Timetable

LAKE TRAIL TIMETABLEWHY ARE WE CHANGING?

WHAT ARE WE CHANGING?

Please provide us your

questions, concerns,

comments.We need the

good as well as the concerns.

(Online Survey Available)

Here are a few of our frustrations:

PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT TIMETABLE

Our current timetable is confusing, with rotating blocks on rotating days.

By May, students are still confused about which day it is and what the block order is on that particular day.Some students have simply given up and just look for classmates to follow.


Excerpt from college and

university student papers

Secondary time-table model does not work

the way our minds work.


WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

• Our current timetable does not work for middle school minds: Secondary timetable model does not really work for Middle School. Subjects are separate and provide no context. With no reason to remember content, other than for a test or specific assignment, content is easily forgotten and becomes of no use to students.

• Another example of what happens when information has no context or importance to a student: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wk4qG2mIg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wk4qG2mIg

r

Circles

AVI LUXENBURG

Are you one of the very few people

who would know how to figure out

how much cement you will need for a circular foundation for this structure?

r

Circles

Across = 4 mDepth = 10 cm

AVI LUXENBURG

In school, you were taught (several times over a few years) how to figure out the area

of a circle and the volume of a sphere.Do you remember?

Is it important to remember?

WHY?

• Separating general topics into subject areas has advantages, in that it allows one to go deep into a topic without the distraction of context and is easier to teach. (Example: Solving an equation for x is complex enough, with all sorts of rules, to confuse the issue with why one would do this and when.)

But...• Providing context, personalization, meaning, and

usefulness to the concepts means they are not just floating around the brain, un-tethered and not useful. (Example: Create a spreadsheet that automatically figures out the PST and GST on the product you created for your business – and then provides a total to the customer – this is the same as solving for x.)


• Students had too many teachers for the teachers to effectively monitor them and to develop deeper relationships with them. This was affecting student success, as students in middle school need to have stronger adult connections and more continuous accountability.


WE DO NOT HAVE TO BE SLAVES TO THE CURRENT TIMETABLE

Foundation and Structure – the Pods• We broke the school up into grade-specific pods, where

each student would only have three core teachers for the whole year, and where each core teacher is responsible for 90 students during the whole year.– Example:

• The grade 9 Pod has Grant Taylor teaching Science and PE, Lance Lloyd teaching Math, Health and Careers and as the Pod’s learning assistance teacher, and Avi Luxenburg teaching Humanities (English and Social Studies).

• Most of the week is Pod time, where the separate subject areas are taught, but with teachers in constant communication regarding the needs of the students and in continuous integration of the subject areas. Next slide shows a potential example.

HOW WE DEALT WITH IT – THE NEW TIMETABLE

Grade 9 Student Schedule Example

Block Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

1 PE Mixed HCE/Science HumanitiesScience / Math /

Humanities

2 Math Humanities Inquiry Mixed Inquiry

3 Elective Science

PLC

Math Multi-Age Elective

4 Humanities PE Electives Multi-Age Elective

Foundation and Structure – the PodsBenefits of the Pod:• There is immense flexibility in how things are handled. Since there are only three teachers, it is much

easier to coordinate integrated studies and projects. • The Pod has its own Learning Assistance Teacher (Lance), who is responsible for 90 students, not 270.• The teachers have fewer students whose progress needs to be monitored, and so there is going to be far

more accountability with the students.• Much easier for teachers to get to know the students; and therefore, provide more personalized

instruction and support.• Much easier for teachers to adapt to a need. Example: if the teachers find there is a math concept that is

absolutely necessary and that students simply are not “getting”, the pod teachers can swarm the problem, providing different contexts to the issue. For instance, while the math teacher is developing formulas for Cartesian coordinate systems, the Science teacher and the Humanities teacher (who is also the computer teacher) can provide context for Cartesian coordinate systems (Video game development, archeology....) The teachers can more easily “get together” to discuss the needs of the group and adjust to them together.

• The flexibility allows the pod teachers to adjust the timetable for special work. For example, the grade 9 pod teachers have decided to have two “mixed blocks” a week. In these blocks, Grant Taylor will pull the leadership students for leadership work, Lance Lloyd will pull small groups of students who need learning assistance support in specific areas, and Avi Luxenburg would work with the rest of the Pod in areas that the teachers have determined there is a need. Perhaps we have decided to have students create stop-motion animations that teach younger students math concepts, such as how to find the area of a circle, how to find the volume of a sphere, how to solve for x...

• During four blocks in the week, an Art Specialist and an Education Technology Specialist will join the pod to help with integration of subject areas.

• ...


Grade 9 Student Schedule



Humanities


3 Elective Science

PLC



Inflexibility of timetable made working together very difficult:

• When teachers wanted to work together to integrate topics, which research shows helps teachers develop more engaging learning environments, it was almost impossible to coordinate due to the inflexibility of the timetable.

• Students were limited to the cohort with which they travelled. Although this could help build deeper relationships, it was also limiting in that it was more difficult to find others with similar interests and goals with which to work. In the new model we wanted both deeper relationships and flexibility.


Teacher collaborative planning was near impossible to coordinate: • When teachers wanted to plan together and provide integrated

projects for the students, it became more and more difficult to plan and coordinate. Teachers were not able to schedule times to coordinate everything that needed to be coordinated

(Example: teams of teachers meeting with the Learning Assistance teachers to discuss modifications and adaptations required for special projects.) – Coordinating team-teaching was near impossible (like herding cats –

watch this video to see what it is like).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE

Teacher collaborative planning was near impossible to coordinate:

• Coordinating team-teaching was extremely difficult.

