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• Forward-Thinking Assessment in the Era of Artificial Intelligence:

  May 15, 2023 2:03 PM Comments Off on Forward-Thinking Assessment in the Era of Artificial Intelligence:

  CONCERNS WITH ACADEMIC DISHONESTY have intensified with the advance of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Now, students can enter essay questions into bot-technology, like ChatGPT, to generate text-based responses that can appear to be authentic student work. While these AI bots cannot generate novel or creative ideas, they can synthesize existing knowledge and organize it into logical arguments.

  We are now entering what we would call the third epoch of academic integrity. The first relates to the period preceding digital technology, the second coincides with the gradual use of Information Communication Technology (ICT), and the current epoch includes advanced and responsive ICT including AI applications. In many respects, these AI applications have ushered in a new age of plagiarism and cheating (Xiao et al., 2022). So, what should educators do next?

  Cheating and artificial intelligence

  Estimates of cheating vary widely across national contexts and sectors. For example, more than 50 percent of high school students in the United States reported some form of cheating that could include copying an internet document to submit as part of an assignment and/or cheating during a test (Eaton & Hughes, 2022). Cheating in Canada is also reported by more than half of high school students, with higher percentages (73 percent) reported for written assignments (Eaton & Hughes). In both Canada and the U.S., the incidence rates for undergraduate students are significantly lower (approximately five percent), but are still a noteworthy issue. What is less known is how the recent launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI will impact cheating in both compulsory and higher education settings within and outside of Canada. Perhaps in recognition of this potential issue, OpenAI’s terms of use state that “you must be at least 13 years old to use the Services. If you are under 18, you must have your parent or legal guardian’s permission to use the Services” (OpenAI, 2023).

  The ability of popular plagiarism detection tools to identify cheating using ChatGPT remains a formidable challenge. For example, one study found that 50 essays generated using ChatGPT were able to generate sophisticated texts that were able to evade the traditional check software (Khalil & Er, 2023). In other studies, ChatGPT achieved the mean grade for the English reading comprehension national high school exam in the Netherlands (de Winter, 2023) and passed law school exams (Choi et al., 2023). Given that ChatGPT reached 100 million active users in January 2023, just two months after its launch, it is understandable why some have argued AI applications such as ChatGPT will precipitate a “tsunami effect” of changes to contemporary schooling (García-Peñalvo, 2023). 

  Current policy responses

  Not surprisingly, there are opposing views on how to respond to ChatGPT and other AI language models. Some argue educators should embrace AI as a useful tool for teaching and learning, provided the application(s) is cited correctly (Willems, 2023). Others assert that additional training and resources are needed so that educators can better detect cheating (Abdelaal et al., 2019). Still others suggest that the educational challenges posed by AI described above must ultimately lead to assessment reforms (Cotton & Cotton, 2023) that will prevent students from using AI to complete their assignments, so that this threat is minimized. Even with likely further advances in cheating detection software, schools at all levels need to rethink their pedagogical and assessment approaches to respond to a continually evolving information world, one in which computers and technology are increasingly capable at synthesizing and organizing information.

  Interestingly, some educators are actively exploring how to incorporate AI into their teaching and assessment methods. Fyfe (2022) describes a “pedagogical experiment” in which he asked students to generate content from a version of GPT-2 and intentionally weave this content throughout their final essay. Students were then asked to confront the availability of AI as a writing tool and reflect on the ethical use of emergent AI language models. This example suggests AI could be used to not only support student learning of core content, but extend critical digital literacy skills, too.

  To put a finer point on this, when AI is integrated into teaching and learning, students’ engagement in their learning is higher, according to learning taxonomies. Take for instance a simple learning taxonomy like I.C.E. (Fostaty-Young & Wilson, 1995), where the “I” represents a student’s capacity to remember and work with basic content ideas (e.g. facts, figures, knowledge); the “C” represents a student’s ability to make connections between ideas (e.g. to organize ideas into a logical argument, to compare and contrast, to synthesize); and “E” represents a student’s capacity to make extensions. The “extensions” level of learning, which has also been referred to as “higher order thinking,” is where novel, critical, and creative outputs occur. At this point, AI is unable to achieve extensions, thus this becomes the role and function of students: to understand the ideas presented by texts, teachers, and AI bots and use them to establish novel extensions.

  

  The challenge, of course, is that not all curriculum expectations require extension-level learning.  Sometimes students need to learn and demonstrate their learning of basic ideas and connections. So, the question remains, how can AI and assessment work together to support all types of learning? Phrased differently, how can a teacher ensure their teaching and assessment practices are not susceptible to academic integrity issues?

  Rethinking assessment with artificial intelligence in mind

  There is little doubt that the emergence of ChatGPT represents the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of the use of AI in society and in education. In preparation for its growing presence in education, we provide six key practices to deter the misuse of AI in assessment and evaluation processes.

  1. Be explicit about the learning goals and the role of AI in assessments and assignments.
  2. Collaboratively establish assignment criteria with students.
  3. Engage in feedback cycles (peer, self, and teacher feedback) and include feedback drafts in final submission of work.
  4. Leverage performance tasks (e.g. presentations, videos, artistic work, etc.) in classroom assessment practices.
  5. Use authentic assessments (e.g. community-based activities, real-world tasks) whenever possible.
  6. Collaboratively grade assessments with students.

  These six key practices have already proven to support more effective learning and assessment. Importantly, their continued use may either work with AI where appropriate, or deter the use of AI when necessary. For example, while we do not devalue the importance of learning goals that include foundational knowledge and conceptual understanding, the presence of AI creates an opportunity to identify more complex learning goals. These goals may build on teaching and learning that uses AI but then requires learners to evaluate or create extensions in their learning. Similarly, clarity of criteria helps students focus their learning, and the co-creation of criteria with students can lead to discussions regarding those aspects of an assignment or task that may use AI to supplement the work. Feedback cycles better reflect the processes we actually use to complete complex tasks, and the use of peer, self, and teacher feedback improves the quality of work and learning. While AI may be incorporated within early drafts, the revision process will require additional learner effort. Collectively, performance and authentic assessments require a high level of student engagement to demonstrate a number of integrated learning outcomes. As above, AI may supplement some of the foundational aspects of the work and/or task, but the final product will be illustrative of higher-order and critical thinking skills. Lastly, collaborative grading has a number of benefits, including greater assessment consistency, reduced bias, and, we would argue, a greater potential for detection of inappropriate use of AI and/or plagiarism.

  Taken together, these practices not only make clear the role of AI in teaching, learning, and assessment, but also encourage students to be more agentic in the learning and assessment process. Effective learning requires students to engage actively, collaboratively, and orally in their learning and to demonstrate their learning through effective assessment. Assessment practices that are embedded within the learning process (formative assessment) will help reduce academic integrity concerns while encouraging more authentic and alternative assessments. The current debate around the presence of AI technologies such as Chat GPT must quickly shift from one of concerns about assessment integrity to one about how we use these technologies in our classrooms to enable our students to demonstrate more-complex and valued learning outcomes. In this respect, AI provides the necessary impetus to spur more forward-thinking assessment practices and policies within provincial and national education systems.

  References 

  Abdelaal, E., Gamage, S. W., & Mills, J. E. (2019). Artificial Intelligence is a tool for cheating academic integrity. Proceedings of the AAEE2019 Conference. Artificial-Intelligence-Is-a-Tool-for-Cheating-Academic-Integrity.pdf (researchgate.net)

  Choi, J. H., Hickman, K. E., et al. (2023). ChatGPT goes to law school. Minnesota Legal Studies Research Paper No. 23-03. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4335905

  Cotton, D. R. E., & Cotton, P. A. (2023). Chatting and cheating: Ensuring academic integrity in the era of ChatGPT. EdArXiv Reprints. https://edarxiv.org/mrz8h?trk=public_post_main-feed-card_reshare-text

  de Winter, J. C. F. (2023). Can ChatGPT pass high school exams on English language comprehension. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366659237_Can_ChatGPT_pass_high_school_exams_on_English_Language_Comprehension

  Eaton, S. E., & Hughes, J. C. (2022). Academic Integrity in Canada. Springer. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/53333/1/978-3-030-83255-1.pdf#page=99 

  Fyfe, P. (2022). How to cheat on your final paper: Assigning AI for student writing. AI & Society. doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01397-z

  García-Peñalvo, F. J. (2023). The perception of Artificial Intelligence in educational contexts after the launch of ChatGPT: disruption or panic? Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. https://repositorio.grial.eu/handle/grial/2838

  Khalil, M., & Er, K. (2023). Will ChatGPT get you caught? Rethinking of plagiarism detection. arXiv. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2302.04335

  OpenAI. (2023). Terms of use. https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use

  Willems, J. (2023). ChatGPT at universities – the least of our concerns. SSRN Journal. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4334162

  Xiao, Y., Chatterjee, S., & Gehringer, E. (2022). A new era of plagiarism the danger of cheating using AI. Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET). https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10031827

• Playing Out of the Pandemic

  April 26, 2023 11:00 AM Comments Off on Playing Out of the Pandemic

  WHEN WE’RE IN TROUBLE, we can give up, keep going, or play our way out of it. The COVID-19 pandemic has been big trouble, for sure. It is this century’s greatest crisis, and, for most of us, the greatest crisis of our entire lives. The immediate impact of the pandemic on learning, engagement, and wellbeing is clear. In Canada, concerns about student mental health, physical inactivity, excessive screen time, delayed social skills, inconsistent attendance, and ever-widening learning gaps are growing (Vaillancourt, T. et al., 2021).  

  There have been four prominent educational responses to recovery from COVID-19:  

  • rectifying learning losses through testing and interventions  
  • supporting wellbeing for only the most vulnerable students  
  • expanding digital learning 
  • returning to “normal.” 

  These responses are insufficient or inappropriate. The question is how can we re-engage all students and their educators with the joy and purpose of learning after months and sometimes years of literally – as well as figuratively – switching off from it? In other words, how can we play our way out of it?  

  It is not only our students who are struggling. Globally, teachers and school leaders are leaving the profession at an unprecedented rate (UNESCO, 2022). There is an urgent need to find ways to recruit and retain new teachers, and also support those who stay. Engage our students, and we will engage their teachers, too.  

  We’ve already witnessed schools get creative with scheduling and spaces, shift more learning outdoors, and embrace a variety of playful approaches to engage students. How do we capture and circulate these innovative practices across the country post-pandemic? What types of play-based learning matter for students, especially those traditionally under-served by school systems? These questions inspired our University of Ottawa team to apply for a LEGO Foundation COVID Recovery Grant to establish the bilingual Canadian Playful Schools Network (CPSN).  

  

  The Playful Schools Network 

  The first of its kind in the world, this bilingual network brings together 41 school teams from seven provinces to explore and advance significant and sustainable learning through play in the middle school grades (4–8). Learn more about the 41 participating school teams and their learning through play projects in the videos and descriptions on the CPSN interactive map. 

  As a learning network, the CPSN connects educators who are using playful pedagogies from across the country and provides opportunities for them to share innovative practices and resources, learn with and from one another as well as experts in learning through play, and inspire and challenge each other. Together, CPSN members and the research team are exploring answers to the following research questions:  

  • What does learning through play mean for Canadian educators?  
  • How is it related to engagement and wellbeing?  
  • When is it deep, and when is it a distraction?  
  • What can we learn about the connections between play, language, culture, and identity? 
  • What is the potential of play to develop and strengthen French-language learning and a stronger sense of belonging for students in francophone Canada? 

  Participating school teams share their playful learning journey through monthly reports, project videos, school showcases, and network events, such as playdates, playgroups, and the Showcase Conference in June, 2023.   

  The CPSN provides each school team with funding to support time for monthly professional learning and its self-directed Learning through Play Project. Each month, educators collaborate as a school team, learn from other schools through playdates or playgroups, attend webinars offered as part of the Playjouer Professional Learning Series, share resources, and ultimately, deepen their play-based practices. The CPSN uOttawa team and 13 international advisors provide facilitation, consultation, coaching, and research support for the schools.  

  The importance of play 

  The importance of play for children’s learning and wellbeing has a distinguished history. The German inventor of kindergarten, Friedrich Froebel, Italian school reformer Maria Montessori, and U.S. progressive educator John Dewey have all argued for more play in the classroom. Learning through play is essential to children’s development and can support abstract thinking, language development, social skills, and self-expression. “Play nourishes every aspect of children’s development – it forms the foundation of intellectual, social, physical, and emotional skills necessary for success in school and in life. Play paves the way for learning” (Canadian Council on Learning, 2006). In Free to Learn, Peter Gray (2013) shows how free play, which is distinguished from play that is structured by adults, can help children learn to make friends, get along with peers as equals, solve problems, overcome fears, create rules, and make their own decisions.   

  Across Canada, play is most prevalent in kindergarten and the early years of elementary school, but tends to vanish as students progress through junior, middle, and senior grades. Play-based approaches seem to be more challenging as students get older and bigger, and can be at odds with the pressures of top-down accountability and content-heavy curricula. Play is often seen as a frivolous distraction from the hard work of learning. Yet, as Dutch philosopher Johann Huizinga has argued, play is central to civilization and forms the basis for human culture. Play can and should look different across different ages and contexts, but it must be present throughout all levels of schooling.  

  The CPSN is not just about getting more play into the curriculum. It’s about deepening and questioning what play is and where and how it makes a difference. Play is often fun – but not always. Play is not the opposite of work. Paradoxically, they are interconnected. Getting young people re-engaged after the pandemic is about grasping the connection between play and work, where play is work, and vice versa.  

  Research focus 

  The CPSN digs deep into the potential of play in the middle years, while addressing issues related to inclusion, equity, and wellbeing, as well as learning and evaluation. As a network, we are examining the ways through which students in grades 4–8 play, and how we can identify and integrate them. We are interested in when play can enhance students’ engagement with learning and wellbeing, and also when it does not – and finding ways to address this. We want to know how play in schools can better reflect students’ diverse languages, cultures, and identities and help make play-based learning accessible to all students in all contexts rather than being only for the privileged.  

  The CPSN is also interested in the potential impact of learning through play on educators’ engagement with learning and wellbeing. Recognizing the challenges of integrating play-based pedagogies in older grades, we want to know how CPSN teachers persist in the face of testing, content, and behaviour demands and support one another. What are the most effective ways for educators and schools to share and circulate positive strategies for play-based learning? Which network activities, resources, and professional learning are most impactful for CPSN teachers and how can they give each other feedback that will deepen the approaches they are all taking? The answers to these questions will not only support the network but also help other schools interested in implementing play-based practices.  

