Archive

• Beyond the Binder

  August 14, 2020 11:58 AM Comments Off on Beyond the Binder

  In Canada, K-12 education systems have a key role in developing strategies to support the mental health and wellbeing of students and staff. While stand alone programs have provided useful content for educators in addressing mental health and wellbeing, it is increasingly recognized that more systemic and sustainable solutions are required to address these issues over the long-term.

  Grounded in discussions that took place at two National Roundtable events, this paper outlines why and how K-12 system leaders and their partners must move beyond one-off interventions, programs, and professional development towards an approach where mental health and wellbeing is integrated in the core mandate of public education.

• Beyond the Binder

  11:58 AM Comments Off on Beyond the Binder

  In Canada, K-12 education systems have a key role in developing strategies to support the mental health and wellbeing of students and staff. While stand alone programs have provided useful content for educators in addressing mental health and wellbeing, it is increasingly recognized that more systemic and sustainable solutions are required to address these issues over the long-term.

  Grounded in discussions that took place at two National Roundtable events, this paper outlines why and how K-12 system leaders and their partners must move beyond one-off interventions, programs, and professional development towards an approach where mental health and wellbeing is integrated in the core mandate of public education.

• How can Compassionate Systems Leadership embed SEL and well-being across an entire school district?

  August 10, 2020 2:37 PM Comments Off on How can Compassionate Systems Leadership embed SEL and well-being across an entire school district?

  Well-being and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) have become increasingly top priorities in Canadian schools as concerns rise about the mental health and well-being of both staff and students. However, the vast majority of education leaders have not been trained to lead efforts that would integrate well-being and SEL across entire school districts through programs, policies, and practices that transform school cultures for the long term. This means that SEL initiatives are often one-off and unsustainable, and are restrained from becoming a reality across schools in every province and territory. On the flipside, emerging practice demonstrates that a Compassionate Systems Leadership approach – which combines mindfulness, compassion system-wide thinking and action – can strengthen the capacity of education leaders to effectively embed well-being at all levels of the education system.

  THE THREE MAIN COMPONENTS OF COMPASSIONATE SYSTEMS LEADERSHIP INCLUDE: 

  1. Personal mastery

  Developing self-awareness, mindfulness, and compassion for self and others. 

  2. INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

  Building one’s awareness through intentional listening as well as clear and respectful communication, which can lead to more effective problem-solving among teams.

  3. SYSTEMS THINKING 

  Understanding the underlying elements that shape a school’s organizational culture (i.e. its system of beliefs, values, behaviours, ways of communicating, etc.) as a way to determine levers for change.

  ---

  IN ADDITION, HERE ARE THREE KEY PRINCIPLES TO REMEMBER WHEN PRACTICING COMPASSIONATE SYSTEMS LEADERSHIP

  1. INNER CHANGE CREATES OUTER CHANGE

  The first step in building leadership capacity is to increase awareness of yourself – your own values and biases.

  2. EVERYONE IS A LEADER 

  Everyone has the potential to create or support change regardless of their position within the school and district. More impact can be achieved when school leaders and staff learn and act together.

  3. LEARNING IS CONTINUOUS 

  Developing skills and knowledge is an ongoing effort of practicing what you’ve learned, reflecting on what’s working and not working, and being open to adapting.

  ---

  A Compassionate Systems Leadership approach guides education leaders in developing their own SEL skills as they grow in their ability to implement system-wide change in support of staff and student well-being. When education leaders cultivate compassion through SEL skills including empathy, sound decision-making, and self-regulation, they are better able to create educational cultures that emphasize well-being, understand barriers to change, and encourage other staff to contribute towards the change process. 

   

  References

  Schroeder, J. & Rowcliffe, P. (2019). Growing Compassionate Systems Leadership: A toolkit. Retrieved from: http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/media/systems_toolkit_2019_final.pdf

   

  WITH THE GENEROUS FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF: 

            

• How can Compassionate Systems Leadership embed SEL and well-being across an entire school district?

  July 28, 2020 12:57 PM Comments Off on How can Compassionate Systems Leadership embed SEL and well-being across an entire school district?

  Well-being and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) have become increasingly top priorities in Canadian schools as concerns rise about the mental health and well-being of both staff and students. However, the vast majority of education leaders have not been trained to lead efforts that would integrate well-being and SEL across entire school districts through programs, policies, and practices that transform school cultures for the long term. This means that SEL initiatives are often one-off and unsustainable, and are restrained from becoming a reality across schools in every province and territory. On the flipside, emerging practice demonstrates that a Compassionate Systems Leadership approach – which combines mindfulness, compassion system-wide thinking and action – can strengthen the capacity of education leaders to effectively embed well-being at all levels of the education system.

  THE THREE MAIN COMPONENTS OF COMPASSIONATE SYSTEMS LEADERSHIP INCLUDE: 

  1. Personal mastery

  Developing self-awareness, mindfulness, and compassion for self and others. 

  2. INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

  Building one’s awareness through intentional listening as well as clear and respectful communication, which can lead to more effective problem-solving among teams.

  3. SYSTEMS THINKING 

  Understanding the underlying elements that shape a school’s organizational culture (i.e. its system of beliefs, values, behaviours, ways of communicating, etc.) as a way to determine levers for change.

  ---

  IN ADDITION, HERE ARE THREE KEY PRINCIPLES TO REMEMBER WHEN PRACTICING COMPASSIONATE SYSTEMS LEADERSHIP

  1. INNER CHANGE CREATES OUTER CHANGE

  The first step in building leadership capacity is to increase awareness of yourself – your own values and biases.

  2. EVERYONE IS A LEADER 

  Everyone has the potential to create or support change regardless of their position within the school and district. More impact can be achieved when school leaders and staff learn and act together.

  3. LEARNING IS CONTINUOUS 

  Developing skills and knowledge is an ongoing effort of practicing what you’ve learned, reflecting on what’s working and not working, and being open to adapting.

  ---

  A Compassionate Systems Leadership approach guides education leaders in developing their own SEL skills as they grow in their ability to implement system-wide change in support of staff and student well-being. When education leaders cultivate compassion through SEL skills including empathy, sound decision-making, and self-regulation, they are better able to create educational cultures that emphasize well-being, understand barriers to change, and encourage other staff to contribute towards the change process. 

   

  References

  Schroeder, J. & Rowcliffe, P. (2019). Growing Compassionate Systems Leadership: A toolkit. Retrieved from: http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/media/systems_toolkit_2019_final.pdf

   

  WITH THE GENEROUS FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF: 

            

• It takes a village: A Comprehensive School Health approach to well-being

  June 30, 2020 3:19 PM Comments Off on It takes a village: A Comprehensive School Health approach to well-being

• What is the value of Game-Based Learning?

  June 25, 2020 11:14 AM Comments Off on What is the value of Game-Based Learning?

  Playing and designing games have been of interest to K-12 educators as ways to support student learning. Parents are also increasingly accepting of video and board games as their choice of family activity, based on a 2018 survey by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada finding that 71% of Canadian parents play video games with their children. Game-Based Learning involves learning situations where children play or design games – whether digital, physical, or table-top games – in which they solve problems and gradually develop new knowledge and skills. Games have been found to improve students’ motivation and cognitive development, such as memory and reasoning.

  Key elements of Game-Based Learning include:

  • Students working towards a goal, making decisions, and experiencing the consequences of those decisions. For example, the primary objective of the game ‘Monopoly’ is to own as much property and to have the most money by the end of the game, make financial-related decisions including managing money and deciding to sell/purchase property, and experience the consequences of paying rent when landing on other player’s properties, paying loans/taxes to the bank, losing your property if unable to make payments;
  • Different approaches such as playing games, modifying games, and designing games; and
  • Games being easy to learn and interesting to the learner (e.g. ‘Inversé’ is a game with only a few rules and colourful wooden pieces, yet can be highly interesting while supporting spatial thinking: volume, estimation, mental rotation).

  HERE ARE 3 KEY TIPS FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS LOOKING TO USE GAMES TO SUPPORT LEARNING:

  1. You don’t have to be an expert at playing games: Students may have better gaming skills. However, it’s important to remember that as a teacher and/or parent, it’s not essential for you to master the game, but rather to play it for yourself (or with your child) so that you can understand how it might align with targeted learning goals. 
  2. Make connections to other subjects: While students learn many things through playing games (i.e. rules, strategies), they can also learn about a variety of subject areas through the social interactions involved (e.g. how shifting allies or enemies changes political and economic relationships, in the videogame ‘Civilization’). 
  3. Facilitate a redesign project to encourage creativity and critical thinking by: 

  • • Encouraging students to change specific game elements (e.g. game rules, number of players, the dimensions or shapes of the game board or pieces)
    • Reimagining the game by changing the storyline (e.g. creating new characters, changing setting, and creating new challenges for players)
    • Changing the game structure (e.g. changing the game goal, making the game based on strategy instead of chance)
    • Making a new game by integrating two different existing games (e.g. combining the games ‘Inversé’ and ‘Connect 4’)

  ---

  Research demonstrates that Game-Based Learning enhances essential life skills that are foundational to a child’s development. In particular, Game-Based Learning provides students with an interactive learning experience where they have the opportunity to use and develop many different cognitive, social, and physical skills. Problem solving, critical thinking, strategy development, decision making, and teamwork are some of the many skills that games can provide.

