School Name: Rutland Secondary School

School District: SD#23 Central Okanagan

Inquiry Team Members: kim.gunner@sd23.bc.ca, Kim Gunner: candice.mckendry@sd23.bc.ca, Candice McKendry: deborah.holmes@sd23.bc.ca, Deb Holmes: lindsay.reynolds, Lindsay Reynolds: michelle.johnston@sd23.bc.ca, Michelle Johnston

Inquiry Team Contact Email: michelle.johnston@sd23.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Transitions Study

Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Secondary (8-12)

Curricular Areas Addressed: Not applicable

Focus Addressed: Social and emotional learning, Transitions

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Our focus was to support our Indigenous grade 9 students transitioning into high school, and then the grade 12’s transitioning out of high school after graduation.

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: Over a three-year inquiry with the Network of Inquiry and Indigenous Education (NOIIE), a scanning process was conducted to collect data from students based on four key questions. The most significant finding was the strong connection Indigenous students felt with Indigenous support systems, contrasting with their connection to non-Indigenous adults. This insight was crucial as it highlighted the specific needs of Indigenous students, guiding the inquiry focus of the educational team. The integration of the OECD’s principles of learning and the First Peoples Principles of Learning was instrumental in deepening the understanding of the students’ educational journey, ensuring that their cultural identity was recognized and supported throughout their academic experience.

Focus: The focus on transitions for Indigenous students is an important approach to education. It’s clear that the goal is to foster an environment where these students feel acknowledged and understood, which is crucial for their personal development. By ensuring they feel connected to the adults in the school, it provides a support system that can guide them through their educational journey. The emphasis on support and confidence-building is also essential, as it prepares students for the challenges of the adult world post-graduation. This strategy not only aims to strengthen their relationships with school support, but also to instill a sense of self-assurance that will serve them well in all their future endeavours. It’s a holistic approach that addresses the emotional and social needs of students, equipping them with the tools for success in life after high school.

Hunch: Our hunch was that there is a significant gap in the sense of belonging and connection between Indigenous students and their non-Indigenous peers within the educational system. This disconnect may lead to feelings of discomfort and invisibility, which can hinder the students’ academic and social success. It highlights the importance of fostering an inclusive environment where all students, regardless of their background, feel valued and supported by all members of the school community. It’s crucial for educational institutions to foster an inclusive atmosphere where all students, regardless of their background, feel valued and supported by the entire staff. Addressing this issue is crucial for the well-being and academic achievement of Indigenous students, ensuring they have equal opportunities to thrive as their non-Indigenous peers. Our hunch further looked towards ensuring that every student feels seen, heard, and respected, thereby promoting equity in educational outcomes.

New Professional Learning: The Network of Inquiry and Indigenous Education (NOIIE) team dedicated learning opportunities to understanding and supporting the unique needs of Indigenous students. By focusing on vital areas such as mental health, housing, and food security, as well as post-secondary aspirations, the team addressed the holistic well-being of students. Engaging with resources like Jo Chrona’s work and the ‘Wayi Wah!’ book, and seeking the wisdom of Indigenous leaders, enriched our learning journey. The emphasis on collaboration, dialogue, and reflection as key learning strategies within the NOIIE group guided commitment to continuous improvement and cultural responsiveness. This approach not only benefits the students but also fosters a deeper sense of community and shared purpose among educators.

Taking Action: Initiatives:
1. Grade 9 Orientation Welcome Sessions:
During the final term at the middle schools, grade 8 incoming students came to the high school on multiple occasions to see the school, get to know the building, meet the staff, and become comfortable being a part of the school community.
2. Grade 9 Meet and Greet:
Grade 9 Indigenous students spent an afternoon early on in their grade 9 year meeting all the support team members within the building. Students played get to know me games, ate pizza together with the staff, won prizes and learned about the different roles of support staff that are a part of their support team.
3. Mental Health Fair:
Our NOIIE team invited numerous community services and agencies to our school during a lunch and afternoon session where students and families could come together to connect with community supports. This became instrumental in connecting our students to the community to support them as they transitioned out of high school.
4. Family Bannock Cooking Workshop
Students and families were invited into our outside learning space to learn how to cook Bannock from our Indigenous advocates. Participants learned to make their own Bannock and take a recipe card home, as well as enjoy the fresh made Bannock. It was also a way to build community with our Indigenous families.
5. There are plans to continue offering cooking workshops to families and students and extend the invite to our school community and staff.
6. Invited Indigenous students into the main office to share celebrations and showcase their work as a way to build connections and build trusting relationships with the admin teams.

