their learning. Using “how” stories to explain their thinking worked very well, and incited discussion between peers. Here, we used photos to record student work. The photos proved a good visual to show progress over time.
Reflections/Advice: Although we were inspired by the quality of students’ participation during morning messages, our initial goal to infuse this propensity to explain learning was too broad. We originally aimed to grow students’ involvement across the curriculum (orally) and realized that the scope was too much for the adults involved and for the students. Our goal was to be able to model for students and have students become better with responding. We saw some successes, however we narrowed our goal to three areas and this was also too much.
Our plan, as we continue working with “how” stories about learning, will be to narrow the scope and establish a more specific goal. In addition, we are thinking that it would be worth delving into “how” Ktunaxa stories and how they model a specific aspect through a story/a problem/a resolution, to observe our own growth process.
In a nutshell, the initial goal needs to be revised and refined, and we need to build on this years’ experience to lay out a clear multi-year path.