  Additional Information and Resources

  • Game for Change (Games for making real-world impacts): http://www.gamesforchange.org 
  • Math Pickle (Puzzles and Board Games for Problem-Solving): http://mathpickle.com 
  • MIT developed educational games (integrating science and math curricula): https://education.mit.edu/project-type/games/ 
  • Edutopia (Tips for Game-Based Learning): https://www.edutopia.org/topic/game-based-learning

  References

  Clark, D. B., Tanner-Smith, E. E., & Killingsworth, S. S. (2016). Digital games, design, and learning: A Systematic review and meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 86(1), 79–122. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315582065

  Entertainment Software Association of Canada. (2018). Essential facts about the Canadian video game industry 2018. http://theesa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ESAC18_BookletEN.pdf 

  Gee, J. P. (2008). Learning and Games. In K. Salen (Ed.), The ecology of games: Connecting youth, games, and learning(pp. 21–40). MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ecology-games 

  Jaques, S., Kim, B., Shyleyko-Kostas, A., & Takeuchi, M. A. (2019). “I Just won against myself!”: Fostering early numeracy through board game play and redesign. Early Childhood Education, 26(1), 22–29. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/111252 

  Kim, B., & Bastani, R. (2017). Students as game designers: Transdisciplinary approach to STEAM Education. Special Issue of the Alberta Science Education Journal, 45(1), 45–52. https://sc.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ASEJVol45No1November2017.pdf 

  Kim, B. & Bastani, R. (2018). How Inversé merged with Go: (re)designing games as mathematical and cultural practices. In Proceedings of the 5thInternational STEM in Education Conference (pp.166-172). Brisbane, Australia: Queensland University of Technology. https://stem-in-ed2018.com.au/proceedings-2/ 

  Koabel, G. (2017). Simulating the ages of man: Periodization in Civilization V and Europa Universalis IV. The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, 10(17), 60-76. https://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/192 

  Sardone, N. B., & Devlin-Scherer, R. (2016). Let the (Board) Games Begin: Creative Ways to Enhance Teaching and Learning. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 89(6), 215–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098655.2016.1214473

  Squire, K. (2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed experience. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 19–29. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035008019 

  Qian, M., & Clark, K. R. (2016). Game-based learning and 21st century skills: A review of recent research. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 50–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.023

  Zimmerman, E. (2009). Gaming literacy: Game design as a model for literacy in the twenty-first century. The video game theory reader, 2(23-32). http://www.neliufpe.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/08.pdf

  WITH THE GENEROUS FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF: 

            

• WEBINAR: Responding Mindfully to Stress

  June 18, 2020 12:22 PM Comments Off on WEBINAR: Responding Mindfully to Stress

  This small-group online mindfulness workshop will take place via Zoom and is primarily for school-based K-12 educators and anyone interested in educator mental health and well-being. 20 participants maximum per session. 

  This small-group experiential workshop will provide a variety of mindfulness/attention practices that promote stress management. We will examine how understanding the physiology of stress, through the lens of mindfulness, can support educators and helping professionals in responding to situations with greater resilience.

  Mindfulness promotes self-regulation, resilience, stress management, and improved relationships, thereby supporting positive mental health and well-being in students, staff and parents, leading to transformations in school culture.

  The workshop will include one of the foundational mindfulness practices called the “body scan,” which is usually done lying down on a yoga mat or other comfortable surface. This practice can also be done seated in a chair. Please have ready a yoga mat, cushion and blanket for your own self care and comfort.

  During these 90-minute INTERACTIVE presentations, participants are encouraged to have their camera and microphone turned on as the intention of the workshop is to build community and provide a space for educators to feel supported and learn some simple, yet effective mindfulness techniques that can be used daily to support their well-being.

   

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  About Mindfulness Everyday

  At Mindfulness Everyday, we envision a society in which we relate to others, the environment, and ourselves with clarity and compassion. We promote mindfulness practices to enhance positive mental and physical health, compassionate action and resilience by providing stress reduction training and life skills for young people, educators, professional support staff and parents in the schools, and for organizations and members of the community.

• Positive Psychology in the K-12 Workplace

  10:11 AM Comments Off on Positive Psychology in the K-12 Workplace

• Family Ties: Connecting Food and Learning at Home

  June 16, 2020 12:10 PM Comments Off on Family Ties: Connecting Food and Learning at Home

  Since COVID-19 began, people’s relationship with food has been upended. Before, people may have had some meals provided at work, school, or at social functions, but in isolation many have taken it upon themselves to become self-sufficient in their daily meal prep. How many of us have seen videos on social media of a friend’s first attempt at baking bread or a triumphant picture of a successful attempt at a gourmet dinner? There has been a massive increase in the public’s interest in food, & the kitchen has once again become the hearth around which people gather to share, to learn, & to connect.

  Register now at: https://www.alumni.ubc.ca/event/family-ties-connecting-food-and-learning-at-home/

• WEBINAR: Moving Forward in the COVID-19 Era: Reflections for Canadian Education

  June 11, 2020 4:23 PM Comments Off on WEBINAR: Moving Forward in the COVID-19 Era: Reflections for Canadian Education

  Watch the full webinar below:

  This webinar is primarily for governments, education professional organizations, school and school district leaders, teachers and education support workers, and anyone interested in understanding current issues for changes to K-12 schooling for the education sector across Canada in the COVID-19 era. 

  In March of 2020, Canadian education systems first began to close schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As well as the emergency response shift to remote learning from home,  we must also begin to turn our attention to the inevitable task of planning for the future of schooling over the short and medium term. As school reopenings internationally are showing, this is not simply a return to schooling as normal. Moreover, since education in Canada is a provincial responsibility, responses to COVID-19 have been diverse and we would expect plans for the future to be appropriately varied. Fundamentally, what we will need to ask ourselves is: “What conditions need to be in place for students to learn and for teachers to teach, and how will leaders across the system adapt to support these conditions?”

  This one-hour webinar panel discussion originally broadcasted on June 11th, 2020 explored how we will understand effective leadership across the education sector for the coming months and years by considering implications for governments, teacher organizations, and school leaders.

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  Don’t forget to read THIS ARTICLE by DR. pamela OSMOND-JOHNSON, DR. carol CAMPBELL, AND DR. katina POLLOCK:

  

  Read the full article

• Promoting Equity, Inclusion, and Respect

  11:29 AM Comments Off on Promoting Equity, Inclusion, and Respect

  With recent events in the U.S., the EdCan Network expresses our solidarity with the Black community and racialized individuals and acknowledges the damaging impacts of systemic racism and violence. As a national not-for-profit education organization, our mission is to ensure that each and every student thrives in our schools based on the values of equity, inclusion, and respect. As such, we remain committed to learning, listening, and knowledge sharing in support of the well-being of staff and students in our schools and education workplaces.

  

  Here are some articles that you can read to learn about systemic racism and its impacts on Black students and educators:
  

  • The 3 R’s of Diversifying Your Classroom Booklist
    • by: Kim Snider
  • Racism and K-12 Workplace Well-Being (Podcast)
    • by: EdCan Network, Rohan Thompson
  • Isn’t it about time we admit that race matters?
    • by: Carl E. James
  • The Foundations of Transformative Anti-Racism
    • by: George J. Sefa Dei, Andrea Vásquez Jiménez

  Additional articles on culturally relevant teaching:
  

  • Developing Intercultural Competence
    • by: Johanne Mednick Myles
  • Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy
    • by: Stephen Hurley
  • (Trans-multi)culturally Responsive Education
    • by: Latika Raisinghani

• WEBINAR: Work Intensification: How the role of Canadian principals and vice-principals is changing

  June 9, 2020 10:48 AM Comments Off on WEBINAR: Work Intensification: How the role of Canadian principals and vice-principals is changing

  This webinar is primarily for school district leadership, principals, vice-principals, professional associations, policymakers, aspiring school leaders, and anyone interested in the well-being of school leaders.