  Ways to play  

  In the CPSN, learning through play is explored across four modes: green (outdoors), screen (digital and computer-based), machine (digital and physical building) and everything in between, which looks at the intersections of language, identity, and cultures through play and playful learning (See Figure 1). All 41 CPSN school teams design and implement their own CPSN projects that fit their different learning contexts (e.g. urban or rural community, Indigenous, French or English language, etc.). Together, the projects range across the four modes and many encompass more than one of them. In the network, learning through play is understood in different ways, though the themes and modes cut across all playful projects. For some schools, play can include experiential and hands-on activities such as building outdoor learning spaces, greenhouses, multi-modal murals, and electronic cardboard arcades. For others, play looks like playful inquiry projects where students have dedicated time all year, choose their own topics to explore deeply, and are supported by teachers and community members. For other schools, play means spending time in nature and learning on the land with knowledge keepers or it means creating your own play, song, or book and using technology like animation, Minecraft, or Ozobots to make it come alive. In all projects, play involves hard work, choice, autonomy, challenge, collaboration with peers, and the risk of failure.  

  

  CPSN projects 

  A description of all participating CPSN school teams and their learning through projects is available on our website: www.playjouer.ca. Below are some examples from four of our seven participating provinces. 

  Chinago Nongom Wabang – Past, Today, and Tomorrow is the name of the learning through play project at Kitigan Zibi Kikinamadinan, a Grade 1–Secondary 5 school in Algonquin territory, near Maniwaki, Quebec. Their CPSN project reflects the school’s priority to provide a nurturing community that values Anishinaabe language and culture for students. Building on the school’s long history of passing on the traditional Algonquin way of life to students, this green play project is focused on learning on the land. During monthly cultural days, students choose from a variety of activities that spark their interest while also learning about their ancestry and local environment. Led by teachers, community members, Elders, and knowledge keepers, the activities vary depending on the month and season and include canoeing, ice fishing, boiling sap to make maple syrup, building shelters and fires, sewing, beading and making moccasins, working with hides, and learning about local plants and medicines.  

  The project of Monseigneur de Laval Elementary School in Regina is focused on developing and filming a play based on the biography of a prominent figure of Saskatchewan francophone heritage. Their project involves language and culture, as well as arts and making. Collectively, students choose their subject, and take a leadership role to document the region’s history, draft the script, design set and costumes, as well as act, direct, film, and edit. Students are supported by community partners, such as their local theatre group, Radio Canada, the Saskatchewan Historical Society, and the artists’ association. 

  In King’s Point, Newfoundland, students at Valmont Academy are building a multi-modal mural out of recycled materials. The design is a sailboat, inspired by the work of a local artist. Students have the choice to work with a variety of materials, such as fibreglass, metal, driftwood, and beach glass. Students collected materials for the mural through field trips to their local beach, hiking trails, and surrounding nature. Local industry partners, including boat builders, welders, and fibreglass manufacturers mentor students on how to work with the different materials. The mural will be assembled under the guidance of a local artist. The project aims to rebuild Valmont’s connections to its community and promote local industry career opportunities. 

  At L’École acadienne de Pomquet, a French-language K–12 school in Nova Scotia, students, community members, and Indigenous knowledge keepers have collaborated to build outdoor educational spaces, such as a greenhouse, outdoor fire pit, and 30-foot teepee. The school’s project focuses on improving the forest that surrounds the school and the connection between Indigenous and Acadian cultures. Consulting with partners from the local Indigenous community, students learned that there are no water sources in the forest, so they are working to dig a pond and build an aquatic ecosystem. They also plan to use the pond as a skating rink in the colder months. The project is not only an opportunity for students to play, build, and learn outdoors in French, but to see the minority language as a source of joy, rather than work: “Si t’as pas de plaisir, ça devient une langue de travail.”1  

  CPSN members’ reflections  

  In our playgroup discussions, CPSN members have shared how much they appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and how their projects are not only rejuvenating and motivating for their students but also for themselves. “It is bringing joy back,” one member stated. Learning through play, they report, supports inclusion, values student strengths, offers leadership opportunities, helps make connections with community and land, encourages students to speak French, and builds classroom community. It also provides a meaningful way for students such as newcomers from Ukraine to meet, work, and develop a sense of belonging with classmates through the universal language of play.  

  Exciting as all this sounds, learning through play is not without its challenges. There is a tension between play-based learning and curricular expectations. Moving away from traditional teaching and evaluation may concern families, community partners, and even some colleagues. In French-language schools, most materials must be translated and adapted, which consumes resources and can increase workload. The CPSN supports educators to work (and play) their way through and out of these challenges together.   

  In the middle years of schooling today, play is the exception, not the rule. It tends to flourish in early childhood, or prosper in university psychology “labs” promoting learning sciences where human and financial resources are much greater than in mainstream school systems. It also caters more to the privileged than the marginalized, as is the case in the worldwide Montessori school movement, for example. And it is tolerated in alternative schools, where there is an understanding that traditional ways of teaching and learning may look different. 

  The CPSN is designed to spark thinking and action in the mainstream about the importance of play-based approaches in the middle years, legitimize learning through play, provide inspiration, offer examples and resources for other schools across the country, and deepen the dialogue about the nature and value of play in general.  

  If the world were a hockey game, it would be in overtime now. This is not a time to hold on and be defensive. It’s time to make our best moves; to play our way out of trouble; to learn better, and play harder. Play is learning. It should be accessible to all students, no matter where they live, who they are, and which language they speak. 

  

   

  References 

  Gray, P. (2013).  Free to learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life. Basic Books.  

  Hewes, J. (2006). Let the children play: Nature’s answer to early learning. Early Childhood Learning Knowledge Centre, Canadian Council on Learning. 

  Huizinga, J. (2014). Homo ludens: A study of the play-element in culture. Routledge.  

  UNESCO. (2022). Transforming teaching from within – Current trends in the status and development of teachers. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 

  Vaillancourt, T., Beauchamp, M., et al. (2022). Children and schools during COVID-19 and beyond: Engagement and connection through opportunity. Royal Society of Canada.  

   

  Photo credit: Leslie Mott, Grade Five, North Gower Marlborough Public School

• Children’s Reading Skills Back on Track

  11:00 AM Comments Off on Children’s Reading Skills Back on Track

  It is now THREE years since governments around the world announced the shutdown of schools to protect students and teachers from COVID-19. According to UNESCO (2020), more than 1.5 billion children from more than 190 countries were sent home in March 2020 to receive instruction remotely, if at all. Since then, educators, parents, and policymakers have been interested in knowing how much the disruptions COVID-19 brought to regular reading instruction impacted children’s reading performance. In this article, we expand on a previous report on children’s reading performance during the first six months of the pandemic (see Georgiou, 2021) to include information from 20 K–9 schools in Alberta from September 2019 until they returned to regular classroom instruction in September 2022.

  Findings from the rest of the world

  The results of most published studies in different parts of the world indicate that COVID-19 had a significant impact on children’s reading performance, particularly in early grades. For example, in a recent study covering five million Grade 3 to 8 students in the U.S., Kuhfeld et al. (2023) reported that the average fall 2021 reading scores on a standardized reading measure were .09 to .17 standard deviations lower relative to same-grade scores in the fall of 2019. Compared to the growth a typical (pre-pandemic) student makes in these grades, these test score drops represent roughly a third of a school year’s worth of growth. Similarly, working with a sample of Finnish children, Lerkkanen et al. (2022) reported that the growth in reading from Grade 1 to 4 was slower for their COVID-19 cohort than for their pre-COVID-19 cohort.

  The same body of research has also revealed that the effect of COVID-19 has not been equal for different groups of students. For example, students from lower socio-economic (SES) backgrounds (or students attending high-poverty schools) seem to have been influenced more than students from higher SES backgrounds. There is also some evidence that students with reading disabilities were more impacted than students without reading disabilities. Finally, Kuhfeld et al. (2022) found that in the U.S., the effect of COVID-19 was greater for Hispanic, American Indian and Alaskan Native, and Black students than for Asian American or White students.1

  Findings from Canada

  Evidence on how COVID-19 has impacted Canadian students is still scarce and we know of only two studies reporting on how Canadian students were affected, one conducted in Alberta and one conducted in Quebec.

  The Alberta study: Georgiou (2021) compared the performance of approximately 4,000 English-speaking students from Grades 2 to 9 in September 2020 (right after the schools re-opened) to the performance of same-grade students in the three years prior to the school closures. Georgiou found that only the performance of younger children (Grades 2 and 3) was lower compared to previous years. Interestingly, the performance of older children (Grades 4 to 9) either remained the same or improved during the pandemic. On the basis of these findings, the Ministry of Education in Alberta (Alberta Education) asked schools to test all their Grade 1 to 3 students in reading and provided substantial funding to support schools in providing reading interventions to the most affected children in early grades.

  The Quebec study: Côté and Haeck (personal communication, June 3, 2022) compared the performance of Grade 4 French-speaking students in Quebec using the results from the reading ministerial exam in June 2019 (prior to the pandemic) and June 2021 (a year into the pandemic). They found a substantial decrease in the average performance of students between the two measurement points (77.3 percent in 2019 vs. 69 percent in 2021).

  Back on track?

  We have been studying reading development and difficulties in Alberta for the past 20 years. Because of this, we had measures in place in multiple schools to also examine the impact of COVID-19. For the purpose of this article, we examined:

  • 20 schools from three school divisions in Alberta
  • About 6,500 Grade 1 to 9 students assessed in September 2019, September 2020, September 2021, and September 2022
  • Data on three norm-referenced assessments (Test of Word Reading Efficiency-2, Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency-2, and Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension).

  To better understand the impact of COVID-19, it is important to break down the time into three separate periods. The first time period covers September 2019 to September 2020. This time period captures the time when schools closed indefinitely after the COVID-19 outbreak and only remote instruction was available to children. The second period (September 2020 to September 2021) is the academic year when schools re-opened, but children had to quarantine for 10 to 14 days if they had COVID-19 and whole classes shifted between face-to-face and online teaching depending on the number of positive cases in each class. Finally, the third time period (from September 2021 to September 2022) is when most teaching took place face-to-face and there were relatively fewer learning disruptions.

  • From September 2019 to September 2020: The reading performance of students from Grades 1 to 3 declined in all tasks. The performance of students in Grades 4 to 9 remained the same or improved slightly. These results replicate those reported in Georgiou (2021).
  •  From September 2020 to September 2021: The performance of students in all grade levels declined and the decline was larger in reading efficiency and comprehension than in basic word reading skills. Similar results have been reported by Kuhfeld et al. (2022) for U.S. students using different measures of reading skills.
  •  From September 2021 to September 2022: The performance of students in all grade levels improved and was comparable to the performance in the same tasks prior to the pandemic (in September 2019).

  These findings suggest that the students in these 20 schools might be back on track in reading following three years of COVID-19 pandemic.

  Four keys to recovery

  There are four key factors we believe that have helped the students in this sample to get back on track. We summarize them below.

  Use of evidence-based practices in the participating schools
  Obviously, we wouldn’t have any data to present here unless these schools were collecting data from their students on a yearly basis using norm-referenced assessments. In addition, teachers in these schools have been participating in ongoing professional development seminars with us focusing on best practices in teaching reading, and have been sharing their experiences from field-testing different strategies as part of their communities of practice (see Georgiou et al., 2020, for more information). Principals have also been meeting regularly to discuss the results of their assessments and to identify areas in which their teachers would benefit from further professional development. It is important to note here that the evidence-based practices were in place in the sample schools well before COVID-19. This means that when Alberta Education called teachers in the province to focus their instruction on foundational skills in learning to read (e.g. phonological awareness, phonics, reading fluency), the teachers in these schools did not have to change what they were already successfully doing. This likely had a positive impact on their students’ reading performance and contributed to a quicker recovery.

  Early screening and intervention
  Alberta Education mandated screening of all Grade 1 to 3 children using reliable and valid assessments of foundational reading skills. Traditionally, most school divisions in Alberta have been using various benchmark assessments to identify struggling readers, despite research showing that they are neither reliable nor accurate (Burns et al., 2015; Parker et al., 2015). Alberta Education did not approve these assessments for accessing additional funding. In addition, Alberta Education shared a reading intervention program with all schools in the province that included 80 lessons on phonological awareness and phonics, and asked schools to report on children’s growth over time. To our knowledge, this is the first time a province mandated early literacy screening and provided free intervention materials to all schools; both policies should continue in the future.

  Funding
  Alberta Education provided $45 million additional funding to schools to address any learning losses. To our knowledge, this is the largest amount spent in the country and assuming the money was used for the intended purpose (i.e. intervention), it may explain why students in our sample schools caught up quickly. Alberta Education also funded research projects on early intervention and the results of these projects provided valuable information on how to address learning losses. In one of these projects, we provided intervention to 365 Grade 2 and 3 struggling readers, and after 4.5 months of intervention, 80 percent of them had improved about 1.5 years in their reading. Some of these children were in the schools included in the study reported above. Funding of evidence-based reading interventions in conjunction with frequent monitoring of students’ progress using reliable and accurate measures should continue in the future.

  Discussions around evidence-based practices
  The discussions taking place around the country on what should be done to address learning losses drew teachers’ attention to evidence-based practices in reading. For example, among the recommendations given to teachers through different media was one that reading researchers have long asked for: Provide systematic and explicit phonics instruction in early grades. This recommendation is now also included in the new Alberta English Language Arts curriculum for the early primary years.

  The positive results on recovery come from schools that use evidence-based early literacy instructional practices and have provided their teachers with professional development on these practices that they may not have received in their teacher education programs. At this time, we don’t yet have reliable information on COVID-19 recovery from schools that are behind in transitioning to evidence-based early literacy programs. Finally, the promising results we see in our schools in Alberta reflect positively on the policy implemented by Alberta Education. By mandating early screening and funding additional interventions, and by making reliable assessments and effective intervention programs available to schools, Alberta Education essentially acted on the recommendations provided by the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read report.

   

  References

  Burns, M. K., Pulles, S. M., et al. (2015). Accuracy of student performance while reading leveled books rated at their instructional level by a reading inventory. Journal of School Psychology, 53, 437–445.

  Georgiou, G. (2021). Has COVID-19 impacted children’s reading scores? The Reading League Journal, 2, 34–39.