Checking: Our NOIIE team and school community saw a significant improvement in the success of our Indigenous students and the overall connections that they made to the adults outside their Indigenous supports. Through conversations and student scans, we were able to collect data that showed how better connected, seen and heard our Indigenous students felt after they journeys through their education here at Rutland Secondary School. The most significant change of the responses to the four questions, was with: if students could name two adults in the school who believe in them and their success in life. From the beginning scans, students referred to their Indigenous supports, however after a year or more, they were able to name quite a few more adults than two. This was significant in the change we saw. Although this is a huge change, we are committed to continuing our work in supporting our Indigenous students as they journey through our school and their educational journey.

Reflections/Advice: The insights gathered about the educational journey highlight the multifaceted nature of learning. It underscores the importance of nurturing relationships between educators and students, fostering an environment where every learner feels valued and understood. Recognizing the integral role of mental health and social-emotional well-being in academic achievement is crucial. It’s evident that when families engage with the educational process, it creates a supportive network that significantly enhances student outcomes. This holistic approach to education, which values emotional support as much as academic instruction, is key to cultivating successful, resilient learners.

School Name: Peachland Elementary

School District: SD#23 Central Okanagan

Inquiry Team Members: Gabrielle Krilow = gabrielle.krilow@sd23.bc.ca
Jessica Varga = jessica.varga@sd23.bc.ca
Wendy Briggs = wendy.briggs@sd23.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: wendy.briggs@sd23.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study

Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Intermediate (4-7)

Curricular Areas Addressed: Other: Core Competencies

Focus Addressed: Community-based learning, Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Experiential learning, Growth mindset, Self-regulation, Social and emotional learning

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Would giving students the practice of knowing kindness research and having opportunities to put the learning into action change their reactionary behaviour?

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: The focus group was not connected to the adults in the building and were mean to both peers and adults.

Focus: The group was open to all learners but a core group was invited to participate. We hoped that they would learn about kindness – how it impacts both the person being kind and the one who is shown kindness – and then put their learning into action.

Hunch: We thought that how we were treating them may be reinforcing their behaviour, even though we were trying to help them. We wanted to give them leadership opportunities and multiple chances to practice kindness and build adult connections. We often do not take the time to build positive interactions with challenging students.

New Professional Learning: The two teachers involved, including myself and the principal, utilized some professional reading, such as Brene Brown – Map of Emotions, Jody Carrington – Feeling Seen, and J. Minnihan- Behaviour Code. We also showed many videos about kindness and the latest research. We spent many hours in conversation about challenges and successes. All were very impactful and helpful with all the students, not just this core group.

Taking Action: We had a Tuesday Tea Party each week for 6 months in the Social Emotional Learning teacher’s room. During this time, students co-planned ways to demonstrate kindness. The group created and presented a Kindness Assembly in February for Pink Shirt Day. They also did random acts of kindness on a regular basis. The time each week was spent in building community, learning and practicing.

Checking:

• At the end of the year, we did empathy interviews with all students involved, even the ones that did not regularly attend to find out why.
• We shared the student feedback at our year end staff meeting.
• Students definitely had more connections to the adults, only one student could not name at least 2 adults as cheerleaders – she was one who did not regularly attend. They enjoyed the tea and discussions. The favourite action was the kindness assembly presentation. The one student who changed the most in a positive way had a lot of great suggestions for future projects.