  ---

  Canadian school leaders are grappling with longer hours, increasing demands, and higher workloads than ever before, which is threatening principal recruitment, retention, and job performance. Work intensification involves managing condensed timelines and a simultaneous increase in the volume and complexity of tasks, activities, and other work demands. As effective school leaders are key to high-performing schools and healthy school environments, work intensification not only threatens school leader recruitment and retention, but also the well-being and performance of both staff and students.

  This one-hour webinar originally broadcasted on June 8th, 2020 explored the results of recent studies conducted in Ontario and British Columbia on how principal wellness and the role of school leaders is changing, including strategies that professional associations, school districts, policymakers, and school leaders themselves can take to improve principals’ and vice-principals’ well-being.

  Watch the webinar below:

• WEBINAR: Happy Teacher Revolution: Supporting the Mental Health and Wellness of Educators

  June 8, 2020 1:02 PM Comments Off on WEBINAR: Happy Teacher Revolution: Supporting the Mental Health and Wellness of Educators

  Happy Teacher Revolution is a Baltimore-born, international movement with the mission to organize and conduct support groups for teachers in the field of mental health and wellness to increase teacher happiness, retention, and professional sustainability.

  This one-hour experiential learning webinar originally broadcasted on May 28th, 2020 explored burnout, vicarious trauma, and self-care as a global professional development movement.

  Watch the full webinar below:

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  ABOUT DANNA THOMAS

  Danna Thomas is a former Baltimore City Public School teacher turned founder of a global initiative to support the mental health and wellness of educators. Her organization, Happy Teacher Revolution, is on a mission to increase teacher happiness, retention, and professional sustainability by providing educators with the time and space to heal, deal, and be real about the social-emotional demands they face on the job. Danna served as the national spokeswoman for the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) Maryland and the “Music for Mental Health” campaign. She is the recipient of the 2019 Johns Hopkins Community Hero Award and the 2019 Winner of the Johns Hopkins Social Innovation Lab. Danna’s favourite forms of self-care include playing backgammon, community hot yoga, and rocking out on the saxophone.

• Education Canada, June 2020 – Flipbook Edition

  June 2, 2020 4:18 PM Comments Off on Education Canada, June 2020 – Flipbook Edition

  The Skilled Trades

  In this issue, Education Canada looks at the role our public schools do, could, and/or should play in exposing students to these career pathways, preparing them for future labour market needs, and facilitating their transition to trades training. Are students given adequate experiential learning opportunities to consider trades, adequate opportunity to learn about them, and adequate support in negotiating entry to post-secondary programs and apprenticeships that will take them there? How can we shift the narrative, counter the stigma and articulate the value of skilled trades to youth and their parents? How does our education system embrace the multiple roles of fostering the skills and knowledge students require to become informed, active, citizens of the world, and also preparing them to meet the workforce needs of tomorrow?

  WEB EXCLUSIVES:

  • Vocational Education in Canadian Schools
  • Doing is Believing
  • Supporting Innovation Across the System

  Related EdCan Fact Sheets:

  • How can parents and teachers help K-12 students enter careers in the skilled trades?
  • How can parents contribute positively to their children’s career choices?

• Growing Well-Being Across a System

  11:45 AM Comments Off on Growing Well-Being Across a System

  Five B.C. educators with different roles and a shared interest in supporting well-being, came together in a collaborative project to grow well-being across the Langley school district. Here’s how they did it, and what they learned from the process.

  What started out as four individuals from different work roles, each of us having a shared goal of supporting well-being in schools, has become a collaborative passion project to grow and sustain well-being across our district. Through this article, we look back on our journey of learning and collaborating, reflecting on some of the insights we have gained about supporting staff well-being in school districts.

  Thanks to an assistant superintendent who saw an unusual, but natural, alignment in our work, we formed our district wellness team in the fall of 2017. We each had different but complementary roles – a district principal for student services, a district teacher/counsellor and a human resources manager. We also brought a health authority partner onto our team, providing a valuable broader view of the communities within which the students and educators work and live.

  We started our plans with a district-wide learning series on social emotional learning and well-being, to help staff understand the importance of this learning in schools and the amazing outcomes these skills and practices provide around student health, happiness and success. It became apparent that these were the same skills and practices that we needed to build as adults, both so we could model and teach them to students and for our own health and happiness. We were starting to see the importance of adult well-being to positive outcomes for both the adults and the students.

  We decided to make teacher and staff well-being our project focus. One of our first objectives was to gain an awareness of how our staff were doing, and to understand their sense of well-being at work. We wanted to gather people together to start a discussion and generate some ideas to support well-being in our district. As with many exciting and challenging tasks, this project became much more complex than we anticipated, and also very rich and rewarding. We are now at the stage of reflecting on all that we have learned, to inform our plans for how to continue the work of supporting teacher and staff well-being in our district. We’d like to share some of the themes that have emerged for us so far as we analyze and reflect on our experiences and data.

  Three interconnected parts

  Our work to date has underscored that well-being is holistic, encompassing interconnecting aspects. In particular, we have become aware of three important facets of staff well-being.

  1. Well-being is individual. An important part of increasing well-being lies with the individual person. This assumption was our starting point, and it has remained an important aspect of how we understand well-being as holistic and interconnected. Focusing on growing staff well-being had us thinking about how to support practices of self-awareness and self-care. Much of the first year of our project was learning about social emotional skills and bringing that back to the district as learning conversations in the workplace. We found that sometimes just acknowledging that self-care matters and sharing what that looks like can go a long way in supporting people to take care of themselves, especially in helping professions where we are so used to caring for others.

  2. Well-being is relational. The second interconnected part that became very clear is that well-being is relational and that we are better together, both in terms of productivity/success and in terms of health, happiness and overall well-being. The main focus of our second year was on the relational aspects in our well-being work. This led us to connect with Dr. Sabre Cherkowski. She was completing a multi-year research project on teacher well-being, where she and her colleague, Dr. Keith Walker, had built a theoretical and practical understanding of what it means for educators to flourish in their work.¹ Her research was framed within a positive organizational perspective that highlighted how focusing on and supporting positive human capacities at work, such as compassion, humility, kindness, and forgiveness, had a positive and generative affect that often led to increases in other aspects of work such as creativity, productivity, innovation, and commitment to the organization.

  We were interested in Dr. Cherkowski’s research approach of using a strength-based, appreciative perspective to notice and nurture what was already working well and what already gives staff a sense of well-being in their work. We were also interested in learning more about an appreciative approach to positive change, focusing on what happens when the whole system is invited into the conversation to reflect on how we might promote and support well-being across our district. With Dr. Cherkowski and the consent of our district, we designed a continuation of our learning series, inviting staff across the district to join us for three dinner events that offered an opportunity to:

  • learn about research on well-being in educational workplaces
  • engage in conversations designed to gain a better sense of what well-being means to different individuals and teams across the district
  • learn how to design a collaborative, appreciative inquiry project to further build on what is already working well
  • ensure opportunities to analyze, tweak and share progress of the inquiries
  • provide a model for how staff might create conditions in their work contexts for appreciative conversations at and about work.

  At each event, Dr. Cherkowski guided some 150 attendees through a sequence of reflections and activities focused on:

  • Purpose (what makes us feel alive, engaged, connected and well in our work?)
  • Passion (what are our strengths, gifts, talents that we can draw on to help live out our purpose at work?)
  • Play (how might we innovate, create, design environments that enliven our passions and purpose?)
  • Plan (what resources, materials, supports and knowledge do we need to build and grow our flourishing?)

  The conversations that emerged created a safe, caring, uplifted environment where colleagues shared their dreams and desires in their work, as well as their challenges and struggles. The evenings became a space for building the relational processes necessary for the work of nurturing well-being for self and others in our own work contexts.

  We observed that teams and individuals were now working on plans to connect what they were learning about flourishing to things they might try out in their context. One example was a principal who designed a “tree of flourishing” that she took to her teachers and staff. She suggested they fill out all the ways that they, their students, and their school community were experiencing well-being. As they filled out the tree over a course of a few weeks and posted it around the school, this gave them a sense of pride and ownership for all that was working well. It also provided a touchpoint for conversations around struggles and challenges, as there was a sense of being cared for by a larger community that was working together to tend to the entire tree. Within the challenging and seemingly never-ending work of meeting school goals for all students, this principal developed a tool that evoked a sense of hope, of joy, and of agency about being well together at work.

  While participants in our dinner series were working on their inquiries, we were planning to find out more about how teachers and staff were doing with their well-being. We decided to conduct focus groups with teachers and staff in different roles. Our deeper learning from these focus groups is still to come as we work with this valuable data, but we have already learned some things from this process. The first is to bring your district leadership and your union groups into the process early. This was such a helpful process and a good reminder that everyone wants well-being. We are all working toward a common goal. The second one is that health and well-being is something people want to talk about. People want to tell their stories and they want to be heard. If you are going to ask the questions, you have to be prepared to listen to the answers and be willing to co-create a plan that moves discussion into action.