  Georgiou, G., Kushnir, G., & Parrila, R. (2020). Moving the needle on literacy: Lessons learned from a school where literacy rates have improved over time. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 66, 347–359. doi.org/10.11575/ajer.v66i3.56988

  Kuhfeld, M., Lewis, K., & Peltier, T. (2023). Reading achievement declines during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from 5 million U.S. students in Grades 3–8. Reading and Writing. doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10345-8

  Lerkkanen, M.-K., Pakarinen, E., et al. (2022). Reading and math skills development among Finnish primary school children before and after COVID-19 school closure. Reading and Writing. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11145-022-10358-3

  Parker, D. C., Zaslofsky, A. F., et al. (2015). A brief report of the diagnostic accuracy of oral reading fluency and reading inventory levels for reading failure risk among second- and third-grade students. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 31, 56-67.

  UNESCO. (2020). COVID-19 impact on education. https://en.unesco.org/COVID19/educationresponse

  Photo: iStock
  First published in Education Canada, April 2023
  1 These are the descriptors used in the study.

• From Responses to Recovery

  11:00 AM Comments Off on From Responses to Recovery

  Once close friends and colleagues, teachers Ashley, Morgan, and Mackenzie stood in their classroom doorways, their physical distance a stark reminder of the emotional distance between them now. In an attempt at building a bridge of commiseration after teaching in pandemic conditions for over a year, Ashley said, “I wish the admin would understand how this feels for us. I have never felt so discouraged and isolated. Another PD about online methods is exactly NOT what I need right now.” Morgan agreed. “What we really need is to be heard and respected – and a break. Yeah, a break would be nice. I’ve had it!” Mackenzie was silent. She had been looking forward to the PD later that day. Online teaching had been a welcome break from business as usual, and after an initial bumpy period, she was leaning into it and feeling a sense of accomplishment. Each teacher looked at the others. The silence dragged. And then the bell rang, and it was back to work.

  In April 2020, schools around the world were forced into a period of historic disruption as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Similarly, in Canada, an initial few weeks of school closures evolved into several months, with schools continuing to ride the ongoing waves of the pandemic and teachers expected to pivot from in-person to remote instruction and adopt new pedagogies as required. Here we present an on-going, SSHRC-funded Canadian study (Babb et al., 2022) that our research team began in April 2020. We queried over 2,000 Canadian teachers for almost three years during the pandemic, so that we could gain a deep understanding of their experiences, inquiring into the demands faced by teachers and the resources available to support them through this time.

  Teaching during the first few months of COVID-19

  Initial interview data collected from Canadian teachers early in the pandemic showed that balance was difficult to maintain (Eblie Trudel et al., 2021). Many learners had inadequate access to technology, limited home support in their language of instruction, and reduced assistance with the challenges of additional learning needs. Many parents, already strapped with work and child-care duties, were overwhelmed and unable to assist in facilitating their children’s instruction. Moreover, teachers struggled to prioritize basic student needs, create vital partnerships between schools and families, and develop the necessary confidence to deliver engaging learning through new modes of teaching.

  As our research developed, findings demonstrated that teachers responded predictably to the two widely accepted theoretical models of burnout used in our study, voicing their subjective appraisals of teaching in a pandemic in remarkably diverse ways. The job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) allowed us to recognize that varied, but unique, experiences of teachers were leading some teachers to burnout, due to the increased demands and inadequate resources available for support. A model by Maslach and Jackson (1981) permitted us to assess the progression of burnout along a spectrum associated with periods of occupational stress, noting dimensions of exhaustion, depersonalization or cynicism, and reduced work accomplishment. We found that exhaustion could arise from excessive demands felt in a particular role and that lost efficacy could result from insufficient resources to meet such demands. Some exhausted teachers withdrew from students and colleagues, or avoided work altogether, actions recognized as depersonalization and cynicism in the burnout literature. Given that teachers’ withdrawal from students could impact student achievement and wellbeing, finding ways to reduce teacher stress and increase coping was shown to be vital for maintaining quality instruction and avoiding teacher burnout.

  Unsolvable as a single puzzle

  Imagining the research process akin to assembling a large puzzle, our team attempted to use traditional statistical methods to provide a concise picture of teacher coping over the course of the pandemic. However, developing a clear picture of teacher experiences proved to be challenging. Just when we thought we understood the trends, we were faced with new data that did not fit at all. It was like we were assembling a puzzle with pieces mixed in from other puzzles – and the pieces just didn’t fit. By using a new kind of statistical analysis, we found that there were, in fact, five unique puzzles that required consideration. Our findings revealed five distinct profiles (or patterns) of responses to teaching in the pandemic, each relating to different combinations of role demands as well as access to both individual and employer-provided resources (See Figure 1).

  

  Five puzzles

  Specifically, we identified two groups of teachers who were flourishing, and we called them the “engaged” and “involved” groups. Despite experiencing moderate levels of exhaustion and perceiving high demands, teachers in both of these categories accessed a greater number of resources and demonstrated higher levels of accomplishment than other teachers in the study. Like Mackenzie, the teachers in the engaged and involved groups were supported to meet their job demands during pandemic conditions, although the teachers in the involved group were slightly more withdrawn than those in the engaged category.

  A third teacher group was nearing burnout and was acknowledged as being “over-extended.” Teachers in this category, like Ashley, had a small deficit of resources compared to their work demands, and were at the “tipping point” of burnout symptoms. While they were experiencing close to the highest levels of exhaustion and feeling moderately withdrawn, they were still able to demonstrate higher levels of accomplishment. Finally, we found two other teacher groups to be experiencing moderate to high levels of exhaustion and feeling significantly withdrawn. Teachers in these groups, like Morgan, were languishing and exhibiting symptoms of burnout. We coined them “detached” and “inefficacious,” with the latter reporting the lowest levels of accomplishment of all. These findings were shared by our partners at the EdCan Network through an article and infographic.

  Importantly, for each group we found that it was not the number of demands or the number of resources that predicted burnout, but rather the ratio of resources to demands that predicted the level of stress and burnout perceived by the teachers in the groups. This realization challenged the thinking that teachers were “all in the same boat” during the pandemic. Some teachers were in yachts and some were in life rafts. Some had smooth sailing while others taught through a raging storm – all dependent on whether they had sufficient resources to meet the demands of their specific teaching contexts.

  Solutions to the five puzzles

  Subsequent work with our partners in a large Manitoba school division, allowed comparative insight between national and provincial data. We were alarmed to discover that 46 percent of Manitoban teachers demonstrated patterns of the two struggling groups, compared with 27 percent of teachers from across Canada. In fact, a greater proportion of Canadian teachers remained at a tipping point in the over-extended group, whereas more Manitoban teachers had already spilled over to become detached and inefficacious. With the Manitoba government aware and informed of this research, over $1 million in funding was awarded to our partners at the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) (mbwpg.cmha.ca/) provincially, to address the wellbeing of individuals and organizations in the provincial education sector. CMHA established a website (careforallineducation.com) that facilitates real-time access to Wellness Specialists through phone and online chat modalities to all Manitoban education sector workers, including teachers. CMHA also developed a suite of workshops as part of a multi-level response mechanism. This initiative acknowledged that individuals, administrators, organizations, and government needed to work together to ensure that support is provided for education sector recovery and growth.

  Bakker and de Vries (2021) found that with support from school organizations, teachers were more likely to sustain individual resilience while still meeting professional responsibilities. Not only could teachers freely engage with individual strategies for coping (setting boundaries with work time and space, applying healthy eating, exercise and sleep habits, and practising self-compassion) but they could also partake in systemic programs for workplace wellbeing.

  For teachers who were flourishing, concurrent employer-hosted opportunities that fit the specific needs of these teachers best include:

  •  job coaching (increasing job control, task variety and transparency)
  •  mentorship opportunities
  •  positive role changes
  •  increasing resources such as professional learning to further engage in and enhance daily work.

  Responding to teachers at a tipping point, languishing, or feeling role strain, individual recommendations would include:

  •  decreases in multi-tasking
  •  reducing distractions
  •  blocking time for priority tasks
  •  planning for digital downtime and rest
  •  focusing on non-work-related activities after working hours.

  It is essential to remember, however, that employees cannot recover from stress within workplaces that demonstrate imbalances in demands and resources, so simultaneous workplace changes are essential to facilitate and encourage individual strategies that allow for recovery and replenishment. Leadership suggestions here include:

  •  enhanced communication and collaboration to better determine stress levels of staff
  •  human resource programs to support recovery and wellbeing
  •  policies or procedures that allow employees to disconnect from daily work and enjoy leisure time.

  The key idea in this scenario is that teachers can engage in self-regulation by identifying their levels of stress and then actively select individual and organizational strategies to enhance coping and optimize wellbeing. In order to do this, however, it is vital to identify burnout as a collective rather than an individual responsibility, with interventions provided at both personal and organizational levels.

  Different boats in the same storm

  Holmes and colleagues (2020) endorsed the importance of understanding teacher stress as a means of supporting the education sector going forward. As one interview participant described, “Teachers were experiencing the pandemic in different ways. Some were thriving and engaging in novel aspects of teaching and technology, while others were experiencing trauma and tensions, and grieving the loss of pre-pandemic practices.” With enhanced awareness of the diversity of responses to coping during the pandemic, our research demonstrated that teachers could be assisted to understand and navigate their stressors and supports, thereby accessing additional resources as necessary to engage with or offset the strain of job demands. Furthermore, with this knowledge, school boards and other stakeholder organizations could be better prepared to provide resources and supports to help employees achieve or restore work-life balance and enhance or recover wellbeing. Ongoing monitoring and subsequent follow-up research with the CMHA is being conducted by our team to evaluate the effectiveness of both individual and organizational resources for wellbeing, as we move forward with post-pandemic recovery. We now know that teachers are not all in the same boat as they continue to navigate their teaching roles, and that a collective suite of responses will be necessary to ensure they all make it safely and successfully back to the harbour.

  References

  babb, J., Sokal, L., & Eblie Trudel, L. (2022). THIS IS US: Latent profile analysis of Canadian teachers’ resilience and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian Journal of Education, 45(2), 555–585.
  doi.org/10.53967/cje-rce.v45i2.5057

  Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

  Bakker, A., & de Vries, J. (2021). Job Demands-Resources theory and self-regulation: New explanations and remedies for job burnout. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 34(1). 1–21. doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2020.1797695

  Eblie Trudel, L., Sokal L., & Babb, J. (2021). Teachers’ voices: Pandemic lessons for the future of education. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 15(1). doi.org/10.22329/jtl.v15i1.6486

  Holmes, E., O’Connor, R., et al. (2020). Multi-disciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health sciences. Lancet Psychiatry, 7(6), 547–560. doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30168-1

  Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1981). The measurement of experienced burnout. Journal of Occupational Behaviour, 2(2), 99–113. doi.org/10.1002/job.4030020205

  Sokal, L., Eblie Trudel, L., & Babb, J. (2020a). It’s okay to be okay too. Why calling out teachers’ “toxic positivity” may backfire. Education Canada, 60(3). www.edcan.ca/articles/its-ok-to-be-ok-too

  Sokal, L., Eblie Trudel, L., & Babb, J. (2020b). COVID 19: Supporting teachers in times of change. Education Canada, Infographic Series. https://edcannetwork.wordpress.com/2020/09/02/teacher-covid-survey

  Photo: iStock
  First published in Education Canada, April 2023

• Wellness Includes the Brain

  January 24, 2023 12:15 AM Comments Off on Wellness Includes the Brain

  We live and teach in a society that for the most part ignores the brain. For many of us, when we hear the term “wellness” we think about our physical, emotional, and mental health, yet few of us apply the term wellness to our brains. Research into the brain has increased in leaps and bounds over the last forty years. It is time for us to include it in our wellness repertoire. 

  It’s common knowledge that our sleep, diet, and activity level impact both body and brain health. What’s less commonly understood is how chronic or toxic stress can cause harm to both body and brain. And while we may seek out medical insights when our body manifests symptoms of toxic stress, we are less likely to do so when our brain shows signs of suffering. After all, neurological scars, anatomical changes, and the dismantling of brain architecture cannot be seen with the naked eye. Scientists, in contrast, can see these physical changes on brain scans. Non-invasive technology has revealed that toxic stress can do serious and lasting damage to the brain. 

  That’s the bad news. 

  The good news is scientists also have learned, and documented in extensive research, that our brains are innately wired to repair and recover. That said, it is not a quick fix and it is not easy. Returning a brain that has felt trapped in a toxic stress environment to organic brain health requires daily work at evidence-based practices. Reducing and eliminating the destructive effect of chronic stress demands the same kind of activation energy needed to get up off the couch and begin an exercise regime. You need to start slowly or risk injury. You need to believe in yourself in order to muster up the day-in, day-out work of deliberate practice. With commitment, over time you will find your lungs gasping less, your heart pounding less, your muscles strengthening, your resilience increasing, and your stress levels dropping. 

  The dual benefits of physical exercise

  Aerobic exercise is not only good for the body, it is immensely curative for a stressed-out brain. It fuels the brain with BDNF, brain-derived neurotropic factor, which neuroscientists see as comparable to fertilizer needed to encourage the birth of new brain cells, grow healthy brain structures, and fuel neural networks. A notable distinction between the body and brain, when it comes to exercise, is that the former can happily run on either a treadmill or a wooded path and still get strong and fit. In contrast, the brain does far better on the wooded path. Brains are hungry for learning on multiple levels. Along with the documented stress reduction of “forest bathing,” the path out in nature feeds the brain’s craving for challenges, surprises, and changes. There are few things better for the brain’s balance system than being thrown a rock or root on the path that requires it to do a rapid adjustment. Comparably, playing a sport combines aerobic exercise with further brain challenges. Competition that revolves around exercise is ideal for a brain that needs to train social-emotional connections, expand peripheral vision, hone focus, work the memory, and make split-second decisions. 

  Brain work

  Targeted brain training can also provide a boost to an educator’s overall wellness. A role model for what can be attained in terms of brain fitness is American quarterback Tom Brady. At 45 years old, he’s competing with 22-year-old professional athletes and outperforming them. Not only does he do daily physical fitness training, but he also does the BrainHQ online program designed by neuroscientists. While the market has many programs, I am highlighting this one because it is backed by extensive independent research from top-level institutions and individuals. Many programs promise to increase brain performance, but they lack research to back up their claims. 

  Other high performers who put the brain front and centre of their wellness program are basketball players Michael Jordan and the late Kobe Bryant. However, rather than targeted brain training, they practiced mindfulness with their team. The goal of their former coach, Phil Jackson, was to build a team that was so mindfully and empathically connected they could go into a flow state when playing regardless of the pressure they were under. They were trained by mindfulness expert George Mumford, and they went on to earn 11 NBA championships.

