Recent Changes

Click on the Discussions tab above
Scan the list of topics and click the topic to enter the blog
on the "Post New Topic""+New Post" button
Once in the blog you can add comments in the Reply window
Need Help?

Welcome to a blog space for AISI!
Getting Started
Click on the Discussions tab above
Scan the list of topics and click the topic to enter the blog
If you wish to add a new topic for discussion, click on the "Post New Topic" button
Once in the blog you can add comments in the Reply window
Need Help?
Click on the help link above to learn more about wikis.

Research and Evidence
Keep the evidence that you are using manageable and relevant. A piece of evidence could involve one student and how a digital tool assisted them in a particular way over time. It could be focused on one assignment/unit/ process and the various kinds of feedback you gained from this one experience together. Evidence should be centered around one small objective in your teaching/learning life in a space of time. Better to keep the evidence simple and focused than too broad where it looses real meaning.

Community Engagement
Our parent and student bodies do not necessarily know what AISI is all about. How do we involve them more fully and more clearly?

What have we already done?

• updates in newsletters and on the plone, parent evenings/events, presentations to parent councils, bulletin boards, embedding assessment for learning tools into parent events, providing literacy or 21st century workshops.

• changed assessment practices. Students ARE understanding the assessment changes. They are talking the language of assessment. Do we know if they are talking that language with their parents? Depends whether we are working in elementary, middle or high schools, it seems.

• the parents who are "getting it", are getting it from their kids.

What seem to be the roadblocks and successes?

• ??? Are we asking the right questions when we talk to both parents and students?

• we include the acronym AISI, and it doesn't have meaning for parents. We need to be clear about the purpose of our projects, and to share the clear targets of the projects with our school community in friendly and specific language.

• maybe we need to take that "AISI" bit off the table and just talk to our parents about the assessment. We'd be thrilled if our parents understood the difference between assessment of and for learning. The assessment piece would still be there if AISI was gone...it is important to talk to them about the enduring understandings. They care about their child's learning, and are not so concerned about how we get there.

• Gradebooks and Teacher Logic are confusing for parents, as they don't understand the formative "practice" piece, or weightings for assessment tools of varied complexity.

• We need to further discuss the issue. It IS an issue across our division. At our schools, can we survey parents about what parent engagement should look like at the elementary, middle and high school levels? What is the parent's role? What are their expectations from us in the way of communication? What do you know clearly about our school? What do you not know and want to know? We need to communicate to our parents through the kids. If the kids begin to communicate purposefully with their parents about the work, about the events, about the discussions, are we helping them to lay the foundation to go deeper?

• So much has changed in the last few years in how we approach teaching and learning. Prior to that, and within the experiences of our parents, we've got hundreds of years of a familiar pattern in place.

• Manny - we are living in unconventional times, but are using unconventional strategies from the past. They are not working. Question: if we could take ourselves "outside of the box", what would you do?

Next steps...

What are the questions for the parents in the accountability survey? Need to be sharing the evidence to show what we are doing in our schools with parents regularly. When they answer those questions at the end of the school year, they don't remember the events and successes from the beginning of the year...we don't, unless we document it all. Keep a compilation on the plone for those who need to review prior to the survey.

We could have talked for another hour! We ran out of time here, and will continue.

Teacher Professional Growth
how is collective PD handled?
-surveyed staff regarding what they would like to see during PL-days
-unity, communication, character development, technology, and assessment - sometimes these become in-house CofP's
-PL-days are based on staff requested focus areas
-some have a focus on the AISI focus overall to embed the AISI into whatever area of work you are involved in during the year/semester/course
-there was an opportunity to create a proposal, but it needed to link with the school's ed focus and/or RVS focus, as well as personal TPGP regarding what is worked on
-accountability - checklist based on provided dates for what needs to be done by when
-when changes are in evidence, it becomes
-afternoon portions are four set topics and staff select which to attend - there are repeat options so staff have a full breadth of opportunity
-some have a collective focus in the morning and then the afternoon is for them to work on their focus area (based on proposal) - this can be department, AISI, technology, etc..
-providing lots of opportunities to find entry points and develop/grow