  3. Well-being is system-wide. Reminding ourselves to engage in our change work from the level of the system is an especially important piece, even though it often proves difficult to navigate and implement. Our commitment to growing staff well-being across the district meant that we needed to think about the system in all its interrelated parts to embed well-being for the long term. Looking back at our approach through a systems-lens, we:

  • interviewed as many staff as possible to get a sense of their experiences and what change might be necessary
  • established a structure for improving the quality of our communication about well-being through the dinner learning series
  • are now analyzing the data we’ve collected to see how we can continue to grow well-being across the system.

  We have learned that systems are relational entities, and that we need to take care to avoid assigning blame to any part of the system as a separate actor. At the same time, we need to avoid always looking outside the system for our solutions. We have come to understand that “we” are also the system – individuals and groups carrying out our work together toward shared goals, influencing and impacting all other parts of the system. There can be a feeling of empowerment in knowing that we are the ones who inform, create and follow (or not) the policies and practices of “the system.” Many of these practices are helpful to keep things moving. They create a sense of order and common understanding that help define and support our work. It can also be frustrating to realize that our implication in the system also means that many of our practices and our ways of doing things come from a historical context that is no longer applicable or helpful to us. As we learn more about systems change we are building the courage to look at our ways of working compassionately and to be open to the possibilities that follow.

  As we begin to understand the interconnectedness of the system, we are also reminded that the feeling of efficacy around systems change is also very important. There is a balance between knowing that some larger changes take time and will require patience, and that other small actions can happen quickly. Focusing our attention on the ways these small changes can impact the larger system over time and contribute to well-being is at the heart of Cherkowski and Walker’s work on flourishing in schools. We are developing a sense of agency, a power to be able co-create an emerging future where decisions and practices around well-being become a primary component of our culture: the way we do things.

  Multiple voices and ways of knowing

  One of our most important learnings so far, and what may turn out to be the “secret sauce” for the work of growing well-being for all in schools, is the importance of bringing in multiple voices and ways of knowing. We also need time, space and resources for this work to become sustainable. A few passionate people cannot do this alone or in their “spare time” without it impacting their own health and well-being. In the next part of our journey we will expand our team and look at ways to make this work sustainable and impactful for the long term.

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  Illustration: iStock

  First published in Education Canada, June 2020

  NOTES

  1 S. Cherkowski and K. Walker, K. Teacher Wellbeing: Noticing, nurturing, and sustaining flourishing in schools (Burlington, ON: Word and Deed Press, 2018).

• Trading Up

  10:36 AM Comments Off on Trading Up

  As we finalized the articles for this issue of Education Canada, schools and campuses across the country had been closed for about a month to reduce the spread of COVID-19. It looked like students would not be back in class anytime soon. And we were wondering how much sense it made to ship boxes of magazines to empty buildings.

  Those closed schools are the reason we are not printing our May issue. Like the teachers and profs who have turned to online technology to connect with their students, we have created an online-only magazine. We invite you to enjoy the PDF version as you “shelter in place.”

  In this issue of Education Canada we focus on the skilled trades, and specifically on the K-12 system’s role in connecting students to trades training.

  So here’s the dilemma. While I still devoutly believe in the value of a liberal arts education, our world is full of highly educated young adults working precarious minimum-wage service jobs because that’s all they could find. Many of them never even considered skilled trades. Probably nobody ever suggested that they were worth looking into. Some students may have even been steered away from trades when they expressed interest.

  Meanwhile, well paying, challenging, steady jobs are going unfilled in many trades sectors. While it’s not up to K-12 schools to qualify students for a trade, we think we could be doing a better job of introducing them to the trades as a desirable career path. We also need more options that allow secondary students to “try before they buy” (and ideally earn credits at the same time), and more fluid pathways that allow students to combine academic and skills-based training.

  In our theme section, two innovative Canadian programs that give high schools students a great head start in trades (“TAP into Trades, p. 14, and “Youth Train in Trades,” p. 22) share how they fill that gap. And looking at the bigger picture, David Livingstone and Milosh Raykov (p. 18) discuss the need for expanded apprenticeship programs and better linkages between our education and apprenticeship systems. Paul Stastny (p. 25) examines our other big labour need – digital technology skills – and how the digitizing of many trades creates new opportunities, while Alison Taylor (on our website) argues for experiential and work-integrated learning programs as a means of breaking down “the binary between vocational and professional education.”

  Perhaps it comes down to that old ideal of a “well-rounded education.” Shouldn’t an education include learning how to do things as well as how to know things? And can’t we, as Taylor suggests, educate students in a way that prepares them for both democratic citizenship and employability?

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  Photo: Dave Donald

  First published in Education Canada, June 2020

• Effective Collaborative Practices in ESL Education

  June 1, 2020 3:55 PM Comments Off on Effective Collaborative Practices in ESL Education

  English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers need to work with classroom teachers and other colleagues to ensure optimal learning for English Language Learners. This qualitative study looked at the barriers and facilitators to effective collaboration.

  Contemporary English language learners (ELLs) have language learning needs that are often supported through a complement of in-school professionals, including English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, classroom teachers, educational resource teachers, coaches, ESL consultants, and administrators. Integrating content-based teaching with appropriate skill-level tasks for ELLs requires a collaborative effort between classroom teachers and ESL teachers.

  To understand the factors that facilitate collaboration in ESL education, we interviewed and observed the teaching practices of four ESL teachers in Southern Ontario. Based on the findings of these qualitative data, which complement and are supported by existing research, we provide some conditions that truly nurture innovation between ESL teachers and classroom teachers.

  When ESL teachers and classroom teachers collaborate, each educator brings a unique perspective and repertoire of knowledge and experience, and it often takes time to negotiate ways of combining these lenses to create an educational plan. Thus, one condition of collaboration is for educators to feel supported in contributing their specialization area within a collaborative relationship. Administrative support is also essential. When collaboration is prioritized by school administrators, resources and allocated time for collaborative practice are designated with an ESL focus, facilitating more authentic collaboration.

  Our research revealed that ESL teachers negotiated collaboration based on a desire to work together and a belief that a cohesive educator team is important in ESL education. However, these ESL teachers encountered barriers such as a lack of training, technology and tools to facilitate collaboration and lack of time to do so. This resulted in limited and informal, surface-level collaboration.

  Teaching approach

  ESL educators often work with several different students at several different schools, so collaboration with the classroom teachers is essential. When ESL teachers and classroom teachers collaborate, there is potential for consistency and efficiency in pedagogical planning of targeted learning strategies for ELLs. Caroline, an ESL teacher, told us, “I love collaborating with teachers because I feel like it’s taking a little bit of stress off of them, initially, but it’s also giving them a toolkit so they’re prepared the next time around.”

  Echoing this sentiment, other ESL teacher participants talked about successful collaborative relationships with classroom teachers that develop over time. Professional relationships among ESL teachers and classroom teachers that were described as authentic extended beyond situational conversations about particular events in the classroom. These relationships were rooted in a sense of reduced role differentiation between the ESL teachers and classroom teachers.

  The time crunch

  To collaborate effectively, educators working with ELLs need to have dedicated time in order to meet and co-plan, co-teach to some extent, and co-evaluate curriculum planning for ELLs. This need for devoted time for teachers to meet is a pervasive issue cited by others as well.¹ Grant, an ESL teacher, talks about the challenge of finding meeting time:

  “The challenge I think in terms of collaboration is sometimes finding that time to meet with the teacher… Because classroom teachers have so many things going on, so it’s tough…”

  Caroline spoke of the difficulty of carving out time for ESL among competing priorities:

  “I try to invite myself to those collaboration meetings [laughs], because then you can put an ESL perspective on the table. We have a half day each term that we’re allowed to use… to meet with teachers, but a lot of us find that’s just not enough time to meet with all the teachers we need to meet with… I do a lot of my meetings unofficially… And I’m always apologetic for using their time, because I know that prep time for them is so precious. But… in the end, it’s beneficial for both of us, because I can do a lot to help support them. I might co-teach a lesson, or I might, you know, plan a lesson based around something that they’re working on so that they don’t have to plan that lesson, and now they have time to do something else.”

  This is a testament to the struggle experienced by all ESL teachers to liaise and support classroom teachers’ practice as well as meet Ministry of Education mandates to complete required documentations for ELLs.

  Central to this collaboration is a shared desire to approach curriculum mapping with an ESL-specific focus, to set goals for as well as with ELLs, and to evaluate and modify plans along the way. ESL teacher Nicole talks about collaboration to build on ELLs’ strengths: “It’s like optimizing the support, but seeing that all the kids are capable and competent. [Focusing on] what do they know, and how can we move them forward, instead of looking at them as having a deficit.”