  As documented in extensive research, mindfulness effectively calms the stress that triggers the sympathetic nervous system. The slow, purposeful breathing signals to the brain that it is safe and activates the parasympathetic response known as “rest and digest.” This lowers the stress hormone cortisol, which can become very harmful to brain and body health if it is being frequently released by the many stressors faced by educators and students. Despite a busy schedule, carving out time to activate your parasympathetic nervous system is an evidence-based investment that comes with multiple rewards. Mindfulness practitioners are responsive, not reactive; they’re more calm and creative; they feel more grounded and happier; they have better physical and mental health. 

  Well teachers, well students

  In our stressed lives we feel we cannot add another thing, but creating time for exercise, brain training, and mindfulness is a game-changer in terms of wellness that includes the brain. As educators, we are in the privileged position of being able to role model wellness for students and share with them what we practice. Imagine how much healthier, happier, better regulated, calmer, and less reactive students would be if they too had time each day for aerobic fitness, targeted brain training, and mindfulness. According to leading neuroscientists, these lessons in wellness are arguably the most important ones we need our students to learn. Prioritizing teacher and student wellness that includes the brain creates a foundation from which great learning can occur. Without it, lessons can be quickly lost to toxic stress. 

  The ability of scientists to see the brain via non-invasive technology needs to change the way educators understand threats to their own wellness and safety, as well as student wellness and safety. Schools are well-prepared and assessed regularly by experts when it comes to the risk of fire, but we have more work to do to ensure that teachers and students are not suffering from activated stress response systems and the damage caused by high cortisol levels. Chronically stressed educators and students not only suffer harm, they can also pass on their stress to others. As seen on brain scans, frequently released cortisol can turn a plush healthy hippocampus into a shrivelled lump. The hippocampus is an area of the brain engaged in learning, memory, tagging memories with emotion, and storing memories. If it is being bathed in cortisol, an educator may struggle to teach and a student may struggle to learn. Wellness is compromised for both adults and children. According to leading researchers Martin Teicher, Tracy Vaillancourt, and Bessel van der Kolk, harm to the brain from bullying and abuse creates much too high levels of cortisol and can leave neurological scars on the brain. 

  Shining a spotlight on harm to the brain from adversity and trauma supports a holistic understanding of wellness and encourages daily practices to enhance brain recovery and health. Having informed discussions as educators and sharing this knowledge with students enhances social-emotional relations, self-regulation, and overall learning. It is especially valuable since neuroscientists are well-informed about ways to return brains back to organic health after adversity. Evidence-based practices such as aerobic exercise, targeted brain training, and mindfulness can repair and restore brains so even students who have adversity in their past or present can be empowered to care for their brain. 

  The greatest way to share this important knowledge is by engaging in it personally, role-modelling it, and embodying it. This is where teachers can be allies in bringing about a brain-fitness revolution. Teachers who prioritize wellness that includes their brain can do a great deal to support student wellness.

• From Conflict Zones to Classrooms

  September 19, 2022 9:57 AM Comments Off on From Conflict Zones to Classrooms

  Ten-year-old Kate Sergieiva and her mother, Olga, still remember the blasts of Russian bombs dropping on their hometown of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine as they fled on February 24, 2022. It took three months in Moldova, Armenia, and Bulgaria before they arrived in Toronto, where Kate was able to attend school.

  Olga, a single mother, worried that Kate’s transition to school in Canada would be traumatic. She says that Kate is still frightened by noises, loudspeakers, and people in uniforms. Kate worries about friends and family in Vinnytsia, where Russian missiles have destroyed their neighborhood and killed dozens of people. She relives the trauma of the bombing.

  “We have this scary feeling,” Olga says. “You think every moment that it could happen again.”

  But Kate loved her month in Grade 5 in Toronto and can’t wait to return in September. The teacher was very welcoming, she says, and all her classmates wanted to lend her their computers and play with her. She is glad they didn’t ask her about the war. “I am happy not to talk about it… I don’t want to bring the sad news to everyone.”

  But Kate says another Ukrainian in her class was lonely because he could not understand English. The language barrier prevented him from integrating, she says. “It was much harder for him, and he mostly ignored the lessons.”

  Kate’s story shows that while children arriving from war zones have things in common, each child is different and they can face different barriers to education. Teachers must create learning environments that are not only welcoming, but also equitable and inclusive.

  Welcoming Ukrainian and other displaced students 

  New students with refugee status in Canada have legal access to resources, protection, and funding. Since Russia’s latest invasion, many Ukrainian children have arrived in elementary and secondary classrooms across the country. However, Canada has not granted refugee status to Ukrainians arriving during this recent conflict, instead offering a temporary settlement program, which for some has made their settlement process more precarious and uncertain.

  Ukraine has made efforts to prioritize access to education for all children, especially since February’s invasion, yet many who have been forced to flee remain without access to school (Brookings, 2022). Ukrainian children have experienced prolonged exposure to violence and conflict, particularly since 2014 when Russia invaded and occupied the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and large swathes of the oblasts (provinces) of Donetsk and Luhansk (also known as the Donbas). Many children have had to cope with the trauma, and for them close attachments to family, caregivers, and educators are most critical for their psychosocial wellbeing (Bogdanov et al., 2021).

  Multilingual learners adapting to a new landscape also need socio-emotional support in their transitions. For instance, traumas suffered by students from conflict zones need to be considered when teaching about topics that could trigger students to feel oppression or exclusion (Parker, 2021). Such social and emotional burdens make learning that much more challenging.

  The welcoming process for displaced students has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. E-learning, social distancing, and wearing face masks have taken their toll on students worldwide, leaving many to feel disconnected and disengaged (Zakaria, 2021).

  Identifying displaced students’ cultural assets

  Many teachers across Canada have experience with refugee students joining their classrooms. They are faced with the challenge of differentiating their instruction to meet the needs of each student. However, addressing the needs of refugee and newly arrived students who have experienced the trauma of war is an additional challenge that many teachers may feel ill equipped to handle. The challenge is amplified by a lack of support from varying levels of the education system, including uneven resource distribution across schools, inadequate communication about the needs of these students, and few professional development opportunities. 

  Identifying and responding involves taking the time to understand the students’ lived experiences. Below, we offer background for supporting newly arrived Ukrainian students and pedagogical support for creating inclusive classrooms.

  Critical background information for teaching children arriving from Ukraine

  • It is “Ukraine,” not “the Ukraine,” since the latter denotes “borderland” in multiple Slavic languages and calls into question Ukraine’s sovereignty.
  • Ukraine is multicultural, and being Ukrainian may mean having ancestors who are Tatar, Jewish, Belorussian, Georgian, Romanian, Greek, Korean, Azerbaijani, and Russian. It also means sometimes identifying as such.
  • Ukraine and Ukrainians have endured (and withstood attempts at) colonization by imperialist Russia. The Ukrainian language and culture were banned for long periods of time in the USSR. As such, many Ukrainians speak Russian as their mother tongue.
  • This latest invasion, along with previous ones, is a genocide. For Ukrainians, this is an existential fight. Aside from fear, worry, and other trauma-related feelings, some Ukrainians also experience shame and guilt for having survived, or having left loved ones, especially males of conscription age, behind.

  Critical pedagogical peace-building practices for inclusion

  To address the barriers facing students arriving from conflict zones, we suggest some essential practices teachers can implement.

  • Seek to understand the individual experiences (respecting whatever the student chooses to share and how they choose to do it) of newly arrived students to tailor teaching strategies and differentiate instruction, such as making sure these students know they have the right to pass. 
  • Avoid making assumptions or attempting to provide a one-size-fits-all approach for all newly arrived students, who do not necessarily have deep access to the dominant language or culture
  • Focus on student-teacher relationship building to address students’ physical and emotional needs and help them become ready to learn.
  • Use English language learner (ELL) pedagogy, such as facilitating non-verbal partner activities or pairing students, to help students build relationships with their peers and engage academically.
  • Form and renorm classroom agreements to focus on shared values to set the tone for respect and inclusivity in their classrooms.
    

  While these factors highlight what teachers can do to support newly arrived students’ readiness to learn, more resources and training opportunities from the different levels of the Canadian education system are needed (Clark, 2017).

   Restorative justice pedagogies to facilitate inclusion

  Restorative justice in education (RJE) offers a framework for supporting the inclusion of students who have resettled from a war zone and helping them address their internalized trauma. Used with equity-focused and trauma-informed (see sidebar) approaches (Brummer, 2020), RJE pedagogies (such as intentional relationship building, dialogue exercises, circles, and conferencing) contribute to building the safe and welcoming community that students deserve in Canada. With a restorative approach, students are not passive members of the classroom who follow the social direction of the educator, but instead become responsible, active participants in maintaining harmony with their peer community as they engage in relationship-building.

  Many teachers fear speaking about young people’s traumatic experiences. Their fears are amplified by a lack of training and support from administrators, colleagues, and communities. However, research shows that when teachers take the time to get to know their students and help them process traumatic experiences through relational connection and affirmations, their relationships with each other and with the class community deepen (González, 2015; Parker-Shandal, forthcoming). Teaching students about current issues from neutral perspectives is traditionally risky for teachers; however, ignoring or glazing over them could invalidate the experiences of some students. Teachers can use dialogue exercises and circles to help facilitate conflictual conversations, while being attune to students’ feelings and questions as they process this difficult situation.

  For students arriving from conflict and war zones, building healthy relationships means creating a container for dialogue and understanding of the experiences that students bring to the classroom. The sooner educators can foster deep listening skills and develop a culture of valuing each other in the classroom, the easier integration and inclusion becomes.

  Trauma-informed Tips and Strategies 

  • Create a board in your classroom to post images, messages, and paintings that depict cultural homeland clothing, traditional food, nature, and art.
  • Introduce Twitter/graffiti board (using sticky notes), to share perspectives and ask questions.
  • Create an engaging welcome package for students.
  • Facilitate weekly talking circles (prep ahead of time with students to give them time to think about the questions/responses, and reiterate their right to pass/observe) (see Parker & Bickmore, 2020).
  • Assign students roles that allow them to contribute to the classroom in a meaningful way.
  • Prioritize the facilitation of community-building activities (with a blend of student-led and teacher-led exercises).
  • Encourage reflective writing with fun and inclusive writing prompts (such as “I Am” poems, “Where I’m From” poems, “This I Believe” memoirs, or journal entries).
  • Engage students non-verbally through art, music, and movement.
  • Use reflective art-making strategies, such as self-portraits with various parts of the students’ faces showing different aspects of their identities.
  • Overall: Remember that newly arrived students may fatigue easily; breaks will ease the cognitive load.

  Develop and sustain relational connections and community

  Global conflicts have infiltrated classrooms as conversations emerge based on misinformation about the pandemic, white supremacy, and this most recent genocide in Ukraine. Developing strategies to support students’ mental health and wellbeing has become part of an ongoing commitment during the pandemic. These strategies need to continue developing and being applied, especially for students from conflict zones. Focusing on the individual experiences of students, using multilingual pedagogy in teaching strategies, and prioritizing relationships through restorative justice pedagogies are all strategies teachers can use to facilitate the integration of students and contribute to creating space for peace-building in times of conflict.

   

  Resources for Educators

  Refugee Story Bank of Canada provides first-hand accounts of people who sought refuge in Canada, which could be used in lessons about refugees and autoethnographic narrative writing. This site will soon feature lesson plans and educator resources for using these narratives in K–12 classrooms. www.refugeestorybank.ca

  Facing History and Ourselves  Lesson plans and activities for educators to draw on to teach about the global refugee crisis.
  www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/understanding-global-refugee-crisis

  Relationships First  This restorative justice in education consortium envisions communities where the inherent worth and wellbeing of all involved are honoured and promoted. It includes lesson plans and resources to support teachers’ integration of restorative justice in their classrooms and schools. www.relationshipsfirstnl.com

  INEE: has curated a collection of tools and resources relevant to the crisis in Ukraine to support the provision of education and mental health and wellbeing of practitioners, teachers, students, caregivers, and others. https://inee.org/collections and click on “Ukraine Crisis Resources”

  Sesame Street In Communities: Resources in Ukrainian: These playful exercises and inclusive materials can help students feel safe and acknowledged. Activities include videos and games to support children’s emotional wellbeing. 

  https://sesamestreetincommunities.org/subtopics/resources-in-ukrainian

  ReliefWeb is a source for general information and news on the conflict in Ukraine.

  https://reliefweb.int/topics/ukraine-humanitarian-crisis

   

  References

  Bogdanov, S., Girnyk, A., et al. (2021). Developing a culturally relevant measure of resilience for war-affected adolescents in eastern Ukraine. Journal on Education in Emergencies, 7(2), 311.

  Brookings. (2022). Ukraine and beyond: Lessons in refugee education. A Brookings-Yidan Prize event on key issues in refugee education. 

  www.brookings.edu/events/ukraine-and-beyond-lessons-in-refugee-education

  Brummer, J. (2020). Building a trauma-informed restorative school: Skills and approaches for improving culture and behavior. Jessica Kingsley.

  Clark, K. (2017). Are we ready? Examining teachers’ experiences supporting the transition of newly-arrived Syrian refugee students to the Canadian elementary classroom [Research study, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto]. TSpace.

  https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/76952/1/Clark_Kathryn_201706_MT_MTRP.pdf

  González, T. (2015). Reorienting restorative justice: Initiating a new dialogue of rights consciousness, community empowerment and politicization. Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, 16, 457–477.

  Jones, N., Pincock, K., Guglielmi, S., et al. (2022). Barriers to refugee adolescents’ educational access during COVID-19: Exploring the roles of gender, displacement, and social inequalities. Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies, 8(2), 43–72.

  Parker, C. and Bickmore, K. (2020). Classroom peace circles: Teachers’ professional learning and implementation of restorative dialogue. Teaching and Teacher Education, 95.

  Parker, C. A. (2021). Refugee children in Canadian schools: The role of teachers in supporting integration and inclusion. In G. Melnyk & C. A. Parker (Eds.), Finding refuge in Canada: Narratives of dislocation. Athabasca University Press.

  Parker-Shandal, C. A. H. (forthcoming). Restorative justice in the classroom: Liberating students’ voices through relational pedagogy. Palgrave Macmillan.

  Zakaria, P. (2021). Education under attack: An examination of education in emergencies and strategies for strengthening education. In I.Fayed & J. Cummings (Eds.), Teaching in the post COVID-19 era (pp. 149–156). Springer.

• Imaginative Ecological Education

  9:54 AM Comments Off on Imaginative Ecological Education

  One of the many things COVID-19 has brought into focus is the classroom – the confined indoor space in which the majority of K–12 learning happens. Faced with the risk of spreading germs in indoor locations, many Canadian educators moved learning outside into schoolyards and local community spaces. In my view, these are steps in the right direction – but not only, or even primarily, because of viral spread. Rather, literally getting outside classroom walls and metaphorically getting outside the entrenched ways in which we tend to think about teaching and learning can offer learners important skills, knowledge, and dispositions.

