I. General Information
School Name: Hugh Boyd Secondary
School District: SD#38 Richmond
Inquiry Team Members: Adam Thorvaldson: athorvaldson@sd38.bc.ca, Pat Rooney: prooney@sd38.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: athorvaldson@sd38.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Secondary (8-12)
Curricular Areas Addressed:
Focus Addressed: Self-regulation
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? What are students’ perspectives on how hands-on project work will take them in the future.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: Students were asked the questions directly at the beginning of the semester & again at the end of the semester. Students were asked to what degree they felt more supported, less supported or the same amount of support by adults with respect to the questions.
Focus: What are students’ perspectives on how hands-on project work will take them in the future? The hope is that students realize that hands-on skills will help them in their lives both at home & at work.
Hunch: Our hunch is that hands-on learning gives students perspective on life skills that will help them in the future. Students may or may not find these skills useful in their lives or in their job in the future. We wonder if they feel this way.
New Professional Learning: In the course these students are taking, they learn a little bit about how house framing, electrical & plumbing is done. We would like to learn if the students feel they would be better served by learning other hands-on skills. We learned that students also enjoyed other trades-related subjects like roofing & welding.
Taking Action: We learned about & used a hands-on approach to trying out a wide range of work/trade skills in the class. Specifically, we built sheds using framing, roofing, sheet metal, painting, carpentry, electrical & plumbing trade skills.
Photo Descriptions: Learners at Hugh Boyd Secondary in Richmond build sheds to learn hands-on, skills that may be useful in their future lives, both at work & at home. These are the sheds that they completed. (Click for larger image).
Checking: We used the finished product as evidence of change. Not satisfied… Our ability to emulate what can be found in the workplace is limited by not being able to provide the tools & equipment that is found in the workplace. School workshops do not have the equipment available to adequately copy what happens in an industry workshop. E.g. One welder is not enough to teach a class of 24 students welding…
Reflections/Advice: Teaching trades/applied skills is an expensive endeavour. We plan to monetize the projects we build with students. E.g. sell sheds, sell boats. We plan to apply for grants wherever we can find them to get equipment for the workshop so that we can provide an education that more closely matches what is happening in industry.