  When educators took the time to co-plan in preparation for an upcoming unit, observations showed that they used instructional strategies such as small groups or one-on-one conferencing with ELLs, and as a result, provide differentiated instruction. There are recent examples of ESL teachers and content-area teachers co-planning using the principles of differentiated instruction in cooperative learning-centered approaches.² This is beneficial to ELLs, as each of these students has unique learning and language needs.

  When ESL teachers and classroom teachers collaborate, there is potential for consistency and efficiency in pedagogical planning for English language learners.

  The crucial follow-up to this teaching approach is creating opportunities for teachers to discuss their observations and review effective teaching strategies. Thus, in addition to planning and teaching systems, it is crucial to also incorporate assessment systems in order to adjust pedagogy to meet ELLs’ needs. Collaboration among educators on assessment that informs ESL instruction (and not just program placement)³ is also an area for professional growth.

  Technology as a collaborative tool

  We asked how ESL teachers collaborate with in-school teams of educators to use instructional resources (digital and/or non-digital) to promote language instruction with ELLs.

  We found that ESL teachers supplemented non-digital resources with resources created by classroom teachers. Collaboration was focused on the goals of educational plans for ELLs, and resources to support ELLs in achieving these goals. In terms of non-digital resources, an emergent theme was that ESL teachers had over time created a repository of tools that could be adapted to fit individual ELLs’ learning needs. One aspect of collaboration that teachers considered valuable was how the ESL teachers shared these resources with other educational professionals (such as resource teachers) as a way of optimizing the time of all educators.

  A second important finding was that, although ESL teacher participants saw the benefits of using technology to aid ELLs, collaboration in relation to the use of technological platforms in ESL education tended to remain at the surface level. For example, imparting technological resources was limited to sharing websites and pass codes for English translation or leveled texts.

  Google Drive is one technology that is being used as a dynamic tool to support sharing and collaboration in literacy pedagogy and language instruction in the Canadian ESL classroom.⁴ Caroline, for example, had developed a bank of resources that she was willing to share with any teacher that could use them: “The beautiful thing about Google Drive is, once you kind of get it organized, it’s there for you. So next year, I don’t necessarily have to do that again, I can just pull it out and add or adapt what I need to do.”

  To improve the use of technological platforms in ESL education, it is imperative that the technological tools chosen by educators provide students with immediate feedback, to prevent students from making schematic integrations of incorrect responses. In this way, students gain an awareness of where errors are made, and can apply this new learning in the future. Platforms such as chatrooms in educational apps are being used with great success.⁵ Educators need opportunities to collaborate on integrating technology in instruction in ways that promote critical thinking and problem solving to guide students to meaningful learning.

  Expanding collaboration

  Our research reveals that ESL teachers value shared professional development as a way of enhancing collaboration with classroom teachers.

  ESL teacher participants in this research project recognized that collaborating with educators within as well as across other school boards, may introduce them to innovative practices that they had otherwise not considered. Lauren recalled her involvement in an ESL symposium during the summer hosted by the local school board. The symposium was focused on ESL instruction and included ESL educators from various boards. Lauren found it beneficial to share experiences with different ESL teachers. Her recommendation was for more ESL teachers to be aware of such initiatives and become involved in large-scale events to interact and collaborate with various educators. Both Caroline and Lauren talked about the benefits of partnering up with other school boards to collaborate and share strategies. These ESL teachers recognized that collaboration is required to improve and incorporate strategies that have been successful for other educators.

  Facilitating connections among educators working with ELLs across the province to share successful approaches and develop tools that can be adapted and utilized in ESL education is a way to hasten the spread and uptake of innovative practice.

  A collaborative approach in ESL education creates more supportive and nurturing environments for ELLs to thrive in. When ESL education is prioritized and approached as an inclusive practice aimed at blending the professional knowledge of several educators and backed by administrative support,⁶ ELLs as well as ESL teachers are not marginalized, and the success of students with various literacy requirements are considered as part of an inclusive practice.

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  Photo: iStock

  First published in Education Canada, June 2020

  NOTES

  1 A. Honigsfeld and M. Dove, “When Do Teachers and ESL Specialists Collaborate and Co-teach?” in Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Strategies for English Learners (SAGE: 2010).

  2 G. M. Awada and K. H. Faour, “Effect of Glogster and Cooperative Learning Differentiated Instruction on Teachers’ Perceptions,” Teaching English with Technology 18, No. 2 (2018): 93-114.

  3 B. A. Green, and M. Andrade, “Guiding Principles for Language Assessment Reform: A model for collaboration,” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9, No. 4 (2010): 322-334.

  4 N. Slavkov, “Sociocultural Theory, the L2 Writing Process, and Google Drive: Strange bedfellows?” TESL Canada Journal 32. No. 2 (2015): 80-94.

  5 A. Sari, “EFL Peer Feedback Through the Chatroom in Padlet,” LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching 22, No. 1 (2019): 46-57.

  6 Honigsfeld and Dove, “When Do Teachers and ESK Specialists Collaborate and Co-teach?”

• Youth Train in Trades

  3:27 PM Comments Off on Youth Train in Trades

  A program offered at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, provides an immersive training experience to high school students interested in a career in trades. They take a full term of training in the trade of their choice and receive credits both for their high school graduation and toward their trade certification.

  Classic thinking says: Students with strong academics go to university and those who don’t do well in school go into the trades. The Faculty of Trades and Technology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) seeks to dispel that myth and elevate trades to its rightful place alongside traditional academics at Canada’s only polytechnic university.

  Challenging that misconception isn’t easy. Trades are often seen as dirty, back-breaking grunt work.

  The truth is that academics play a huge role in the day-to-day work of most skilled tradespeople. Beyond the hands-on skills of each trade, students often use lots of math, and often physics, to complete complex tasks. Effective communication skills are also a must-have, so students are expected to have a solid foundation in English. And like other professionals, tradespeople use a host of soft skills to get their work done, including critical thinking, problem solving, time management, and creativity.

  Through our program, Youth Train in Trades, we hope to counter the stigma surrounding skilled trades for counsellors, parents, and students. Youth Train in Trades provides opportunities beyond the ordinary shop class to high school students who want to explore a career in trades. Through the university, students receive an education in the trade of their choice, all while still in high school.

  What is youth train in trades?

  Youth Train in Trades is a trilateral partnership between KPU, local school districts, and the B.C.-focused Industry Training Authority (ITA), which funds the program. It offers high school students an opportunity to learn a trade, while earning credits that count toward their high school diploma and Level 1 of their trades training.

  The Youth Train in Trades portfolio is administered by the Associate Dean of Trades and Technology (my office and my team) at KPU. Through regular Trades Training Partnership meetings, the school district representatives come to KPU to discuss schedules, questions, supports, and other information. There are also guest speakers to inform the school districts about things such as student rights and responsibilities.

  Currently, KPU has agreements for Youth Train in Trades programs with ten B.C. school districts. For the participating school districts, these programs open up a world beyond traditional academics. KPU’s Faculty of Trades and Technology offers six Youth Train in Trades programs: Automotive, Carpentry, Masonry, Millwright, Plumbing and Piping, and Welding.

  The program is relatively low cost for students, as high schools cover the tuition and fees. Students are only responsible for purchasing textbooks and any required personal protective equipment. Mark Flynn, Principal of Career Education at Surrey Schools, says, “We don’t offer programs in-house where students can actually do technical training. In the school system, for it to be viable, you would have to run a full class of 20 to 24 students. If we had too small a number, we couldn’t run the program. With KPU we can adjust. There’s more flexibility.”

  Flynn adds, “KPU are easy to work with because they’ve been involved with this for so long they understand what the school districts need to make it work and what our students need to be successful in a program like this.”

  Welding and Millwright, in particular, offer unique opportunities for high school students interested in the trades. “They’re really popular in our district. There’s always an interest in the programs, especially for Welding,” said Flynn.

  Secondary schools lack the physical space and specialist equipment needed to offer trades programs like Welding or Millwright on their own. Welders fuse metal using flame-cutting, brazing and soldering equipment to form a permanent bond, while millwrights install, align, maintain, inspect, repair, overhaul and dismantle machinery and heavy mechanical equipment.

  Getting a head start on trades training

  As mentioned, KPU offers six Youth Train in Trades programs. Depending on the program, they run between 21 and 30 weeks. Most are hybrid programs, with the bulk of the program taught at the student’s high school by a KPU instructor and several weeks taught at the KPU Tech campus.

  Piping, Millwright and Welding are all delivered at KPU Tech in blended classrooms, where high school students learn alongside adult fee-paying students.