• As we attempted to create more integrated (and therefore more meaningful) projects, we found a greater need for coordination between educators. Sometimes it became too much and we had to give up.

Example: We could not complete the ICAN project with more a couple of classes.


• It has become more and more difficult to have students complete homework. Many reasons for this... – Busy lives– Parents working and unable to provide support for school work in addition to

providing everything else that their children need– Lack of motivation and engagement– ...

• We were desperate to figure out a way to take this on for parents and to provide time for students to complete work at school. Work completion means that students are developing good habits, able to go deeper into topics, and are experiencing more success. The current timetable does not allow time for students to complete work they have not finished in class, AND does not provide additional time for challenge and enrichment for students who need it.


PLC (Professional Learning Communities) - The Mortar• More and more schools have solved the near impossible problems

around school coordination of planning, integrating, providing powerful and engaging projects together, and student personal engagement and accountability with the implementation of PLCs. We now have an elementary school and a secondary school in the valley that have embraced this model and are finding it to be quite effective in improving student engagement and success.

• One afternoon a week we will be building and coordinating the programs for students. For a good portion of the students, this will be a time for completion of school work and of projects (at school). For another portion of the students, this will be a time for enrichment, with activities that include theatre arts, physical activity, community service and much more (at school). For some students, where the parent concurs, this will be an early dismissal time (if they have earned it and are already experiencing enrichment outside of school time).





Humanities


3 Elective Science

PLC



The New Role of Inquiry-Based Learning (21st Century Learning)

• Masses of research is showing that Inquiry-based learning is extremely powerful in engaging students and providing natural context and meaningfulness to the learning experience.

• The current timetable has little room for the kinds of self-organization, coordination and support that is needed for inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is risky for teachers, as they have been trained to and are accustomed to planning every step of the learning process for students. The Inquiry model often yields results which are unplanned for and can be quite marvelous.

We need a model that provides inspiration and support for Inquiry learning, and that also provides students opportunities to understand how they learn and interact with their environment before releasing them to lead their own learning.


Inquiry – The Inspiration and Design • There is simply too much research on the power of Inquiry-based learning to be

ignored. Context seems best created by starting with a question rather than content; by having students take ownership and control of their learning.

• Example: Humanities 9 next year has an overarching umbrella question: “What makes a good life?” Student exploration of the Social Studies and English topics will have that overarching question as a filter with which to experience the content. So... Social Studies learning outcomes around exploration of the new world, aboriginal lives and issues, and revolutions (industrial, political...) will be handled through personal explorations of questions that choreograph student engagement back to the main essential question. For example, when looking at revolutions, students will be asked questions like: “How has the industrial revolution improved our lives?” “How has it ruined our lives?” “What matters to us?” In this model, students build their own context for the material, and their own understanding. All topics are personalized.

• Another example of Inquiry is the I-CAN project. View this 22 minute documentary Video on last week’s event in School District 71.

• The new timetable formalizes time for student inquiry.


http://sd71.bc.ca/news.php?news_id=488

http://sd71.bc.ca/news.php?news_id=488




Humanities


3 Elective Science

PLC



• In our new timetable model, inquiry is offered two blocks a week, with mixed age groups. For the first year, we have broken down the inquiry projects into four different projects, all followed by presentation of the material to the school or community in an expo. The projects allow for a gradual release to more and more student-led learning. The four areas are:

• I AM – When teachers were asked which skills, abilities and traits they felt were important for students to have when they leave Lake Trail, one of the most prevalent wish was that students know themselves better: how they learn, personality, goals... and more. The I AM project has students engage in activities that generate deeper self-understanding and where they create a presentation about themselves.

• Science Fair – Students will generate a Science Inquiry question, research, experiment, and present to the school and community.

• Heritage Fair – Students will generate a question around a heritage topic (family, history, provincial, national...) and prepare a presentation for the school Heritage Fair. This Heritage Fair will lead to the district Heritage Fair and, for some students, beyond.

• Self-Chosen Inquiry project. Students will now be ready to select their own inquiry topic based on their own interest.

• Teachers will act as consultants and support the student processes. As these are multi-grade groupings, Grade 9 students will also provide leadership and support for younger students.


• Little to no elective choices:

A small school trying to run a secondary timetable model means that students get little to no choice regarding electives.

This year we had several divisions that were simply given an “elective”, such as Gardening or Multi-Media, without being given any choice in the matter... just because they were with a specific travelling group.


Electives – Variety of Interest• Not only will students have real choice with

regard to electives, we will be offering multi-grade electives every Friday, with variety that is only limited by the imagination. Teachers will provide electives in areas of their expertise (Art, Theatre, Photography, Gardening, Animation, Video, Basketball, Video Production... and the list goes on). This is the time in which community members will also be able to provide electives to students (with teacher support).





Humanities


3 Elective Science

PLC



We need your comments• Please let us know what you like.• What concerns do you have?• What comments do you have?• We will collect your comments and questions and take them to

the timetable team. We will put together a document that shares your questions and our answers.

• It is important for us to get your feedback, concerns, comments, questions. Often folks will only provide concerns. We really, really need all of it... your concerns are important to us, but we also need to know what you like about the new timetable (otherwise we get a skewed perspective and the information we gather is essentially unusable).

• Link to feedback survey.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGpvR2FURmJ0U3IwVmVCVkJPTDFDUHc6MQ

Grade 9 Student Schedule Example



Humanities


3 Elective Science

PLC



Timetable

Education

pod teachers

theleadership students

students duringthe

fewer students

students inmiddle school

younger students math

math teacher

small groups of students