Teacher Professional Growth
reporting on TPGP's
-staff is accountable at the end of the year
-sometimes we hand them in but never re-visit it again or hear about it again
-sometimes it's the leaping off point for further work next year
-we'd like to share it further and have it build into a celebration of our work

Teacher Professional Growth
-we need to be proactive and set up the direction we would like to go and participate in moving toward it
-this allows us to create our own paths, rather than having them imposed upon us
-the day is coming where we need to show what we're doing and we need to have the skills to meet and create learning experiences in the 21st Century world
-they need to want to make time
-as a district we need to look at this issue and everything that is required of and expected of teachers - it's a full plate, so how do we make it "manageable" and passion-filled at the same time
-what is the path to tap into our hearts, providing learning/growth opportunities for staff, while still focusing on students
-can we expect everyone to be with us? this might be setting the bar too high - we're not all high flyers or fully invested in the process
-bee hive analogy: focus on the honey bees (the passionate ones), and help them fuel their passions - they will take it viral; the bumblebee is sitting on the fence and will fly with the group. The other bees we need to prove to them that this is the way to go; otherwise there needs to be a fierce conversation about not being able to stay behind
-Administration's role is to have the "being involved" and "moving forward" conversation
-we bring fierce topics to the table about learning and student engagement
-lay the ground work for the passionate conversation, but it is not our role to force them
-

Community Engagement
FOIP Form: FP10_10 General Video Consent

Dear Parent(s)/Gaurdian(s),
The Grade 1 classrooms of 1L, 1R and 1Y are working together on a cross curricular inquiry project that will grow throughout the spring. We want to experiment with a new channel of communication between home and school by creating a blog that will chronicle and celebrate our upcoming project. On the blog you will find descriptions of upcoming project activities, multimedia examples of student work, teacher reflections and calls for volunteers, materials or resources required by the teachers. We are very excited about the possibility of taking the roof off of our classrooms through this medium and sharing with you the exciting learning taking place in grade 1. Please review the attached Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy forms that provide consent for us to create this blog. We will send home a letter in the near future with the web address for our blog, however if you would like to receive e-mail notifications when our blog is updated, please dettach and return the portion of the form below. If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact your child’s homeroom teacher. The project description attached to this letter will provide you with more information about the exciting project “Connect” that our blog will showcase.

We appreciate your continued support,


Lani Loewen, Angela Rott and Karen Leyland

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I _ would like to receive email notification of updates to the

“Connect” blog at the following address:

Signed: Date:

Connect: A Grade 1 Inquiry Project

The focus of our upcoming inquiry is to connect our student community to the ways of life of the past and to the natural world, with the aim of applying our learning to living our lives in a more sustainable way. The key understandings that we hope students foster in this inquiry include:

• Plants and animals are of vital importance in our community.
• People have an important impact on ways in which plants and animals meet their basic needs.
• It is important to understand where the food we eat comes from and to experience the joy of growing our own food.
• Learning about the past gives us an appreciation for the things we have and can also teach us a great deal about how to be better stewards of our community and our natural world.

We have planned a great number of lessons and activities to help build these understandings and we hope that our inquiry takes flight and leads us to rich and exciting learning opportunities. Here is a list of some of our most exciting plans:
• A celebration of Earth Day
• Making Buns and Butter
• Designing, constructing, nurturing and harvesting a community garden
• Hatching ducklings
• Interviewing Senior Citizens
• Investigating artifacts from the past
• Writing a story about our community to share in a video conference with students from different communities
• Hosting a heritage lunch
• A field trip to Pioneer Acres

This project will incorporate the learning outcomes from Science, Social Studies and Language Arts and the fine arts will be infused throughout this project as students will be documenting their learning in a variety of artistic mediums including a sketch book, water colour painting, sculpting and more.