  A Red Seal endorsement can open up a wide range of career paths that value the fundamental knowledge and experience gained through a trades education.

  KPU brings the school districts and KPU instructors together to clearly define who’s teaching what. The ITA curriculum defines these as “Line Items”. The instructors negotiate who is teaching which lines to ensure all the required ITA curriculum is covered.

  Once enrolled in Youth Train in Trades, students are 100 percent committed to their respective trade. Unless done on their own time, students won’t be taking other high school courses alongside the program. Youth Train in Trades is a dual-credit program, so students are earning high school as well as post-secondary credits.

  “Most of our students are in Grade 12 when they do the program,” says Flynn. “So, they’re still going forward with their Dogwood [high school diploma], and now, because the market’s so good, they’re walking out into well-paying jobs. They’re job ready. It’s just a great stepping stone.”

  Students in the program learn from skilled, Red Seal-endorsed KPU instructors, using the ITA curriculum. The Red Seal program sets common standards to assess the skills of tradespeople across Canada. To reach Red Seal level in welding, for example, they will have completed their Welding Level 1 and Level 2 apprenticeships, then, depending on their life experiences and employment status, their Welding Level 3 or Level B before taking their Red Seal exam. High school students who take Welding Foundations at KPU through Youth Train in Trades earn the equivalent of a Welding Level 1 and Level 2 apprenticeship.

  At KPU, a Millwright student gets the equivalent of all the theory that a Level 1 apprentice would get, says Brian Myette, Millwright instructor and department chair. “Basically, a student who graduates from Millwright is going to get about 50 percent theory, 50 percent practical training,” he says. “And we have a simulated work environment. Why? Because they’re getting credit for practical hours towards their apprenticeship and Level 1 as well.”

  The program provides more than specific trade skills. Students also acquire important work skills.

  “We recognize that when the students first come in, it’s going to be a big transition for them,” says Myette. “The people studying trades can range in age from 17 up. So, it’s a mix. It’s very diverse. So, they come in, and they’re with many more mature students. That environment means there’s not as much horseplay. They decide it’s time to get serious, so it’s a very good learning environment.”

  The benefits of the Youth Train in Trades program are not lost on Jaeden Wildenboer, a KPU Youth Train in Trades graduate and Red Seal-certified welder.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what else I’d be doing besides this if I didn’t have that opportunity,” says Wildenboer. “With the skill set and the confidence that it built for me, it opened up so much.”

  Most students take Youth Train in Trades in their final semester of high school. For Wildenboer, that meant making some hard decisions.

  “When I first had the choice, I did second guess it because I wanted to have my last year of high school with my friends,” he says. “But now that I look back at it, I definitely made the right decision. I’m further ahead than anyone else that I can think of and it’s all because of Youth Train in Trades.”

  With his passion ignited, Wildenboer continued to work in welding, gaining valuable hours as he waited for his chance to return for more training. Wildenboer landed a job within a month of graduating from Youth Train in Trades. “That’s only because I wanted to take a month off because we were doing a family vacation that summer. Otherwise it would have been sooner,” he adds.

  “I knew I wanted to go back for my B level,” says Wildenboer. “I got my Red Seal when I was 19. I’ve just been working ever since.” Wildenboer says he frequently gets job offers from other companies. “I mean, I don’t even ask them for a job, they just come to me and offer it. I have a great job.”

  Now 21, Wildenboer is a big advocate of Youth Train in Trades and has encouraged several friends to take the program.

  “Honestly, if I had the chance to do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate,” he says. “I thought it would be a huge step being obviously one of the youngest people in the whole university. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The way the teachers had it all lined up, and all of the processes and everything we did there, it just made me overall a more confident person.”

  Beyond the trades themselves, a Red Seal endorsement can open up a wide range of career paths that value the foundational knowledge and experience gained through a trades education, including being a business owner, supervisor, or trades instructor. As educators, we need to make sure that trades are seen by students as a viable career path, not a “backup plan.” Tradespeople require the same commitment and perseverance to succeed as anyone in any other profession.

  Thanks to the support of ITA, Youth Train in Trades ensures students aren’t limited to what the high school has to offer and opens up a broader range of career opportunities.

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  Photo: courtesy KPU / Matt Law

  First published in Education Canada, June 2020

• TAP into Trades

  2:24 PM Comments Off on TAP into Trades

  The Trades Awareness Program (TAP) brings high school students from the outlying communities of the South Slave Division in the NWT to Aurora College for a hands-on introduction to the trades. Through TAP, students who would not otherwise have exposure to qualified instructors, accredited shops or equipment may be motivated to complete high school, enroll in the College, and pursue careers in the trades, with benefit to both themselves and their communities.

  The skilled trades gap continues to widen as more tradespersons retire than join the Red Seal ranks each year. Such is the case in the Northwest Territories, where the largely Indigenous population is located in 33 communities distributed across more than 1.3 million square kilometres of land between the Alberta border and the High Arctic. With the high cost of living and lack of skilled tradespeople in most communities, it may be impossible to find a plumber or an electrician – and the pipes freeze quickly at 40 below.

  The trades shortage is exacerbated by the prevalence of oil, natural gas and mining activities in the North that have generated a large demand for skilled workers. Compounding the issue is the fact that schools in the North are small and often lack shop facilities and qualified instructors. As a result, finding ways to raise awareness and expose Northern students to careers in the trades is problematic.

  In 2005, the South Slave Divisional Education Council (SSDEC), Aurora College and the Fort Smith Career Centre formed a partnership called the South Slave Communities’ Learning Network (SSCLN). The SSCLN’s first task was to brainstorm initiatives of mutual interest and potential benefit to the South Slave region and the predominantly Indigenous communities (75% Dene and Métis) of Fort Smith (Chipewyan, Cree, English and French), Hay River (Slavey, English and French), Fort Resolution (Chipewyan), K’atlodeeche First Nation (Slavey), and the fly-in-only community of Lutsel K’e (Chipewyan).

  The SSCLN identified career development as a key area of mutual interest, which then led to the creation of the Trades Awareness Program (TAP). TAP began with the intent of providing a hands-on trades experience for students in the South Slave who did not otherwise have exposure to qualified instructors, accredited shops or equipment. The hope is that, through TAP, more and more students will be motivated to complete high school, enrol in the College, and pursue careers in the trades, with potential benefit to both themselves and their communities.

  Program description

  The Trades Awareness Program (TAP) brings interested Grade 8-12 students from the outlying communities to the Thebacha Campus of Aurora College in Fort Smith to experience a series of short courses in several different trades. For each week of sessions, the partnership organizes transportation, meals and accommodation in the student residences, and instruction for 30-50 students.

  After its inception in 2005, TAP quickly expanded from a one-week pilot into a three-part program in which students can earn up to three credits toward high school graduation. The TAP program now includes two on-site options for students: TAP Introductory and TAP Intensive.

  First-time participants attend TAP Introductory, which provides students with experiences in a variety of trades. Students spend one full day in each of four different trades. Depending on the availability of instructors and facilities, students have had the opportunity to choose one-day workshops in carpentry, plumbing, cooking, electrical, welding, computer diagnosis and repair, heavy equipment technology, and environment and natural resources technology. In most years, local businesses have also partnered and generously provided more options for students in mechanics, aviation, and hairdressing.

  The TAP Introductory schedule keeps students busy and authentically engaged. Each day they are fitted with proper attire, be it steel-toed boots, hard hats, chef uniforms, welding leathers, hair nets, or safety goggles. They learn about such things as basic pipe fitting, extension cord composition and assembly, meal planning and preparation, toilet installation, and how to use tools like hand saws, measuring tapes, band saws and welders. The flight simulator at the flight training centre of the local airline has been a highlight for many. The students who rotate through the cooking option prepare lunch for the entire group of students in the Introductory program for that day. Most students also return to their communities having completed a project or two they can take home – wooden birdhouses, extension cords and metal wind chimes, to name a few.

  The Introductory program also includes workplace safety and career development sessions, and an extremely popular Trades Olympics event where students compete against each other in a race that has included tasks such as hammering a nail, sawing a piece of wood, assembling a pipe fitting design, and installing a light switch cover.

  Completion of the Introductory program is a prerequisite for students who are interested in returning to attend one or more TAP Intensive sessions. In the Intensive program, students complete a week in one trade of their choice, providing students with more in-depth exposure to that trade. Some students have returned for a third and fourth Intensive session, when space is available, to gain further exposure in a different trade than they did in previous years.

  In both programs, students are required to participate in all activities and behave respectfully at all times. They are informed that they are ambassadors for their people, their schools and their communities, and reminded that their behaviour and effort should make their respective families and communities proud. Thankfully, it is a rare case in which a student breaks the rules and must be sent home early.