  Learners in Canada today are living the legacy of Western, industrial views of schooling, curriculum design, and humankind’s relationship with nature (Judson, 2010, 2017).

  Overwhelmingly, schooling separates learners from the local natural and cultural contexts in which they are situated and divides a richly interconnected living world into disciplinary containers. “Real learning” happens inside, at desks or tables, not in local parks, communities, or schoolyards. Schooling also marginalizes imagination in the learning process. Outcomes or objectives drive curricular decisions rather than the emotional or imaginative significance of topics.

  There is no better time than now – amidst the turmoil this pandemic has already caused – to take a critical look at education in Canada, how it may be missing the mark, and what can be improved. In this article I describe two changes that could better equip learners to face the uncertain years ahead: widespread cultivation of imagination and learning outdoors.

  Imagination matters

  A world of complex issues and problems requires a population that has a richly developed ability to envision the possible, the not-yet. It is this imagination that is needed to navigate an unpredictable, wild, “white water world” that is “broadly connected, rapidly changing, and radically contingent” (Pendleton-Jullian & Brown, 2018, p. 7). Pendleton-Jullian and Brown’s (2018) work on the pragmatic imagination challenges misconceptions that imagination is somehow antithetical to real academic learning or reasoning. They show the myriad ways in which imagination contributes to a range of cognitive processes, including perception and reasoning. They insist that the muscle of imagination is the force behind vital processes of speculation, experimentation, and free play that humans must employ when facing wildly complex and interrelated wicked problems.

  In addition to needing imagination to deal with the complex world of today, it is imagination-focused pedagogy – teaching that brings into focus the emotional and imaginative core of all topics – that is most aligned with the emotional nature of human beings. We are, as psychologist David Kresh suggests, perfinkers. We perceive and feel and think at the same time. We perfink. And yet, far too often, students don’t feel much of anything about the topics they are learning about. Many educators think of the imagination as something that comes into play when foundational learning has already taken place; it is a kind of frill or supplement that may be valuable and enjoyable, but is not crucial to learning itself. While objectives are undoubtedly important for teaching, when they drive curricular decisions, teaching misses the emotional core of all learning (Egan, 1997).

  At the same time, there are calls worldwide to improve schools so that students graduate with strong creative thinking skills. Education is needed, therefore, that feeds this emotional core. Imaginative Education is such a pedagogy that can fill that gap between valuing the imagination on one hand and cultivating it routinely in schooling on the other. It uses practical tools – cognitive tools – to shape lessons into engaging stories and cultivates imagination in the process. If imagination is understood to be the fertile soil out of which all learning, creativity, and innovation grow (Judson, 2021), then schooling should embrace the tools to cultivate it in all contexts and for learners of all ages.

  Imaginative Education

  In this Imaginative Education classroom, students are learning about the wonderful world of punctuation. Lisa is a comma, Hendrich, a period, and Paola, a semicolon. Each student has their own super power: Lisa the comma grants breaths and brings things together in a series; Hendrich the period has the power to end ideas, thoughts, and actions; one of Paola the semicolon’s mighty strengths is to connect full ideas. Their teacher is evoking the ingenuity of seemingly insignificant punctuation marks – those tidy little packages of meaning that help convey body language that we physically experience in face-to-face interactions but that is lost in written communication. Yesterday the students played with facial expressions and bodily gestures that may be conveyed with an “!” They giggled when they thought how a “;” can replace a wink (e.g. I got a new car; it is a midnight blue Maserati.) Tomorrow students are exploring the most unusual punctuation marks – have you heard of the interrobang?! – and the stories of those who invented them.

  Human beings continually engage with the world in ways that evoke their emotions and imaginations. For example, words cause images to arise in our minds. We universally enjoy stories of all kinds. We identify patterns in the world around us. We enjoy jokes and humour. Extremes of experience and limits of reality – the stuff in the Guinness Book of World Records – intrigue us. We notice and often idolize people, ideas, or institutions. We collect things and obsess over hobbies. Mysteries entice us and we can experience awe in the face of unanswered questions or strange events. Our emotional and imaginative lives manifest themselves in many varied ways. These different forms of engagement are not insignificant; they are ways of thinking that help human beings learn.

  In Imaginative Education, a theory and pedagogy developed by Dr. Kieran Egan, these acts of imagination are “cognitive tools.” They are emotional ways or strategies through which human beings make meaning in the world and, when used to shape lessons, can engage and grow imagination (Egan, 1997, 2005). Imaginative Education offers all educators a glimpse into the imaginative and emotional lives of their students and, importantly, describes sets of tools students are using to make emotional sense of the world that any teacher can use to shape curriculum. So rather than being objectives-driven, Imaginative Education is imagination-driven. Because cognitive tools are used to shape curricular decisions (Egan, 1997, 2005) teaching aligns with the emotional core of human beings.

  In an Imaginative Education classroom, educators are storytellers. This does not mean they constantly create or integrate fictional stories in their teaching, but, rather, that they use cognitive tools such as revealing the heroic qualities of a topic, evoking powerful images, noticing the unique or novel, and engaging the body, to shape topics in ways that reveal their emotional importance. (See Learn More for resources.)

  Focusing on imagination as we teach all curriculum topics is one way we can improve education in Canada post-pandemic. The next step? Literally stepping outside classroom walls.

  Outdoor Place-Based Education

  Research shows that meaningful experiences in nature as children can impact the development of a conservation ethic (e.g. deBrito et al., 2017; Selby, 2017). Emotional connection can move us to action. Unfortunately, many students don’t have an emotional connection to the local natural and cultural contexts. My research has shown an alarming level of emotional disaffection among students. Students may know more about global warming but do not feel connected to any Place; they are not moved to live harmoniously with the natural world. Many students lack a sense of ecological understanding – knowledge of humankind’s interconnection in a living world and an affective relationship with nature that inspires changed action that is required in a world facing massive ecological crises (Judson 2010, 2015, 2018).

  Understanding the natural world as a powerful teacher is uncommon in a Western view of schooling. Indeed, Place-based learning is a rich, but small, part of a Western educational tradition that has largely separated human beings and learning from nature. In contrast, the connection of learning with Place forms the heart of Indigenous ways of knowing and being. One of the devastating effects of colonization in Canada has been the virtual dismissal of Indigenous knowledges. Our education system can be improved if we learn from and with Indigenous peoples in Canada about a world view that acknowledges the inseparability of people and Place. I am dedicated to this work.

  Imaginative Ecological Education

  Unfortunately, not all outdoor learning experiences are created equal. Practices that neglect emotional and imaginative engagement in the learning process do little to cultivate the heart of a conservation ethic (Judson, 2010, 2015). Reconnecting with nature for its intrinsic value – re/membering (with) nature as an extension of our own selves – is a central goal of a cross-curricular approach to learning called Imaginative Ecological Education (IEE).

  Imaginative Ecological Education (IEE) aims to nurture students’ personal relationships with the natural and cultural contexts in which they live through frequent engagement of the body, emotion, and imagination in learning. By designing pedagogy around the distinctive features of students’ imaginative lives – applying the cognitive tools of Imaginative Education discussed earlier in outdoor learning – IEE more routinely engages the body, emotion, and imagination where students live and learn. Because IEE is a cross-curricular approach to teaching suitable for students in elementary through secondary school in urban, sub-urban, or rural contexts, IEE makes it possible for the development of ecological understanding to take place alongside the fulfillment of curricular requirements.

  The Walking Curriculum (Judson, 2018) is an accessible and highly practical set of activities educators can use to move learning outside with inquiry and imagination. Based on principles of IEE, the 60 easy-to-use walking-focused activities in the Walking Curriculum are designed to engage students’ emotions and imaginations with their local natural and cultural communities, to broaden their awareness of the particularities of Place, and to evoke their sense of wonder in learning. In the Walking Curriculum, a walking theme is paired with a cognitive tool to develop understanding and engage imagination. The resource is designed for teachers who don’t necessarily consider themselves “outdoor educators” – as a result, it has been of wide interest and is being widely implemented (Judson, 2021).

  While I acknowledge that a radical revisioning of schooling and broad social changes will be required to learn to live within the Earth’s carrying capacities (Blenkinsop & Fettes, 2021), moving learning outside is one step in the right direction.

  So, what do I recommend for changing the 130-year legacy that lives in schools today? Literally, we can change the story one step at a time. One tool at a time. We can cultivate learners’ imaginations through teaching as storytelling. We can shape learning opportunities for students of all ages in ways that move them outdoors, into communities and that employ tools that engage their emotions and imaginations in engaging with the natural world. When imagination and outdoor learning become core principles of education in Canada, we will be better equipped to navigate a “white water world” and may begin to form relationships with nature that can support a different ecological future.

   

  Photo: iStock

  First published in Education Canada, September 2022

   

  Learn More

  

  Learn more about:

  • Imaginative Education, the Walking Curriculum, Imaginative Ecological Education, and how to use cognitive tools on the imagineED website: www.educationthatinspires.ca/imaginative-education

  • The Walking Curriculum: www.edcan.ca/articles/a-walking-curriculum

   

  References

  Blenkinsop, S. & Fettes, M. (2021). Living within the earth’s carrying capacity: Towards an education for eco-social-cultural change. Report for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. www.circesfu.ca/practice/ecological-place-based-education/educating-for-living-within-the-earths-carrying-capacity

  de Brito Miranda, A.C., Jófili, Z., & dos Anjos Carneiro-Leão, A.M., (2017). Ecological literacy: Preparing children for the twenty-first century. Early Child Development and Care, 187(2), 192–205.

  Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding University of Chicago Press.

  Egan, K. (2005). An imaginative approach to teaching. Jossey-Bass.

  Judson, G. (2010). A New approach to ecological education: Engaging students’ imaginations in their world. Peter Lang.

  Judson, G. (2015). Engaging imagination in ecological education: Practical strategies for teaching. UBC Press.

  Judson, G. (2017). Re-imagining relevance in education. In J. Cummings & M. Blatherwick (Eds.) Creative dimensions of teaching and learning in the 21st century (pp. 47–58). Sense Publishers.

  Judson, G. (2018). A walking curriculum: Evoking wonder and developing sense of place (K-12). Kindle Direct Publishing.

  Judson, G. (2021). Cultivating leadership imagination with cognitive tools: An imagination focused approach to leadership education. Journal of Research on Leadership Education. doi.org/10.1177/19427751211022028

  Judson, G. (2021, June 21). Working with Place: Recommendations for developing imaginative ecological teaching practices. Green Teacher Magazine, 128. https://greenteacher.com/working-with-place/

  Pendleton-Jullian, A. & Brown, J. S. (2018). Pragmatic imagination: A new terrain. CreateSpace.

  Selby, D. (2017). Education for sustainable development, nature, and vernacular learning. CEPS Journal, 7(1), 9–27.

• Rethinking the Role of Mathematics Education

  9:45 AM Comments Off on Rethinking the Role of Mathematics Education

  The past 30 years have been marked by an increased rate of change in societies around the world. In the span of a single generation, new technologies like personal computers, the internet, smartphones, and social media forced us to reconceptualize the way we engage in social interactions, work, and public life. Now artificial intelligence is challenging the boundaries of what it means to be human.

  While these technologies have largely been adopted in positive ways, the systems under which they were created have also caused or exacerbated major world crises. The climate change crisis has shown us the consequences of unsustainable exploitation of nature and little regard for our limited resources. The spread of COVID-19 revealed capacity, coordination, and equity issues in our health, government, and education systems. Finally, most modern societies are also facing an economic crisis as a result of late-stage capitalism,1 which will undoubtedly change the face of our cities, work relations, and public life.

  With all of these life-changing scenarios, what can the educational community do to equip students to deal with the challenges facing our world? This kind of question is usually confined to conversations about curriculum policy or reform. Many teachers believe their current curriculum does not address these challenges effectively, making it hard to tackle them in the classroom – especially in mathematics.

  Specifically in mathematics, why is it so hard to address matters of public life in class? Perhaps the answer has less to do with curriculum policies and more to do with how we understand math education. The solutions to a quadratic equation, for example, can be found through digital technologies with precision and efficiency, so why is it that we still teach the discriminant technique? If we were to pay less attention to procedures and formulas, what could we do in mathematics classes to support our students to navigate the changes in our societies?

  Preparing students to respond to the challenges imposed on our lives in the 21st century is a shared responsibility between policymakers (responsible for designing curriculum and approving pedagogical resources) and practitioners (school boards, schools, and teachers). Many readers might argue that the solution is to change the curriculum. While this is true to some extent, most Canadian provinces and territories have recognized that mathematics teaching in the 21st century must look different from the past.

  Provinces already incorporate some of these important issues in mathematics classes, and many others are revising their curricula to increase their importance. They do so in three ways:

  1. by recognizing cross-disciplinary, real-world problems that must be addressed in all school subjects (e.g. in Quebec, students are supposed to learn about environmental awareness and consumer responsibilities, media literacy, and citizenship and community life in all subjects)
  2. by incorporating overarching mathematical practices that provide a sense of what it means to think mathematically (e.g. in British Columbia, students learn about reasoning and analyzing, understanding and solving, and communicating and representing while exploring particular concepts in mathematics)
  3. by introducing new and contemporary areas of mathematics to complement traditional mathematical concepts (e.g. in Ontario, elementary and secondary students now learn coding, financial literacy, and the development of geometry in multiple cultures).

  If many provincial curricula already have space to address our generation’s most pressing problems, what is missing? This is an epistemological problem. We, as mathematics educators, have been trained to see mathematics through its scholarly representation. We understand and appreciate theorems, concepts, algorithms, and formulas. But if we take a step back and look at mathematics as a way of thinking and being in the world, we might be able to see how our classes can contribute to a better tomorrow. Teachers often find themselves confused about the values they promote regarding mathematics. What is the purpose of teaching mathematics in the 21st century?

  As it turns out, there are three answers to this question. In my research with mathematics teachers, I have identified three main orientations of mathematics education: disciplinary, professional, and citizenship. Depending on their orientation, teachers understand the value of teaching mathematics in unique ways. Consequently, they will respond to social change and tackle contemporary challenges distinctively. Below, I provide a brief description of these epistemologies, along with suggestions for readings and activities teachers can do with their mathematics classes. These are suggestions I’ve been using in my teacher education courses that have proved relevant to mathematics teachers’ visions and values.

  Disciplinary

  This orientation refers to the most traditional – and most common – approach to teaching mathematics. It approaches the subject as the teaching of a scientific discipline, i.e. as an abstract science that is worth knowing for its own sake.