Reflections/Advice: Every school has some mean students. It is key to peel back the layers and find out why. The professional reading was very helpful. The investment to time is key. Tea and treats were also helpful in building a positive group, as these students have so many negatives at school.

School Name: Mount Boucherie Secondary School

School District: SD#23 Central Okanagan

Inquiry Team Members: Mary Redfearn: mary.redfearn@sd23.bc.ca
Ryan Mansley: ryan.mansley@sd23.bc.ca
Toni Owens: toni.owens@sd23.bc.ca
Nicole Rishaug: nicole.rishaug@sd23.bc.ca
Christian Rogers: christian.rogers@sd23.bc.ca
Tom Harbour: tom.harbour@sd23.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: mary.redfearn@sd23.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Transitions Study

Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Secondary (8-12)

Curricular Areas Addressed: Career Education, Other: Indigenous Education

Focus Addressed: Indigenous understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Community-based learning, First Peoples Principles of Learning, Indigenous pedagogy, Land, Nature or Place-based learning, Self-regulation, Social and emotional learning

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Bridging the gap between home, families and the school; building positive relationships and connections.

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: We led with the first of the four key questions and adapted the rest to fit with our own hunches and focus from our scan in the previous year, which asked all four questions. We heard and validated student stories, put students at the center, and acknowledged connections to culture and community.

Focus: We realized that students are lacking skills both when they come to the building and once they leave. We also wanted to improve attendance for our Indigenous students by building meaningful connections.

Hunch: Kids in the program are connected to Indigenous Academy staff, but not necessarily those beyond this program. Another hunch was that building connections would improve connections and success.

New Professional Learning:

• We attended the NOIIE conference
• Wayi Wah!
• University course on local Indigenous culture and knowledge
• Restitution and Restorative practices book

Taking Action: We transitioned a semestered Leadership class into a year long Indigenous Learning Community, to build consistent community for our vulnerable students. We’ve invited school-based team members into our community to grow comfortability. We’ve taken action by scanning and interviewing students, establishing relationships with students and setting the foundation to do more work next year. We’re also planning action items such as a welcome back BBQ and Truth and Reconciliation Assembly.

Photo description: This is a photo of our Indigenous students picking sage with various members of our school-based team

Checking: We’re diversifying our student interviews, and doing individual interviews allowing students to share more comfortably than in small groups. We built the year-long learning community – which was successful for our vulnerable students – but it wasn’t yet enough to make them comfortable beyond this community. We’ve seen a positive change in our interviews by seeing more adults being identified. We’ve realized that we need to be more intentional about including other adults in the building. We’ve built relationships within the community, and all of our Indigenous students and families were invited to the Siya Festival on the last day of school.

Reflections/Advice: We’re still learning and actioning. It’s important for other groups to understand that it takes time to do this properly, and you’ll start spiraling beyond the original spiral. Our next steps are to start strong by welcoming students and families next year and set a positive tone for connection! We will return in September knowing that these action items are in place.

School Name: Rutland Senior Secondary & Mount Boucherie Secondary

School District: SD#23 Central Okanagan

Inquiry Team Members: Teresa Jackson: teresa.jackson@sd23.bc.ca, Michelle Johnson: michelle.johnson@sd23.bc.ca, Ryan Mansley: ryan.mansley@sd23.bc.ca, Stacey Mee: stacey.mee@sd23.bc.ca, Mary Redfearn: mary.redfearn@sd23.bc.ca, Raquel Steen: raquel.steen@sd23.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: Raquel Steen/raquel.steen@sd23.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Intermediate (4-7), Secondary (8-12)

Curricular Areas Addressed:

• Career Education
• Other: Leadership

Focus Addressed:

• Indigenous understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation)
• Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving)
• First Peoples Principles of Learning
• Growth mindset
• Inclusion and inclusive instructional strategies
• Indigenous pedagogy
• Land, Nature or Place-based learning

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Students’ connections to staff in schools, beyond the teachers, and advocates directly involved in the Indigenous learning communities.