  Students are evaluated by instructors in both the Introductory and Intensive modules by means of an evaluation rubric. The rubric addresses six areas: safety, student effort, punctuality, participation, use of equipment, and task completion/workmanship. Students are able to earn one credit upon successful completion of the Introductory Program and another credit in the Intensive Program. A third credit is also available for work completed by participating students in their home community in preparation for TAP Intensive, and follow-up reporting and personal career planning upon their return.

  The delivery of TAP over its 15-year history is attributable to those involved in the SSCLN partnership. Each plays a critical role. The regional school council provides the students and chaperones, organizes transportation (taxis, buses and a chartered flight for Lutsel K’e students) and hires the program coordinator to plan, promote and oversee both TAP modules each year. The Career Centre has access to labour market funding and provides student access to career counsellors during the TAP modules. Aurora College provides the facilities, accommodations and trades instructors for the modules. Other important partners are local businesses that also provide instruction and facilities. The efforts of the SSCLN ensure there is no cost to students who wish to attend TAP.

  Measuring success

  When TAP rolled out as a pilot in 2005, the SSCLN identified several objectives, including:

  • generating more awareness of trades occupations
  • providing access to accredited shops and instructors
  • offering work-related experience and skills development
  • promoting college programs and residence life
  • networking and building friendships between youth from various communities and cultures
  • encouraging students to be ambassadors and proud representatives of their people, their schools and their communities.

  Clearly, the program has provided awareness and access, having introduced hundreds of students to the trades over the past 15 years, but how do we know if it’s making a difference and worth continuing?

  Student interest and participation in the program is one measure. Approximately 80-100 students attend TAP each year (in a region of only 1,300 JK-12 students overall). The program set a new participation record this past fall when Aurora College was able to accommodate 53 students in the Introductory program. Most Introductory students return for TAP Intensive.

  TAP has proven popular as further evidenced by consistently positive ratings from students, chaperones, and instructors on feedback forms completed and submitted on the last day of each program. The feedback forms encourage facilitators of the program to ensure a quality program every year. The initiative stays fresh and is constantly improving because the feedback is also used to prepare a report with conclusions, commendations, and recommendations for further improvements the following year. An analysis of this historical data found that over 96 percent of students and chaperones who attended over the years indicated the value of the program to be either “very good” or “good.”

  The partnership also contracted out a longitudinal review of the program that sought feedback from both past and present students, including those who were in post-secondary school and/or in the workforce. The review’ has garnered further feedback on the long-term value of the program and helped to determine what further improvements might be considered. The study concluded that TAP was both memorable and valuable. TAP helped 81 percent of participants to decide on their future careers. Thirty-nine percent indicated TAP helped them decide to pursue a career in one particular trade. Feedback also confirmed that some students discovered the trades were not for them, which can also be considered a positive outcome from the program.

  Due mostly to the Trades Awareness Program and its success, the SSCLN partnership was presented with the Premier’s Award of Excellence for Collaboration.

  Both students and their parents have expressed surprise and excitement about how much they learn and the skills they can employ in such a short period of time. The fact that most of the instructors and chaperones are enthusiastic and Indigenous themselves has provided important modelling for students to consider and set similar career goals, especially for our students from the smaller and more remote communities.

  We give others the last word on the success of TAP. These quotes were obtained as part of the longitudinal review:

  “It was very good, in fact, it was better than I expected,” wrote one student. “I met new people, learned new things and most importantly I had fun. The instructors and chaperones were amazing and I learned a lot. It was useful to me because it opened me up to new opportunities and it gave me ideas of what I want to be in the future.”

  “I have always had a fascination with mechanics, and how things work together to make an effective machine. Seeing the shop and tools, meeting the instructors, I realized that I wanted to become a mechanic,” wrote another student.

  “The students are told, on the very first day, that they are in a college setting and that they are expected to behave as college students. And, they do!” wrote one instructor. “The reason I take part in and support this program is just this: the students who participate are being given a valuable opportunity to experience a trade and what they can expect while attending a post-secondary institution. While many may not go into a trade, I hope that all of them will attend college or university at some point, and what better way to get a feel for it than in this safe and nurturing environment. As long as this program runs, I will continue to participate and support it.”

  “My daughter has learned a lot from the TAP program,” responded one parent. “She cooks a lot at home now and likes to try new things. When she got back from the program she told me she had lots of fun and enjoyed the instructors. I hope she gets to go one last time this coming year. Thanks again.”

  Overcoming challenges

  The program has been a tremendous success, but it has not been without its challenges.

  The North may be small in population, but it’s large in land size. With South Slave communities and schools separated by hundreds of kilometres of highway, and one community accessible only by air, the logistics are nothing short of complicated.

  Scheduling both the Introductory and Intensive modules also requires a delicate balance. TAP must be scheduled during appropriate times in the calendars of five schools, when regular Aurora College programs are not in session and students not in the dormitory, when the college instructors are available, and when a suitable coordinator can be contracted. TAP also relies on the ability of local businesses to fit students into their busy schedules. The available dates vary from year to year but have most often occurred in September and June, with at least one Introductory and one Intensive week per calendar year. In the end, it still means taking students out of their normal classroom routines for an entire week, which means catch-up on their return. Students tend not to enrol in their final Grade 12 year, when success on the diploma exams takes precedence.

  Maintaining relations and commitment to the initiative in the face of staff turnover has also been a priority. Only one of the three original CEOs remains. Yet the program has been able to continue each year because of its evident value and because of the partnership, commitment, and generous contributions of the South Slave Divisional Education Council, Aurora College, and the Fort Smith Career Centre (Government of the NWT Department of Education, Culture and Employment).

  TAP-ping into the future

  The SSCLN partnership and its Trades Awareness Program was designed to provide students with greater information and exposure to the trades and college life. TAP gives opportunities for students from across the South Slave to “try out” several trades. TAP has also been instrumental in getting students thinking about the trades as viable career options after high school. But TAP has proven to be more than that.

  Justice Murray Sinclair has said, in reference to the legacy of Residential Schools, “Reconciliation is about forging and maintaining respectful relationships,” and, “Education is what got us here, and education is what will get us out.” TAP appears to be doing its part in responding to these calls to action. Since students have been scheduled according to their preferred trades, the makeup of each group changes daily, which provides opportunities to socialize with youth from other communities. The meals and social activities further integrate students with food and laughter. The quiet silos of students, clustered by community and language group on day one, completely transform by the end of the week into large group banter and laughter, hugs, exchanges of contact information, and sometimes tears upon departure. In addition to increasing career opportunities for youth, TAP is also helping to break down cultural barriers, strengthen relations, expand comfort zones, and encourage student aspirations.

  The skilled trades gap isn’t going away. However, by providing students with an organized gateway to the trades that is both fun and educational, TAP is strengthening relations and creating futures.

  Photo: courtesy South Slave Divisional Education Council

  First published in Education Canada, June 2020

• Vocational Education in Canadian Schools

  1:32 PM Comments Off on Vocational Education in Canadian Schools

  “A rich and deep vocational education involves helping students explore linkages and possibilities as they crisscross the boundaries between school and work. To better help students find their way in our complex world, such a vision of expansive experiential learning holds much promise.”

  Vocational education in Canadian schools has a checkered history. On one hand, it was given a boost in the 1960s with the Technical and Vocational Training Assistance Act when federal government resources were provided to build new schools and facilities across the country. On the other hand, vocational education has long been seen as a second-best choice for less able students, gaining attention mainly in times of labour shortage in key industries. 

  The under-valuation of vocational education reflects historical struggles. Recall the well-known debate in the early 20th century between social efficiency proponent David Sneddon and progressive educator John Dewey, who held very different visions for vocational education. Dewey opposed the separation between general education and trade education: he believed that vocational education should be liberal and liberal education should be vocational. Sneddon, in contrast, believed vocational education was largely about training working-class kids to meet industry needs. The distinction between education seen as “academic” and education seen as “vocational,” which persists to this day, supports the hierarchy that values academic knowledge and the professional occupations associated with it over practical vocational knowledge.

  Currently, however, experiential learning, and especially work-integrated learning (WIL), is a hot topic in higher education policy discussions. Universities in Canada and elsewhere are encouraging all students to get a taste of the work world through internship, practicum, and cooperative education opportunities. The WIL movement is driven by a number of factors, including the concerns of employers about the “employability skills”¹ of graduates, and the predominance of human capital discourse.² In response, a burgeoning literature about how to foster effective experiential learning in higher education has emerged. 