  Most secondary mathematics teachers who pursued a specific degree in the subject enjoy mathematics for its own sake. For these teachers, mathematics – just like fine arts – should not serve immediate economic goals. It should instead be appreciated and celebrated as a common heritage of humankind and a way of developing the mind through problem-solving, logic, and rationality.

  Teachers who share the disciplinary orientation of mathematics can respond to contemporary challenges by portraying mathematics problems that have yet to be solved. It is important to show students that mathematics as a discipline is still unfinished. Most students would assume that mathematical knowledge is already established and there’s nothing else to discover or invent. That is the result of the way math is often represented in the curriculum and textbooks, with formulas and concepts that must be memorized. By sharing unsolved mathematical problems, teachers can also show students that mathematical investigations can be done with a variety of technologies, including spreadsheets, coding, software programs, simulators, etc. Unlike what many might think, mathematical work is not isolated, and it certainly uses more than just paper and pencil.

  Instead, I would invite teachers to introduce to their students the notion of a conjecture (a proposition that seems to be true but for which we still lack proper proof). Exploring a conjecture provides many opportunities for students to learn about the work of mathematicians and use a variety of technologies to investigate mathematical propositions. Students can also learn about the history of mathematics and how mathematicians pushed the boundary of human knowledge in attempts to prove conjectures.

  Suggested book: Fermat’s Last Theorem, by Simon Singh (Fourth Estate, 2017). This book explains the history of more than 300 years of mathematical endeavours to prove a relatively simple proposition. Students can create a book club to discuss the book in parts. They will learn that mathematics is a lively science with lots to explore. The theorem (previously known as a conjecture) was only proved in 1995, 350 years after it was first proposed.

  Suggested classroom activity: Explore the Collatz Conjecture2 with students in class. This conjecture can be easily understood by middle and high-school students and can generate many beautiful representations. Use Excel spreadsheets to automatically create a sequence based on a seed number, implement an algorithm (in Python language) that creates the sequence based on the user’s input, and create a concept map (use CmapTools) of multiple sequences.

  Professional

  This orientation is perhaps the most pragmatic of all three; it stems from an economic view of education as training. For teachers (and students) who espouse this perspective, the teaching and learning of mathematics should prepare students for future professional life. Particularly in high school, mathematics classes should develop appropriate skills that students could use in the workplace and/or prepare them for university programs that demand mathematical skills. With the intensification of the use of technology, skills associated with mathematics (counting, estimating, measuring, comparing, reasoning, etc.) have become ubiquitous in virtually all fields of professional life, from life sciences and STEM to literary work and fine arts. Most professionals face some, if not multiple, strands of mathematics daily. These demands intensify as they attempt to get promotions and climb the ranks of their organizations (typically moving toward management positions).

  Consequently, mathematics classes should be responsive to these changes and portray the use of mathematics in a range of professions, so that students can see the value of learning mathematics and make informed career decisions in an increasingly precarious job market.

  Many teachers see this phenomenon as a way to increase their students’ motivation to study mathematics. However, when faced with the infamous question, “When am I ever gonna use this?” they struggle to bring authentic examples of math in professional life. After all, it is unrealistic to expect mathematics teachers to be aware of how different fields are evolving. Do we expect industrial engineers to solve quadratic equations by hand to optimize costs in a production line? Or do they use software programs to simulate different scenarios under budget and resource constraints?

  To tackle this challenge, teachers could provide students with opportunities to explore mathematics in professional life through research and social media. Platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, and others provide a much-needed connection between school settings and real-life professionals. Through these platforms, students can reach out to workers from many fields and ask specific questions about the way they engage with mathematics in their daily tasks. Not only can this practice increase motivation, but it also allows teachers to create a portfolio of examples of math used in real-life workplace settings.

  Suggested books: For middle school mathematics, On-The-Job Math Mysteries: Real-life math from exciting careers, by Marya Tyler (Prufrock Press, 2008). This book presents a set of mathematical problems faced by real-life professionals in interesting and unique fields. It provides teachers with explicitly mathematical problems that can be used in a class while also portraying mathematics authentically.

  For high-school mathematics, 101 Careers in Mathematics – Fourth Edition, by Andrew Sterrett Jr. (Maa Pr, 2019). This book can be used by students, teachers, or counsellors to explore a wide range of careers for those who enjoy mathematics in high school. The book features real people in different fields and how mathematics was part of their professional trajectory.

  Suggested classroom activity: Although most “traditionally mathematical” professions now use software programs for mathematical tasks, there is a lot of value in knowing how particular mathematical concepts were developed within those fields. One good example is geometric instruments and constructions, both of which were developed in the context of architecture. Notable angles, parallel and perpendicular lines, and triangle centres can all be constructed with high precision simply through a compass and a ruler. Students can learn a great deal of math by exploring why such constructions work. Here is a guide for a variety of constructions: www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/constructions.html

  Citizenship

  This orientation perceives the teaching of mathematics as a way of facilitating active participation in social life. Mathematical knowledge is one lens through which students can understand the world. When we discuss issues of public policies, the planning of our cities, the distribution of resources, or the electoral system, it is important to understand how mathematical information is produced, used, and communicated. It is therefore paramount that our students learn to decode different discourses through mathematics.

  Most teachers present this orientation in implicit or explicit ways. They agree that mathematics is required to become a well-rounded individual in our societies, but sometimes struggle to identify proper opportunities to discuss important issues in the classroom. How much time should be spent discussing the context before diving into the “actual” mathematics? How much preparation does a math teacher need to approach sensitive topics? How do we identify the underlying mathematics concepts that can be explored in such topics as city planning or government budgets?

  It is true that mathematics teachers need to go above and beyond their original training to make connections between mathematics and citizenship. However, once this connection becomes clear, it can save time in the classroom by interweaving different math strands into one unit. Also, the most recent curriculum revisions have introduced topics that facilitate these connections explicitly. Financial literacy, coding, and data literacy are just some examples of new mathematics strands that can easily be implemented with a citizenship epistemology. These concepts are unequivocally connected to social situations.

  Suggested book: How Not to Be Wrong: The power of mathematical thinking, by Jordan Ellenberg (Penguin, 2015). Each chapter of this book explores a different mathematical concept or principle and how it has been used to shape our daily lives. It is a great resource to find deep and authentic connections between mathematics and social life.

  Suggested classroom activity: One of the biggest debates in Canada over the last decade has been electoral reform. Currently, Canada uses the so-called first-pass-the-post system: each of 338 districts elects a member of Parliament to represent its interests, and the party with the most seats then forms the government. Through publicly available data,3 students can organize a spreadsheet according to each district and the votes received by each party.

  A range of questions can be explored: What is the percentage of votes received by your MP? In which riding does a vote have the most/least percentage impact? Which riding elected an MP with the highest/lowest number of votes? Which riding had the closest race or largest landslide victory? Which non-elected candidate received the greatest number of votes? Has any MP been elected with less than this number? These questions elevate the debate about Canada’s voting system without promoting any specific position about electoral reform.

  Similar to art, which can be valued for its aesthetic contribution as well as its depiction of social issues, mathematics is multi-faceted in its contributions to our world. The orientations described above are present in curriculum expectations, textbooks, teaching practices, and students’ rapport with the subject. They are certainly not mutually exclusive and can emerge in the classroom at different moments. Mathematics educators can benefit from a deeper look at their own values related to mathematics in order to recognize the biases and ideas guiding their instructional choices. In doing so, they might also be able to recognize the orientations their own students bring to the classroom and express in mathematics.

  Which of these orientations is most closely aligned with your values? How do they inform your practices in the classroom?

  Photo: iStock

  First published in Education Canada, September 2022

  Notes

  1 Commodification of housing and health, widespread industry monopolies, precariousness of workers’ rights.

  2 See The Simplest Math Problem No One Can Solve – Collatz Conjecture. Veritasium. www.youtube.com/watch?v=094y1Z2wpJg

  3 2021 results: www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=rep/off/44gedata&document=index&lang=e

• How can teachers and parents help students with exceptional learning needs develop self-advocacy skills?

  July 6, 2022 4:37 PM Comments Off on How can teachers and parents help students with exceptional learning needs develop self-advocacy skills?

  For students with exceptional learning needs, self-advocacy refers to communicating their needs and securing support. While much of the support that these students receive is managed by the school, the same provisions are not usually made by post-secondary institutions or places of work. It is in every student’s best interest to learn about their specific needs, what they are entitled to, and how to communicate to others what they need. Researchers have linked self-advocacy skills to high school completion rates, and there is broad consensus that developing self-advocacy skills can start as early as possible.

   Strategies to help students develop self-advocacy skills

  Demystify the Individual Education Plan (IEP) process:

  • Students should attend and contribute to IEP meetings as much as possible.
  • Teachers could create activities focused on getting to know the IEP (e.g. a scavenger hunt) to identify the number of goals, identified areas of need, and types of supports they are entitled to. Parents could assist their child to complete the activities. 
  • Teachers should be open with students about what supports they are providing to meet their needs, and why they are using specific supports. 
  • Teachers should initiate regular check-ins with students to discuss their experience with provided support. Parents can help their child prepare to speak about their current struggles, what is working well, and what might be of further assistance to them. 
  • Students should be encouraged to regularly review their IEP, and to seek help from teachers in interpreting any parts that are unclear.

  Promote accessible communication:

  • Teachers could work with students to create a more accessible version of the IEP that uses language they are comfortable and familiar with. 
  • Parents can work with their child to identify goals, strengths, and needs that they have beyond what is currently on their IEP, and to practise communicating about them so they are prepared to do so in the IEP meeting. 
  • Teachers should be clear with students about who is responsible for what in terms of them getting support (e.g. students should let a teacher know if a support is not working, or no longer needed).

  The most important goal here is for students to be able to explain the support that they need. Without knowledge of their specific challenges and what types of support work best for them, students are not equipped to meaningfully access parts of society that are not built with them in mind. While efforts toward demystification and accessible communication are valuable, so too is consistency in what we are saying and doing to support these students. Parents and teachers must communicate with each other about how they are supporting the development of self-advocacy skills, so they can design a consistent program of support that extends beyond what happens at school.

   

  Additional information and resources

  Konrad, M. (2008). Involve Students in the IEP Process. Intervention in School and Clinic, 43(4), 236–239. doi.org/10.1177/1053451208314910

   

  Lister, Coughlan, T., & Owen, N. (2020). Disability or “Additional study needs”? Identifying students’ language preferences in disability-related communications. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 35(5), 620–635. doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2020.1743409

   

  Mason, McGahee-Kovac, M., & Johnson, L. (2004). How to help students lead their IEP meetings. Teaching Exceptional Children, 36(3), 18–24. doi.org/10.1177/004005990403600302

   

  Roberts, Ju, S., & Zhang, D. (2016). Review of practices that promote self-advocacy for students with disabilities. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 26(4), 209–220. doi.org/10.1177/1044207314540213

• Self-Care for New Educators

  June 20, 2022 10:56 AM Comments Off on Self-Care for New Educators

  Listen to “Self-Care for New Educators” on Spreaker.
  Teacher candidates are prepared to care for students in the classroom, but often they’re less prepared to take care of themselves. Why does educator self-care matter in the workplace?
  

  First published in September 2019

   

• Surviving and Thriving

  9:30 AM Comments Off on Surviving and Thriving

  Dr. Elaine Greidanus and Dr. Dawn Burleigh will be delivering the workshop, “NAVIGATING EDUCATOR WELL-BEING IN NORTHERN AND RURAL SCHOOL COMMUNITIES “, during EdCan’s upcoming 2022 Pan-Canadian Summit on K-12 Workplace Wellbeing.

  ---

  Teaching in northern and remote communities can be an intense, even overwhelming experience – and the result can be exhausted, struggling teachers. The authors present seven dimensions of wellness as a framework for nurturing both personal and collective wellness in the context of rural and remote schools.

  Dawn’s story

  My first year of teaching was an emotional rollercoaster. I cried. I laughed. I cry-laughed. In the span of one academic year, there were suicide attempts, deaths, high rates of teacher attrition, and school closures. These traumas were compounded by the poverty, lack of food security, and unsafe drinking water in the community. I was a brand-new teacher teaching high school in an isolated First Nation community in Northern Ontario and I was filled with both excitement and doubt. I was drowning in student debt, completely removed from my family and support network, and working harder than ever to be the best teacher I could. What I know now, that I didn’t know then, was that you can’t out-teach trauma or grief, and you can’t out-teach a complete lack of well-being. I tried to, but I couldn’t.

  I didn’t know about wellness in the same way I do now.

  I realize now that my wellness was deeply compromised – financially, socially, physically, environmentally, and intellectually – and I didn’t even know it. I thought I needed to toughen up; I just needed to get through the day, the week, the month. But at the end of each day, each week, and each month, I was depleted and drained. I had so little left to offer my students. They were resilient, supportive, and strong, not me. I didn’t know about wellness in the same way I do now. I knew about physical health and why it was important. I knew I needed to exercise and eat well (neither of which I did) and I knew mental health mattered, so I talked to colleagues and tried to offer and gain support when needed. But that was the limit of my understanding about wellness and the limit of my embodiment of it. I never thought to access counselling support from someone like my co-author Elaine, or to seek help from veteran teachers, family, or administration. I just white-knuckled it through three full years of teaching. In the end I left my teaching position to pursue a PhD and, quickly thereafter, I crashed. I was riddled with anxiety, battling weight gain, taking on more student debt, and attempting to fend off looming health concerns. I was forced to begin a long journey in learning about wellness and how to prioritize my own.

  That journey has led me here, to writing this article that you are reading today. It also led me to the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge, where I’m an associate professor and where I met Dr. Elaine Greidanus. When I met Elaine, we shared stories of the North: the long drives, the intense cold weather, the amazing people, and the communities and cultures we were privileged to learn from and with. Whether in Alberta or Ontario, our experiences merged and as a result we have pursued a research agenda and teaching opportunities that have centralized the wellness of educators.

  

  Elaine’s story

  Every two weeks I would leave my home in Edmonton at five in the morning and make the five- or six-hour drive to the community I was to work in. I marked the time of the year by which town I drove through as the sun came up. In the summer, the sun was just rising as I left Edmonton; in the spring, I would witness the sun rise over the farming fields around Westlock; and in winter, the sun might just be rising as I got to the community for that day. Often, I would not see anyone else on the road, except the moose, coyotes, deer, bear, and lynx.

  I made myself available to help in any way that I could.