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: One of the first steps of our project was to do a large-scale scan of our Indigenous student body within our high school, as part of my school’s participation in the Network of Inquiry and Indigenous Education project. NOIIE urges educators across Canada to use their Spiral of Inquiry to develop better programming and systems for Indigenous learners and content. The spiral consists of “scanning, focusing, developing a hunch, new professional learning, taking action and checking that a big enough difference has been made” (Spiral of Inquiry). Our NOIIE inquiry process started with scans asking our Indigenous students Kaser and Halbert’s Spiral Playbook inspired guiding questions:
1. Can you name two adults in your school who believe you will be a success in life? Where else in the school community are you connected? Are there other adults beyond these two?
2. Where in life are you learning? What are you learning? Why is it important?
3. What is your comfort level going into office spaces such as the front office and the counselling/career centre for support? What are the barriers in using these supports?
4. What things are standing in your way of connection? Trauma, internal, external?

In our scan, our team of teachers, administration, counselors, and Indigenous advocates consulted over 220 Indigenous students at RSS and MBSS – some who were directly involved in Indigenous learning communities, and some who were not. Together, we asked them if they had two adults in the building who believed they would be a success, where and what are they learning that they deem important, and their comfortability using various spaces within our school building. The results from this inquiry scan were not surprising, in that many of the students already invested in our Indigenous learning communities lean on our staff heavily for academic and social emotional support. They do not necessarily deem academics as their primary learning, and in fact many shared that they are learning from their relatives, the land, or themselves through self-guided practices. Similarly, they felt uncomfortable accessing supports in the office spaces outside of our Indigenous wing, such as the careers and counseling centers and the front office.

Focus: MBSS: We are hoping to create a learning community that allows for deeper connections, more holistic support, and greater opportunities to learn on the land in multiple seasons.

RSS: We need to find better connections for our students to our counsellors, administrators, learning assistant teachers and adults in similar supportive roles. This will ensure that Indigenous students will have a level of comfort necessary to reach out to the supports outside of Indigenous Education and the Indigenous Learning Community.

Hunch: MBSS: Our hunch was that many of the students already invested in our Indigenous Academy lean on our Academy specific staff heavily for academic and social emotional support, and that they feel uncomfortable accessing supports in office spaces outside of our Indigenous wing such as the careers and counseling centers and the front office.

RSS: From these scans we were able to look at the data and find a focus that helped us develop a hunch. Our hunch was that our Indigenous students are quite comfortable and connected to their Indigenous Learning Community teachers and advocates, but not well connected to adults in the building beyond that. The scans further showed that there were reasons that our Indigenous students were not reaching out to or feeling comfortable with other adults in the building. Specifically, students hesitated to reach out to adults in student supporting roles because they felt they had not developed trusting relationships. The thoughts were that if students could build a connection with these adults in their own safe spaces, they would feel more comfortable going into spaces in the building and reaching out to these adults. Ultimately, the students would feel more supported throughout the building.

New Professional Learning: Regular meetings between schools have provided an opportunity for school teams to learn from one another.

Taking Action: MBSS: Based upon this scan, we decided to take action. Our learning community was born from us wanting to make space for and honour these perspectives from our students, while also finding ways to fix the cracks that they shone lights on. We will be continuing this inquiry project through NOIIE over the next two school years. Next year, we have timetabled for an Indigenous Learning community in which students will obtain their Indigenous Leadership credit alongside a credit for Career and Life education. Students will be with the same two teachers for half a day, every other day, all year long. We anticipate that this new learning community will allow for deeper connections, more holistic support, and greater opportunities to learn on the land in multiple seasons.

RSS: Quite early into this initiative we saw some success. The school counselors and administrators started joining our students in the classroom for circle, classroom visits, and joining in on field trips. Students and these adults were getting to know each other and creating relationships. Seeing how well this was going, we very quickly realized that we needed to encourage our Indigenous students to step out of their comfort zones and go into other less comfortable areas in the building. Our students were encouraged to seek out our administrators by approaching them in the main office. Students sought out our admin team for the purpose of discussing their leadership projects, creating school-wide announcements and having other conversations.