  Another tendency in North American higher education is growing concern about students’ civic engagement as well as employability skills. As writers from the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement in the U.S. argue in their 2012 report “A Crucible Moment,” higher education should be an incubator for fostering democratic voice, thought, and action rather than simply an engine of economic development.³ This report, coupled with the rapid growth of community service-learning in higher education, challenges the seemingly contradictory aims of educating for employability and educating for citizenship.

  What does all this mean for education systems across Canada? This article argues that K-12 educators can learn from higher education approaches that: 

  • break down the binary between vocational and professional education
  • consider how experiential learning can be structured most effectively, and 
  • see education as more than simply training for work.

  In what follows, I elaborate on these points using examples.
  

  Breaking down vocational-academic binaries

  Although the historical legacy of devaluing vocational education still haunts current descriptions of course streams and attitudes of educators and career counselors, steps have been taken in Canada and elsewhere to better integrate “vocational” and “general” qualifications, and to increase student access to higher education programs. In Europe, the term “hybrid qualifications” has been used to describe qualifications resulting from education and training pathways that provide access to both employment and higher education. For instance, in countries like Germany, with its highly institutionalized dual system of apprenticeship training, there is greater policy interest in encouraging young people to extend their technical training into university studies. In the Canadian context, university aspirants are also considering technical training. Toward this end, dual credit and joint degree programs are becoming more common.

  Dual credit programs are being used in B.C., for example, to “enable high achieving, career oriented, and at-risk students to gain credit towards post-secondary credentials.”⁴ The description suggests that these programs are mainly targeting students who need encouragement to pursue education beyond high school. Dual credit courses, which involve a college credit course team-taught by a secondary school teacher and a college teacher or certified journeyperson, can be used toward a college certificate, diploma program, or apprenticeship as well as towards a high school diploma. Exposing students to the college environment is seen as a good way to expand their educational and career horizons and better prepare them to succeed in higher education. While this initiative requires greater collaboration between secondary and post-secondary systems, it is a promising way of expanding access to higher education.

  Joint degree programs between colleges/technical institutes and universities represent another partnership that erodes the vocational-academic binary within the post-secondary education system. I’ve found it striking that a desire for “hands on” learning has been expressed by very different groups of students – by those participating in my earlier research into high school apprenticeship and by participants in my more recent research on university community service-learning programs (programs where students work, often in non-profit organizations, as part of an academic course). The “massification” of higher education and increasing labour market uncertainty has meant greater diversity in the student population, and an increased proportion of students who value practice-based learning. 

  Dual credit programs require secondary schools to collaborate with post-secondary institutions in their municipalities on partnerships that will benefit students – ideally, partnerships in areas of student interest where institutional supports can be provided. Sustainable provincial funding is a prerequisite for these initiatives. Joint degree programs encourage high schools to think differently about how they advise and stream students. We know that there is a great deal of mobility within the post-secondary system, with students taking transfer programs as well as moving back and forth between technical and academic programs and institutions to acquire additional qualifications. The idea of a “linear pathway” has not been the norm for some time. Therefore, high school course streams said to destine students for the Workplace or College or University/College (U/C) or University make less and less sense.⁵ Students need flexible systems that respond to their non-linear development and shifting identities, but there is much institutional work to do, starting in the K-12 system. There is also room for more dialogue across different kinds of research on experiential learning.

  Learning from research on Professional Vocational Work Learning

  As a university faculty member, I have observed a growing interest in WIL across campus. Not only are university students encouraged to enroll in the wide range of cooperative education programs that are available, but they are also encouraged to seek part-time jobs at the university related to their studies (e.g. Work Learn program at UBC) or take on internships to gain experience. While high schools can learn a great deal from research on vocational education and training, the literature on Professional Vocational Work Learning (PVWL) also yields important insights.⁶ For example, the literature finds that the effectiveness of WIL depends on how those experiences are organized and integrated with other student learning. 

  WIL tends to rely on the ideal of the student as a learner who is able to engage independently and direct and manage their own learning; however, to support them, attention must be given to how experiential learning is integrated with formal classroom learning before, during, and after such experiences.⁷ Planning effective WIL involves: preparing students for what they will be expected to do; providing opportunities to engage with both peers and experts to extend their learning; helping students develop the capacity to think, question and critically reflect on workplace practices; and helping them develop “work process knowledge” and recognize the social relations they’re participating in and creating through their work.⁸ Since it’s infeasible that high schools or universities can provide WIL for every student, educators might consider drawing on students’ part-time work experiences in classroom discussions about working life in general as well as specific kinds of issues at work. Voluntary as well as paid work can provide excellent opportunities for students to develop boundary-crossing skills. This observation leads to my final point about expanding the discourse of “learning for earning.”

  Expansive experiential learning

  In higher education today, there is considerable emphasis on graduates’ employability. However, as noted, another trend in higher education (that complicates this economic focus) calls on higher education to develop ethical and engaged citizens through programs like community service-learning. It seems to me that the aims of employability and citizenship are more easily reconciled when service-learning programs, like cooperative education, is valued as a way of helping students make transitions after graduation. My research on the impact of service learning on university graduates’ pathways found that such learning opportunities were often instrumental in helping them find their vocation, and more broadly, their place in the world. Unlike some other WIL, service learning encouraged creative, multi-disciplinary approaches to thinking about societal problems while developing substantial work process knowledge. In fact, because of its relative lack of formal expectations, coupled with a deep commitment to fostering reflective practice, service learning has great potential to foster socially critical vocationalism.⁹

  Based on my research and experiences as an instructor, I am arguing for experiential learning as a way of preparing ethical, socially aware, and capable graduates. This vision for education draws inspiration from Dewey and his followers in the U.S., who envision a collaborative, and I would add, seamless system of K-12 and higher education engaged in real world community problem-solving. Founded in the tradition of community schools, these educational institutions work collectively across age levels and function as a hub for broadly based community partnerships that create knowledge “made in the world and for the world.”¹⁰ 

  The suggestions I’ve made here are not “pie in the sky,” so to speak. Rather, volunteer work has been encouraged, even mandated, as part of most high school programs. Nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity already have programs for youth aimed at providing them with trade and life skills while strengthening communities.¹¹ What is lacking is more collaboration across K-12 and higher education systems in coordinating opportunities for students and in recognizing their role in achieving aims related to democratic citizenship as well as employability. 

  Further, many committed educators in K-12 and higher education systems are seeking ways to help students combine workplace and formal learning in ways that help them integrate their understanding. What is needed, in my opinion, is more dialogue across vocational education and training and professional education research literatures about promising practices. Despite the legacy of devaluing vocational education in Canadian schools,¹² initiatives like dual credit and joint programs encourage access to higher education for more students and erode the distinctions between academic and vocational knowledge. 

  A variety of forms of experiential learning in K-12 and in higher education can be combined to create meaningful and pedagogically appropriate experiences for students – experiences that build on one another and that encourage exploration and learning from mistakes. A rich and deep vocational education involves helping students explore linkages and possibilities as they crisscross the boundaries between school and work. To better help students find their way in our complex world, such a vision of expansive experiential learning holds much promise.

  NOTES

  1. For many policy makers and employers, the term “employability skills” refers to individuals’ credentialed knowledge; a more nuanced understanding attends to the interactions between individuals’ knowledge and circumstances and labour market policies and conditions (supply and demand).

  2. Regarding human capital discourse, see Malcolm Harris, Kids These Days: Human capital and the making of millenials (New York: Little Brown and Company, 2017).

  3. The National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, A Crucible Moment: College learning and democracy’s future (Washington: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2012).

  4. British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfers, Dual Credit Forum. www.bccat.ca/about/dual

  5. For example, see Toronto District School board description of Ontario course streams in grade 11 and 12: www.tdsb.on.ca/High-School/Guidance/Course-Types

  6. For a discussion of Professional Vocational Work Learning, see David Guile, The Learning Challenge of the Knowledge Economy (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2010).

  7. Stephen Billett, “Key Findings About Integrating Experiences,” in Practice-Based Learning in Higher Education: Jostling cultures, Eds. by Monica Kennedy et al. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2015).

  8. Nicholas Boreham, “Work Process Knowledge in Technological and Organizational Development,” in Work Process Knowledge, Eds. Nicholas Boreham et al., (London: Routledge, 2002).

  9. Sam Peach, “A Curriculum Philosophy for Higher Education: Socially critical vocationalism,” Teaching in Higher Education 15, no. 4 (2010): 449–460.

  10. Lee Benson, Ira Richard Harkavy, and John L. Puckett. Dewey’s Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform: Civil society, public schools, and democratic citizenship (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), 99.

  11. For example, see information about Habitat for Humanity’s Every Youth Initiative: https://habitat.ca/en/ways-to-partner/partner-with-us/every-youth-initiative

  12. Alison Taylor, Vocational Education in Canada (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2016).

  Photo: courtesy of Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board

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