  Some school days, I would complete one or two psychoeducational assessments with students who were struggling to meet the educational goals that were set for them. On days when there were no assessments to complete, or the students were not able to attend that day, I made myself available to help in any way that I could. Each school had their own ideas about the best use of my time. On occasion, I was asked to meet with students who were feeling upset, coach inclusive education teachers on how to design or implement individualized plans for students, or speak with principals about the ways to approach mental health challenges that arose in the school.

  Whenever possible, I made it a priority to be in classrooms with teachers who invited me to provide feedback on their students or their own teaching approaches, and at the end of the day I stayed as long as possible to talk with those teachers who wanted to talk. Every teacher I met was open to talking about their experiences in the school, and many shared their own personal struggles with working and living in a remote community. Because I was not directly employed by the school, they felt I was far enough removed to be impartial. Because I was a psychologist, I was “professional” enough to hold their confidences, and because I worked in the communities, I understood enough for them to share their stories with me – stories just like Dawn’s.

  

  Finding occupational wellness

  You can’t pour from an empty cup! As a teacher, you have heard this said several times, and perhaps even said it yourself. The statement resonates with us; it reminds us to take the time we need to be our best selves, so we can best support our students. However, research shows that the wellness of educators is much more complicated than this. As educators, we are part of a greater community and even if we have a full cup individually, the collective cup (the school community, the families, and students) may not be full. This impacts the day-to-day experiences in every classroom. So, how can educators situate themselves and their understanding of wellness both individually and collectively in order to thrive and not just survive?

  Wellness can generally be defined as an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence.¹ The “7 Dimensions” model of wellness (below) is a strong fit with the practice of educators because it highlights the diversity of wellness needs and provides a practical framework to develop wellness both individually and collectively.²

  Figure 1: 7 Dimensions of Wellness

  

  In Northern and remote locations, the dimensions of wellness are often more deeply intertwined. Colleagues are friends, parents and students are neighbours, and social interactions take place in school settings with colleagues and the greater school community. Living, working, and socially interacting with the same pool of people in common places compound and intensify all seven dimensions. The occupational dimension of wellness is of vital importance and relevance for those educators who find themselves part of small school communities where the borders between school and home are blurred. A concerted focus on the occupation dimension can be very useful for educators in Northern, remote, and rural school settings as a means of developing collective wellness.

  Consider these “3 P’s” for developing a collective occupational wellness: 

  1. Pedagogical Alignment: To increase your satisfaction and challenge yourself, seek out and explore various pedagogical approaches that align with your philosophy of teaching and learning.

  2. Professional Networks: Reach out and develop networks of peers within and beyond the school to expand your connections and contribute to a healthy and productive dynamic.

  3. Positive Perspective: Contribute to a positive, growth-oriented working environment by seeking solutions, thinking forward, seeing challenges as opportunities, and expressing gratitude. Adopting a growth mindset can help to actively challenge limiting frameworks such as black-and-white thinking, overgeneralizing, jumping to conclusions, personalizing, catastrophizing, and blaming.

  Not only can the seven dimensions of wellness serve as a framework to support collective wellness; they can also generate a strong foundation for addressing and developing wellness at an individual level.

  The “3 S’s” can guide you in developing individual wellness:

  1. Self-Assessment: Identify the wellness dimensions that are already strengths for you and those areas that you want to learn more about. To assist you in identifying these areas, consider using a self-assessment tool that attends to different aspects of wellness, such as the one provided online by Simon Fraser University.³

  2. Strategic Wellness Planning: Based on the wellness priorities you have identified in your self-assessment, be strategic and choose just a few to focus on during one timeframe. Design a plan to address those specific dimensions, using a SMART goals approach.⁴ If possible, find an accountability partner to check in with periodically to see how you are both doing in terms of addressing your wellness. As time progresses, revisit your plan and adjust according to what your needs and current realities or limitation are.

  3. Seek Support: Reach out through your networks, such as an employee assistance program, community programs, or social networks. Meet with a counsellor, try a meditation class, join a walking group or a book club, or download (and use!) a mindfulness app. As you work through a self-assessment process and develop a strategic wellness plan you will, more clearly, be able to identify what types of support to seek.

   

  The wellness of educators in all school settings is a vitally important aspect of the teaching profession. Research indicates that when educators address both individual and collective wellness needs, rates of teacher attrition decrease, school dynamics improve, and ultimately students benefit. Addressing and developing a culture of wellness for teachers and in schools is no easy task. Working on the three P’s and the three S’s will help develop a strong culture of individual and collective wellness and will ultimately serve to improve school environments for both teachers and students. This is especially important for those Northern, rural, and isolated school communities where the spaces between individual and collective are narrowed.

  It’s been more than ten years since Dawn started her teaching career in Northern Ontario. She says, “Since then I have devoted much of my time both professionally and personally to wellness. I have never felt better, more motivated or more passionate about teaching. I exercise, eat well, seek support, and develop wellness plans that I share with my accountability partner. That being said, I have days, and even semesters, when I am exhausted, stressed out, and feel hopeless at times. But when those days or semesters come, I revisit the 3 P’s and 3 S’s and I work at my wellness, the same way I work at my lesson plans and assessments with students.”

  After all, teachers who are well will be our best teachers.

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  Learn more about the pan-canadian summit, an exclusive professional learning experience for district teams of staff wellbeing champions seeking concrete ways to embed and sustain a happier and healthier workplace culture.

   

  Photo: iStock and Adobe Stock

  First published in Education Canada, December 2019

   

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  1 www.nationalwellness.org

  2 Adapted from Alberta’s Strategic Approach to Wellness: Health for all… wellness for life (Government of Alberta, Alberta Health: 2014).

  3 http://www.sfu.ca/students/health/resources/wellness/wheel.html

  4 SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. https://alis.alberta.ca/plan-your-career/set-smart-goals

• Well-Being Opportunities

  9:00 AM Comments Off on Well-Being Opportunities

  Dr. Shelley Russell-Mayhew will be delivering the workshop session, “WORKING UPSTREAM IN EDUCATION: THE ROLE OF TEACHER PREPARATION IN HEALTHY SCHOOL COMMUNITIES ” during EdCan’s upcoming 2022 Pan-Canadian Summit on K-12 Workplace Wellbeing.

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  “I have a general recommendation that I make to people – turn adversity into opportunity.”

  – Dr. Aaron T. Beck¹

  Dr. Aaron T. Beck, the founder of cognitive behavioural therapy, says the current pandemic can offer a unique opportunity for us to reassess our priorities, realign our values, and mine for meaning. During virtual professional learning hosted by Ever Active Schools (a provincial initiative in Alberta initiative supporting healthy school communities), and in casual conversation with educators in our lives, we have heard from teachers who have found inspiring ways to prioritize well-being during this challenging time. These educators have shared well-being success stories and new opportunities that they would like to continue in a transition back to schools. Themes included intentionality, connection, slowing down, and greater flexibility and control over their days.

  In considering opportunities to carry forward, one teacher shared, “It would be nice to have time in our school day to just connect with students and start slower.” Others discussed how the pandemic created space to savour their morning coffee, purposefully connect with students and colleagues, spend more time with family, and get outside. These perspectives have been echoed in conversations with educators since the pandemic reshaped our daily lives.

  As an education community, how will we reprioritize? What lessons have we learned from the COVID-19 crisis and how will we act upon them with intention, compassion, and courage?

  Through the uncertainty of the past several months, there are a few things that remain certain. It’s even more clear that social connection, savouring positive moments, and resilience are key to optimal teaching and learning, and to our capacity to be well through life’s inevitable highs and lows. Staff and student well-being can be mutually reinforcing when well-being is intentionally prioritized. Drawing on research and educators’ experiences² during the pandemic, we explore opportunities to reconsider well-being in education.

  Acknowledging our negativity bias

  “Our natural tendency is toward the negative, so it takes a concerted effort to wear a different set of glasses.”

  – Dr. Judith Beck³

  Most studies on “teacher well-being” have focused on the impacts of teacher stress and burnout. We propose that a focus on well-being should be centered on wellness and not illness.

  One aspect of our human psychology that may help to explain the pervasive emphasis on stress and burnout in the teaching profession is that we are wired to focus on the negative more than the positive.⁴ This is a normal reaction to events in our daily lives; we may even owe part of our survival as a species to this negativity bias. As teachers, this is why one defiant student can derail us after an otherwise stellar lesson, or a brief negative interaction with a colleague or parent can send us into a downward spiral (despite several other positive interactions that same day).

  The depiction of teaching as a stressful profession, however, is priming new teachers to normalize and expect exhaustion. As early as the first day of their BEd programs, many teacher candidates are warned of high attrition and exhaustion in the profession. New teachers are asking for a more inspiring and balanced view. At the 2019 National Forum on Wellness in Post-Secondary, one teacher candidate shared, “There’s a common narrative of mutually endured suffering going into our practicums, and I was stressed about the stress… both of my practicums were incredible and I didn’t need to be that stressed. Changing up the narrative would be helpful.”

  We hope that the lessons learned from the pandemic can serve as an invitation to shift the conversation from being stressed at school to being well at school. While there are several contributing factors to the current narrative, the good news is we are also hard-wired to connect and overcome challenges. We can leverage these innate strengths to redirect our attention.

  

  Well-being opportunities

  Below, we share educators’ experiences during the pandemic within three specific categories: cultivating connection, savouring positive moments, and building resilience (CPR).⁵ These lessons are relevant whether we’re at home, school, or somewhere in between.

  1. Strengthening meaningful connections

  “Connecting with kids is the key.” – Elementary teacher on experiencing joy after 20+ years in the profession

  The transition from bustling hallways and classrooms to virtual spaces has highlighted in real-time that social connection is foundational to well-being and to learning. We crave it. Teachers and students alike say that what they miss most is each other.

  Strong relationships can lead to a longer lifespan and improved creativity, meaning, resilience, and learning outcomes. Positive workplace interactions have the potential to strengthen our immune system, broaden our thinking, enhance self-image, and increase adaptability, cooperation, and job satisfaction.⁶ Powerful benefits for schools!

  Especially during times of difficulty, our social connections need to go beyond chit-chat and honour the full pendulum of emotions.

  While it’s not the same as face-to-face, teachers found creative ways to maintain those needed connections even during a global pandemic: sidewalk messages and neighbourhood obstacle courses, driveway charades, celebration car parades, drop-in Google lunches, Instagram live, email check-ins with jokes, and department calls with silly themes and fun games. We have been resourceful in connecting even when we can’t be physically close.

  Especially during times of difficulty, these social connections need to go beyond chit-chat and honour the full pendulum of emotions. To cultivate these deeper connections, we can ask meaningful questions:

  • What are two words to describe how you’re feeling right now?
  • What’s been your proudest moment this week? Why was it important to you?
  • What are you excited about right now?
  • What’s been your biggest blooper this week? Silver lining?
  • What have you learned about yourself through this experience?
  • What is energizing or motivating you right now?

  (Some of the above were adapted from organizational psychologist Dr. Adam Grant. Check out his WorkLife podcast for more ideas to build meaningful connections both in-person and remotely.)

  2. Savouring positive moments

  Research on effective teacher well-being initiatives show that increasing experiences of positive emotion is equally or more important to promote well-being than building skills to reduce stress and burnout.⁷ Capitalizing on small positive moments ignites a “broaden and build” effect – positive emotions broaden our perspectives, actions, and relationships, and build resources like social support and resilience.⁸ An experienced Grade 1/2 teacher reflected in an email on a small positive moment during the pandemic that improved her well-being and job satisfaction:

  “Students can see how hard you’re trying, and will offer their grace to you. This was demonstrated when students offered to meet with me prior to Google Meets to allow me to practice sharing my screen, and other skills I needed for my lessons. They were willing to be my guinea pigs so that I could be successful. Knowing that they wanted me to be successful made me feel amazing. I love my job!”

  Balancing our work and personal life is especially vital in the current context. During an online conversation, teachers shared how setting time boundaries and managing expectations helped them to stay positive. Others carved out time for meditation, walks outside with family, Zoom fitness classes with friends, podcasts, or reading for pleasure. Some teachers found joy in starting a gratitude practice and taking time to reflect on what went well in their changed teaching role.

  Teachers also shared their successes with colleagues. Emotions are contagious; we can “catch” positive emotions as easily as negative ones.9 Savouring positive experiences and celebrating others when they do the same can boost resilience and cultivate awareness of those meaningful moments in the future. Actively responding to others’ good news offers reciprocal benefits for both parties; it can help decrease loneliness and strengthen self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and our memory of the good event.¹⁰

  Some teachers found the following daily questions,¹¹ applicable in any context, particularly helpful for cultivating positive moments during the pandemic:

  • What am I grateful for today?
  • Who am I checking in on or connecting with today?
  • What expectations of “normal” am I letting go of today?
  • How am I getting outside today?
  • How am I moving my body today?
  • What beauty am I either creating, cultivating or inviting in today?

  3. Building resilience skills to manage stress

  Resilience allows us to manage inevitable challenges and setbacks, and develop skills to move through those experiences and grow as a result. It allows us to experience hope in hardship. Teachers shared during the virtual chat how the pandemic has provided opportunities to build resilience, including managing expectations of productivity and creating space to be vulnerable and name emotions (which, in turn, encourages their colleagues to do the same): “It’s okay not to be okay.”

  How can we continue these generative conversations…and interrupt the narrative of burnout and stress?

  A powerful skill in developing resilience is the ability to reframe and challenge our rigid thoughts or expectations. It takes practice, but we can learn how to turn unproductive worries, all-or-nothing thinking, and guilt-inducing lists of “shoulds” into more balanced and empowering thoughts. One educator shared how she was able to reframe disappointment in missing a pre-planned trip by connecting to the meaning, or her why, of going on the trip in the first place. Her why was connection, so she found a new opportunity to connect with those same people. Consider these questions to reframe in the moment:

  • What is a more productive way to look at this?
  • What is one thing within my control, and how can I act on it?
  • How can I use my strengths,¹² or connect to my why?

  Similarly, self-compassion is a strategy to build our resilience and ability to manage stress. Teachers identify self-compassion as a powerful practice to combat self-criticism while navigating uncertainty. Dr. Kristin Neff explains self-compassion as treating ourselves with kindness. To apply self-compassion, try asking these questions inspired by Neff’s framework:¹³

  • Self-kindness: What would I say to a friend in this situation?
  • Common humanity: How can I connect with others going through something similar?
  • Mindfulness: How can I honour my emotions and practice presence?

  Continuing the conversation

  Let’s not forget the lessons we’re learning through this difficult situation. How can we continue these generative conversations, implement a reprioritized value for well-being habits, and as a result, interrupt the narrative of burnout and stress? These seemingly simple habits are impactful regardless of the setting; the pandemic simply shone a bright light on their necessity.

