Proposal- Spring 2015 | inquiry-project

Field Study Proposal- Spring 2015

Inquiry Question:

How can the community structure, that I have established, be utilized as a supportive foundation for students to practice self-efficacy, self-regulation and access their peer supports. Furthermore, how can this structure be used as a tool in which to leverage more time for me to work intensively with students in need.

Subquestions:

How will my high flyers feel about helping my struggling students?
How can we use the community giveback day the piggy back as a model for helping each other?
How can students be involved in the creation of the model of support?
How can we build on the notion that students enjoy doing stuff at their own pace. (from “data” survey already collected)
How can I connect this structure to the student created classroom norms.
When I take part in a Learning Round, will the teachers actually come up with suggestions that will help my students? or will they just be stuck in a mainstream education mindframe?

Educational purposes and rationale:

I teach at Sea to Sky Alternative School in Squamish. My days are spent with the most sensitive young people who have lived through diverse and sometimes traumatic experiences. I want to model personal growth, the joy of learning, and perseverance to my students. Our school has students from grade nine through to grade twelve, and we also have a couple Adult Dogwood students who attend our school. This year I am with the junior group all day, every day, all year. This means I am teaching English. Social Studies, Planning, Art, Foods, PE, Math and Science. I team-teach with two different teachers. I don’t mean “team-teach” in the sense that we share the classroom on different days, but that there are two teachers in the same classroom at the same time. The “Humanities” courses together for half of the day, and the “Math and Science” courses the other half. We plug in the electives during these half day sessions. The junior group is a mix of grade 9 and 10 students and there couldn’t be more of a gap between their academic skill levels, mental health, maturity, time away from school, economic status, or family/community support. The junior group consists of 6 Intensive Behaviour, 2 Moderate Behaviour, 2 Learning Disabled, 1 Moderate Intellectual Disability, 1 Chronic Health/Intensive Behaviour. There are five students without any designation, but whom have social-emotional issues. I have 9 boys and 8 girls in this multi-grade, multi-curriculum classroom.

Readings & Resources:

Student Self-Efficacy in Introductory Project-Based Learning Courses- Geoffrey Pleiss, Madeline Perry, Yevgeniya V. Zastavker.
Reclaiming Youth at Risk- Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg, Steve Van Bockern
Co-Teaching With Strategy Instruction- Greg Conderman and Laura R. Heidi
When the Playing Fields Aren’t Even: personalized attention in a multilingual and varied ability classroom- Jacobs,G and Mayer,D.
Impact of the use of Facebook amongst students of high school age with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBD)- Fovet,F.
Beyond Inclusion: A Mindset, An Attitude, A Repertoire of Strategies- Randy Cranston, Faye Brownlie,
Practical Strategies for Challenging Collaborations- Sharon Cramer, Jan Stiver

Other Resources:

I have signed up to be part of a learning round. Collaborative Learning Rounds are an innovative approach to job embedded professional learning. This process has been developed by teachers in our district and it is based on Harvard’s Instructional Rounds. It is an opportunity to experience safe, purposeful, non-judgmental professional learning in a self-identified area of practice. Working with a team of colleagues, collaborative learning rounds will provide me with an opportunity to take a look at a specific student learning task in the classroom. I am hopeful that this will prove to be a supportive and objective way to look at student learning in my classroom.

Cory Hartling- Is a member of my staff and is currently part of the Leadership team, as well as a complex classroom advisor. He is always on the pulse of new ideas or innovative things going on in other teachers classrooms. I have one collaboration day a month and I plan on checking in with him then.

Technology resources:

I will use the “online” collaborative teacher desk that I developed last field study and anything new that I learn from my scholarly articles. The other main resource will be the Learning Rounds team. This team consists of Laurie Knoop (teacher), Sheena Cholewka (District Psychologist), Tamara Beaton (teacher), Naomi Radwiec (Teacher), Paul Lorette (Principal), Stuart Bent (Vice-Principal), Marilyn Caldwell (Director of Student Services), and Lisa McCullough (Superintendent). This team, and myself, will be collaborating and creating structures that will hopefully help address by inquiry question about students practicing self-efficacy, self-regulation and access their peer supports.

Themes: The below themes are the two that I think are of particular focus during this field study.

Recognizing and nurturing the potentials of all learners.
Moving toward collaboration, purpose, focus and engagement.

Capacities: I believe that I am using this field study to focus of the following capacities.

DEVELOP a disposition of inquiry and critical reflection to understand and develop your practice.
ENGAGE in innovative practice, encourage risk-taking and support learning communities in local and global contexts

Inquiry activities:

Beginning with the film project. This is a course where the students must learn with and from each other to create their project. I am hoping to piggy-back on the shared learnings from our community give back day and film course.
The rest of the activities are things that will be born from the second Learning Round that is taking place Tuesday March 17th.

Representing / Sharing Strategies and Strategies for documentation:

I will continue to write reflective pieces on my blog.
I will upload any photos or data from the Learning Rounds meetings, and any student artifacts that are proof for a positive trend towards my inquiry question.
I have three release days with the Learning Rounds team to create structures, review, report and assess the student’s developments towards self-efficacy and utilizing peer-support.
I will have a Google Doc and document any observations of the students using the structures that I create/implement.

Support system:

Josie Moore- She is the teacher partner I chose to start this my Google collaboration with, and also my team for the Learning Rounds and the focus of this field study.
SFU colleagues and mentors- Teachers who are currently teaching and taking the same course as myself. These are the people I need to be collaborating and talking with!
The Learning Rounds team- I will have four full days to meet up and collaborate with the team in relation to my Problem of Practice and this inquiry question.