Photos (above): Pictures from MBSS & RSS NOIIE Inquiry Project activities

Checking: MBSS: It is too early in the process to be able to determine what differences have been made. Next year, once the new format for the community is established, we will check with learners regarding the impact of the changes. We are excited to monitor progress within and beyond this community through the NOIIE process.

RSS: Through these initiatives, our students are starting to feel more comfortable with their administrators. Students are starting to see the administrators as trusting adults that they can go to for support. We are celebrating success stories seeing how comfortable our Indigenous students are becoming and how they are now becoming leaders. We recently had a non-Indigenous student needing to speak with an administrator, but they were too nervous to approach their vice principal on their own. Because our Indigenous students are becoming comfortable navigating the main office space, one of our Indigenous students accompanied the non-Indigenous student to the office, introducing them to the vice principal and helping guide the conversation. This is such an incredible change from last fall.

Reflections/Advice: Our Indigenous students are still working on developing their relationships with our school counsellors and administrators. They are starting to interact with them outside the counseling and office space more often, but the vast majority still say they would still not seek out our school counsellors for social-emotional support. They do like the counsellors, just have not built trusting relationships at this time.

The large umbrella that our focus has been is student mental wellness. An area where we were able to see immediate and significant growth in this area was with time spent with Elders on the land. The students had the opportunity to go to the home of two Elders. In this space, they participated in traditional on land learning, as well as listened to the transition story of one of the Elders’ daughters. The entire day benefitted mental health through tradition and story. The student’s voiced that to learn their traditions meant healing for the whole community. Listening to the stories of an Indigequeer woman allowed the students to gain confidence of voice and inspiration to move forward with their own healing. Students expressed their calmness and feeling of healing through being on the land, being in community, being with the Elders, and having Indigenous role models (both 2 spirit and others).

Although the initial goal of connecting students with people outside the classroom community is still important and we will continue in that route, it became very obvious the significant impact of walking in the Indigenous way with Indigenous community has on the students. My hunch is, that through supporting this action on a greater level, as well as continuing to make gains with counselors and administrators, the overall impact on positive mental well-being will be that much more significant.

Next Steps:
There has been great success thus far in our inquiry process connecting our Indigenous Learning Community students with our student support team, however, we seem to be falling short on connecting our Indigenous students outside the learning community to these supports. Our priority for the upcoming school year will be to include our Indigenous advocates in this inquiry project and share the work with them. From there, we will be in a better position to support not only our learning community students, but all of our Indigenous students as a whole. We are also looking at ways to better connect our Indigenous students to our counsellors. We are hoping to host an event for our grade nine students in the fall. The goal is to have our counsellors host the event, alongside our advocates, and invite the grade nine Indigenous students in for a lunch and meet & greet. Through these initiatives, we feel that we will be building stronger trusting relationships with our Indigenous students and the student supports outside their Indigenous Learning Community.

School District: SD#23 Central Okanagan

Inquiry Team Members: Mary Redfearn: mary.redfearn@sd23.bc.ca
Brad Kuhn: brad.kuhn@sd23.bc.ca
Scott Sieben: scott.sieben@sd23.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: mary.redfearn@sd23.bc.ca

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

Grade Levels: Secondary (8-12)

Curricular Area(s): Applied Design, skills & Technology, Arts Education, Career Education, Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Writing, Mathematics / Numeracy, Physical & Health Education, Science, Social Studies

Focus Addressed: Indigenous understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation)

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Indigenizing School Culture and Curriculum.

Scanning: In Indigenous Leadership, we do continual check-ins with our students and hear feedback on the school culture and community. We recently sent them on a scavenger hunt to determine our school culture and were surprised that, while we have an Indigenous Academy, our Indigenous lens is often limited to certain classes or areas of the school. For a school located just off the local reservation, with a high population of Indigenous students, these learners were not always at the centre of their learning (OECD). We formulated this inquiry project to first of all see why teachers are not incorporating as much Indigenous content into their curriculum as they could, and secondly to find ways to combat these hesitations. With a nation so focused on reconciliation, we recognize that we must first address the truth, and embrace the First Peoples Principles of Learning in all that we do.

Focus: While this project was designed to ultimately benefit our students, in this case study, our learners were actually the teachers and educators at the school. We sought out ways to make accessing and integrating Indigenous knowledge and content easier and more comfortable for teachers in all subject areas.

Hunch: As a non-Indigenous educator myself, I remember the hesitancy to utilize Indigenous perspectives and knowledge. My hunch for this inquiry was that other teachers at my school weren’t excluding these teachings maliciously, but were hesitant to incorporate perspectives in fear of disrespecting a teaching, or perhaps they simply did not know enough to teach.

New Professional Learning: Throughout this process I was able to explore a plethora of local knowledge and teachings. I used resources curated by my own district, past knowledge from my Indigenous Education professors, and did a lot of research for specific subject areas. I was able to compile accessible materials for teachers to incorporate Indigenous content and perspectives into their curriculum, from music and drama, social studies and english, foods and sewing, to math and science. In many cases, I was also able to go into classes and teach the content for the first time, so that teachers would be more familiar with the material for future years. This was all made possible through a “culture block” in which I was a non-enrolling teacher in the last quarter of the school year.

Taking Action: In advance of my “culture block,” I developed generic lessons for each subject area that I was able to send out to departments in the first week of the quarter. This was beneficial as it allowed teachers to begin percolating on ideas and ultimately build a rapport with me if we hadn’t worked together in the past. I was happily surprised with just how many requests there were to fulfil during my culture block! Many teachers were emailing and calling me to research, plan, or teach a lesson for them. We also developed a “teacher relief campaign” where I worked with a leadership class for one week and taught them five 30 minute activities that they could do as a brain break in any classroom. Teachers were encouraged to sign up for this throughout the month of June.

Checking: Towards the end of my “culture block” I sent out a Google Form to all teachers to help me reflect upon these learning gains. As suspected, the biggest hesitation for teachers to incorporate Indigenous content was that they “didn’t want to disrespect the knowledge or misuse it”. Out of 18 responses, this answer had an overwhelming response of 17 selections. Teachers were also asked of their comfort level prior to collaborating with me, and answers were very dispersed. Five folks selected a ⅖ level of comfort, 4 selected a ⅗ comfort, 7 selected a ⅘ comfort, and 2 selected a 5/5 comfortability. In general, the teachers with whom I worked had a vastly different comfortability and were all beginning this collaboration from a different perspective. I was excited to see these numbers shift when asked of their comfortability after collaborating with me. No teachers selected a ⅕ or ⅖ comfort level. Only two teachers selected a ⅗ comfort, 13 teachers selected a ⅘ comfortability and 3 teachers selected a 5/5. This demonstrates teachers who were previously uncomfortable with incorporating Indigenous content into their lessons, are now feeling more prepared to do this in future lessons and years.

Reflections/Advice: In my Google Form, I asked teachers if this block should continue in future years, and if so, what should be the focus. I was thrilled to see that 18/18 people voted that we should absolutely have a culture block in future years! A majority of responders selected a preference for a teacher holding a culture block to work with them directly, to make a lesson plan that will fit in seamlessly with their curriculum; teachers also selected that it would be beneficial to have that expert go into classes and teach the students and classroom teacher the Indigenous content. I absolutely loved working with so many different students, teachers, and subject areas throughout this process. I was thankful to have my academic background in Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education to help me with some of the baseline knowledge for these lessons, and the opportunity to spark ideas from one of our amazing Indigenous Advocates at the school. This block could be beneficial in any school setting, but the person who implements it must have a strong comfort with and passion for Indigenous education.

School District: SD#23 Central Okanagan

Inquiry Team Members:benita.crombie@sd23.bc.ca, trent.dolgopol@sd23.bc.ca, leeann.yapps@sd23.bc.ca, brady.ibbetson@sd23.bc.ca, jasmeet.virk@sd23.bc.ca, mariejosee.bedard@sd23.bc.ca, wendy.briggs@sd23.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: wendy.briggs@sd23.bc.ca

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

Grade Levels: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7), Secondary (8-12)

Curricular Area(s): Other: Collaboration of school based administrators/educational leaders working across schools and levels focussing on innovative learning environments

Focus Addressed: Other: We could click on all the boxes as the focus was to see if the changes that we have been implementing with innovative learning environments has actually made a difference for students

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Both in our own setting and getting out of our own settings, what do we see in innovative learning environments that is making a difference for students’ learning.

Scanning: Our schools have each gone through a scanning process, slightly differently and with different levels of engagement from staff, students and parents. Three members of our group have completed Transformative Educational Leadership Program and all other members of our inquiry team are familiar with the OECD research. We have been trying to implement what we have learned across different settings to see if what we have tried is making the difference that we think it should. In our district, administrators have time within meeting scheduled time for collaborative inquiry, all based on OECD research. This is how we were able to work across schools and levels and to go outside our district to scan in other districts and countries. We were trying to determine if we could see with our own eyes that the changes implemented were making enough of a difference.

Focus: We hope that ALL our learners love learning and have opportunities for success. We know that not all settings are the same and that the same thing will not work everywhere for the ‘love of learning’. However, we were hoping to SEE with our own eyes, examples of empowered learners- staff, students, community. We were looking to observe real life examples like we had read in the research.

Hunch: Change is difficult for many. This includes our parents. We have experienced some students and parents who have challenged the changes being implemented in how we communicate and demonstrate learning and then report on it and how we regroup learners and structures. Our hunches is that we need to be very clear about why we are changing, basing it on international research and giving specific examples of positive change for learners. Our hunch was that if we could see it ourselves with our own eyes, we would be better able to explain the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ to others. We can read research and believe it could work, but we also wanted to SEE it in action.

New Professional Learning: We dug deeper into the OECD 7 Principles, the Innovative Learning Environments research and we looked at a Harvard inquiry learning lesson together. Our district also provided learning sessions for us along the way, always based on the OECD research. The manuals from OECD were very useful and it was good to have more time with these resources to dig deeper. Members of the team were able to visit each others’ schools, schools in a neighbouring district (SD 22 Vernon Community School) and schools in France and the USA (Opal) during the year. The key was that we were given the time, within our work day, to participate in this inquiry.

Taking Action: We visited other school settings and we talked to students. We also debriefed with one another. We spent time in each others’ schools and showed examples of what our learners were doing, how we were changing our communication of student learning and how student involvement had changed. We were given TIME from our district to do this, that made all the difference. We would encourage other districts to give their educational leaders the time when schools are in session to get out and observe what is happening. It makes all the difference to SEE with your own eyes what is possible. We were not looking to duplicate, we were looking at guiding principles and ideas that we could adapt in our own settings.

Checking: We do not believe that we will ever make enough of a difference! We think that this first year is not enough time to see differences for our students but our inquiry has made a difference for the team members by widening our understanding of what implementation of the OECD principles can look like, that it takes time, that we need patience and persistence and that together we can build the relationships required to be vulnerable, take risks and try new research based practices. We have challenged each others’ adaptive expertise to solve complex problems in our unique settings.

Reflections/Advice: This year was just the beginning of this inquiry. We learned that even though we were each at a different place in implementing what we have been learning from research about the most influential key guiding principles, all were in process. We recognized that there is a tipping point where enough of our school community members come on board and then significant change can take place rapidly. We know that we as leaders need support and encouragement to SEE with our own eyes and through the eyes of our colleagues that positive change is taking place and is benefiting all members of our learning communities. Having the time, space and encouragement to do what we ask our teachers to do is modelling and helping us to better understand both the challenges and benefits of collaborative inquiry across schools, districts, countries. It is important to have the kind of relationship with other leaders that we can challenge each other to continue to strive towards ALL learners having the right to dignity, purpose and options.