  To envision an education system that prioritizes well-being at an individual and organizational level, how would we allocate time? For example, how could we restructure the school day to encourage intentional opportunities to connect and savour positive moments, without the usual rush to the next thing? Habits teachers reported during the pandemic are simple, inexpensive ways to build well-being and sustainability in our profession.

  Imagine a narrative of teaching that is energizing and empowering to both manage the complexities of education today, and to spark an upward spiral of well-being for teachers and students. Eventually, talking about well-being will become as common as talking about stress.

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  Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Summit, An exclusive professional learning experience for district teams of staff wellbeing champions seeking concrete ways to embed and sustain a happier and healthier workplace culture.

   

  Illustration: Diana Pham

  First published in Education Canada, September 2020

  Notes

  1 A. T. Beck, J. Beck, and M. E. P. Seligman, Aaron Beck, Judith Beck and Martin Seligman in Massive MAPP Meetup [Video] (April 21, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk-uPg1rJmI&t=728s

  2 For a summary of the In the Round learning chats hosted by Ever Active Schools: https://everactive.org/professional-learning/#online

  3 Beck et al., Massive MAPP Meetup [video].

  4 P. Rozin and E. B. Royzman, “Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 5, No. 4 (2001): 296-320; R. F. Baumeister, E. Bratslavsky, et al., “Bad is Stronger than Good,” Review of General Psychology 5, No. 4 (2001): 323-370.

  5 Referred to as the CPR of happiness by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center: https://blog.edx.org/scientific-self-care-feel-happy-grounded-grateful

  6 J. E. Dutton and E. D. Heaphy, “The Power of High-quality Connections,” Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline 3 (2003): 263-278; J. Holt-Lunstad, T. B. Smith, and J. B. Layton, “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A meta-analytic review,” PLOS Medicine 7, No. 7 (2010).

  7 WellAhead, Research Brief: Promoting the wellbeing of teachers and school staff (2018). https://static1.squarespace.com/static/586814ae2e69cfb1676a5c0b/t/5b281bb170a6ad31c89ab315/1529355185939/TSWB_ResearchBrief.pdf

  8 B. L. Fredrickson, (2001). “The Role of Positive Emotions in Positive Psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions,” American Psychologist 56, No. 3 (2001): 218-226.

  9 S. G. Barsade, C. G. Coutifaris, and J. Pillemer, “Emotional Contagion in Organizational Life,” Research in Organizational Behavior 38 (2018): 137-151; S. G. Barsade, “The Ripple Effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior,” Administrative Science Quarterly 47, No. 4 (2002): 644-675.

  10 S. L. Gable et al., “What Do You Do When Things Go Right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87, No. 2 (2004): 228-245.

  11 Brooke Anderson, “Six Daily Questions to Ask Yourself in Quarantine,” Greater Good Magazine (March 24, 2020). https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_daily_questions_to_ask_yourself_in_quarantine

  12 Visit www.viacharacter.org to take a free character strengths survey and learn about your signature strengths. Using strengths creates a common language, builds resilience skills, and benefits student and staff well-being.

  13 For supporting research and free online tools: https://self-compassion.org

• What Does It Mean to Be Well-Educated?

  March 23, 2022 12:19 PM Comments Off on What Does It Mean to Be Well-Educated?

  On January 11, 2020, a 61-year-old man in the central Chinese city of Wuhan succumbed to a new virus that had sickened at least 41 people. “There is no evidence that the virus can be spread between humans,” the New York Times reported at the time (Quin & Hernandez, 2020). By April 2, the COVID-19 coronavirus had sickened more than one million people in 171 countries across six continents and had killed more than 51,000. In a recent report for the Royal Society of Canada, my colleague Michelle Hagerman and I noted that nearly two years later, the pandemic had not only claimed the lives of millions but also upended nearly every public, private, and non-governmental institution around the globe (Westheimer & Hagerman, 2021).

  Crises have a way of making us ask big questions. They focus our attention on what matters most – to us, our loved ones, our fellow citizens, and the planet. For educators, prioritizing what is important became fundamental as teachers grappled with the new realities of online learning, spotty attendance, and the immense inequalities the pandemic revealed about the lives of students and their families. These new realities offer an opportunity to reshape our thinking about what matters in education. But opportunity is not the same as destiny. For lasting change to occur, we must focus our attention on using what we have learned.

  What does it mean to be well-educated?

  Can you name any of the fourteen plant phyla? What’s the difference between sine and cosine? When did the Assyrian empire’s reign over Mesopotamia begin and end? What roles do chloroplasts, vacuole, or mitochondria play in the basic functioning of cells? If you don’t know the answers, you’re not alone. The truth is that few adults (whose professions do not require such specialized knowledge) know the answers to these questions. And even fewer face social, civic, or career setbacks as a result.

  If I could ban any two words from education talk for the next year or so, I would choose these: learning loss. The past two years of interrupted schooling has meant that countless children missed lessons in math, history, geography, science, and literature. Every day we read about children falling behind, but the curriculum is bursting at the seams. Falling behind what? Behind whom? Estimates are that nearly 90 percent of the world’s 1.7 billion students have missed a significant amount of school these past two years. So we shouldn’t be surprised if testing experts tell us that, on balance, the COVID generation is not performing as well on standardized assessments of progress as previous cohorts of children at the same stage in their schooling. We probably didn’t need the tests to tell us that predictable fact. But what if that model of teaching and learning is outdated and there are more important things for teachers to think about than whether they’ve “covered” the curriculum?

  For certain basic skills such as numeracy and literacy, the language of learning loss is an understandable way of expressing concern over an achievement gap between high- and low- achieving students. But for more than three decades, the school curriculum has become increasingly consumed with all the things students should know before they graduate. That has resulted in an unprecedented global obsession with micro-managing teachers’ work to ensure the right information is taught, and with standardized testing to find out if they’re succeeding. Yet those who seek to demonstrate the importance of coverage in the curriculum mostly use standardized measures of knowledge attainment to prove their point. This tautological approach should be easily dismissed, pandemic or no pandemic, when making the case that we need to move our priorities away from a mile-wide-inch-deep approach to teaching and learning.

  Research in teaching and child development tells us that learning how to think analytically is much more important than cramming in material that students won’t remember weeks or years later. We live in an age of instantly accessible information in an infinite number of domains. Living well in the 21st century does not require more information, but rather the knowledge and skills needed to sift, understand, and assess the quality of information. Teaching content matters, but covering every possible historical event and scientific or mathematical concept does not.

  I would be thrilled if my child had the opportunity to read and discuss with her teacher and classmates the brilliant allegorical novel, The Alchemist. After all, many students learn valuable ways of thinking about the world from reading it. But I’d be OK if they had to miss that one and read only Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner or Yann Martel’s Life of Pi instead. What matters is finding topics of interest to both teachers and students, having the time to explore those topics in depth, and facilitating connections between subject matter and the outside world. A deep-dive into topics of interest is worth more than a stress-filled endurance swim in the shallows.

  This is not a new idea. “Less is more” has been a common aphorism in curriculum development for more than 30 years. The harms wrought by trying to meet curricular standards bursting at the seams were well documented before the pandemic (see for example Kempf, 2016), but during the past two years, as teachers and school boards across the country were forced to recognize the impossibility of covering the entire prescribed curriculum, the very idea of breadth versus depth came under increased scrutiny. It has become clearer than ever that endlessly expanding content goals reduce teachers’ control over the curriculum, undermine their professional judgment, and limit student engagement.

  Acknowledging inequality without making it worse

  The COVID-19 pandemic functioned like an X-ray, revealing already existing fault lines in our nation and the world: poverty and economic inequality, hunger and homelessness, racial and ethnic bias, unequal access to high-speed internet and computers, and inadequate resources for those most in need. None of these are new challenges, but they are newly spotlighted for all of us to see – “pinned” in the vernacular of the now-ubiquitous video conferencing platforms. Online learning meant that educators were transported into students’ homes, making inequality difficult to ignore.

  What bothers me about a focus on learning loss and “falling behind” is that it will increase these already existing gaps. Calls for economically disadvantaged students to keep up with their wealthier peers will not diminish the achievement gap between children from poorer and wealthier households. The problem is not that some kids will learn more than others as much as it is the consequences we tie to arbitrary benchmarks of learning in the first place. Since students are likely to be evaluated in the future using assessments of how much of the curriculum was covered, and since those evaluations continue to be used to sort students in ways that will affect their futures, we are, at least in part, creating the very problem we hope to eliminate by emphasizing the achievement gap. The more we value the acquisition of information over the development of intellectual, emotional, and relational capacities, the more we contribute to rather than ameliorate inequality.

  I do not want to minimize the added supports some children need to make up for lost schooling in basic skills. A child entering Grade 3 after having missed much of the previous two years may not be able to read. Some children will have missed the opportunity to learn or solidify basic mathematical literacy. These are significant liabilities, not really comparable to missing stories about some explorers in Canadian history. It is a significant handicap to be lacking these “basic skills,” and for most children, it would be difficult to acquire these skills on their own. To be sure, we should support additional funding for more teachers, smaller classes, and additional programming so that these gaps can be addressed.

  But there is much more to schooling than basic skills alone, and we must be careful not to create arbitrary barriers to those students who, beyond common-sense basic skills, have not acquired the same level of curriculum coverage as their more well-resourced peers.

  Schools have been stuck in the wrong paradigm for success, one in which individualized knowledge and skills are the end-goal instead of a means to develop students’ best selves within the community of their teachers and peers, and, by extension, improve society for all of us.

  What counts as a successful education?

  If we agree to move beyond an outdated paradigm of education centred around curriculum coverage, what kind of vision for post-pandemic education can take its place? Two decades ago, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote that education either functions to inculcate conformity in the younger generation or it becomes “the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (2000, p. 34). To Freire, the sense of pedagogical meaning-making that derives from curriculum is inseparable from the goal of improving society. In other words, improving society requires not only teaching basic skills and knowledge, but also engaging young and old alike in a process of collective meaning-making and community-building.

  For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in the ways people treat one another, learn from one another, and live together in local, national, and global communities – in short, how people see themselves as members of a community. Education has always seemed important to me, not because of the debates about passing fads and strategies (phonics versus whole language, new math versus old math, small classes versus big classes), but rather because choices about how we teach our children are choices about the kind of society we believe in and the kind of people we hope will emerge from our schoolhouse doors. Will they be concerned only with their own individual success and ambitions without regard to the welfare of others? Will they form healthy and happy relationships with others? Will they value democratic values such as self-governance and social justice? Will they learn how to develop convictions and the courage to stand up for those convictions if and when it becomes necessary to do so? Will they be able to engage in work and community activities they find meaningful? These values are manifestations of a sense of both personal and civic identity and form the basis of community life.

  You can see, then, that I think about schools not only or even primarily as vehicles for the transmission of knowledge, but also as places where children learn about the society in which they are growing up: how they might engage productively, how they can fight for change when change is warranted, and how to know when it is warranted. Schools have always taught lessons in areas such as citizenship, moral values, good behaviour, and “character.” Schools teach children to follow rules, to wait their turn, and (ideally) to cooperate with others. Schools (again, ideally) also teach children how to acquire and process information and how to articulate their ideas to others – all necessary skills for democratic community life. Some schools also help students consider whether being a “good” citizen or member of the community ever requires questioning rules, or what might be the proper balance between rule following and thinking about the origins and purpose of rules.

  Schools teach these lessons regardless of whether or not they aim to do so explicitly. How classrooms are set up, who gets to talk when, how adults conduct themselves, how decisions are made, how lessons are enacted – all these inevitably serve as lessons in how to live together. Whether teachers explicitly “teach” these subjects or not, students learn about community organization, the distribution of power and resources, rights, responsibilities, and of course, justice and injustice. These same lessons are mirrored in students’ online interactions. Curricular choices and the relative importance we put on covering all the content standards contain both overt and hidden lessons as well.

  When policy-makers focus obsessively on learning metrics, teachers are forced to reduce their teaching to endless lists of facts and skills, unmoored from their social meaning. But when we consider what a successful education might look like more broadly and we think about the impact our curricular choices have on the people we hope students will become, we create new ways of seeing the complex work of teaching and we form new expectations for the purposes of a public education.

  Content matters, coverage does not

  Schools should teach subject matter content. There, I said it. I do not want to entertain strawman arguments about progressive educators who don’t care whether children learn to read and write, add and subtract numbers, or learn facts about things. As far as I know, there is not a group anyone can join called “Parents and Educators Against Children Learning How to Read.”

  What I am suggesting is that schools should teach content without becoming overly concerned with teaching all content. The need for such a shift in thinking is not new but was made newly possible by the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Eliminating the need for each and every student to cover the exact same material at the same time would free teachers to help their students create meaning, develop a sense of purpose, belonging, well-being, and the chance to learn more deeply about things that excite their curiosity. A paradigm for education that embraces these kinds of goals encourages teachers and students to develop content knowledge and skills by drawing on the local passions, interests, and resources of the school and community. As high school history teacher Michael Berkowitz likes to say: content matters more than coverage.

  Most importantly, a successful education should be one that allows each child to become the best version of themselves, and to envision a future for their communities and the planet that isn’t yet realized – but that they can help bring about.

  Photo: iStock

  First published in Education Canada, March 2022

  Have you listened to the lively podcast episode featuring Dr. Joel Westheimer, among other researchers? Listen here!

  Join the LIVE conversation connecting researchers and practitioners on May 16th! Sign up.

  References

  Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

  Kempf, A. (2016). The pedagogy of standardized testing: The radical impacts of educational standardization in the US and Canada. Palgrave.

  Qin, A. & Hernández, J. C. (2020, January 10). China reports first death from new virus. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/world/asia/china-virus-wuhan-death.html. Para 4

  Westheimer, J., & Hagerman, M. (2021). After COVID: Lessons from a pandemic for K-12 education. In T. Vaillancourt (Ed.), Children and schools during COVID-19 and beyond: Engagement and connection through opportunity. Royal Society of Canada. https://education.uottawa.ca/en/news/royal-society-canada-policy-briefing-children-and-schools-during-covid-19-and-beyond

• How Will We Teach in A (Post)-pandemic Canada?

  November 17, 2021 3:19 PM Comments Off on How Will We Teach in A (Post)-pandemic Canada?

  By now, most of us have become acutely aware of the way the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted schools, students, education workers, and families and communities right across the country. We’ve heard of the gaps, the fractures, and the fault lines that have been revealed in our systems of education. And while a few of these can be attributed to the crisis, most have existed for years if not, decades. But it’s time for our observations to give way to action. Those familiar statements about what we see must now be turned into questions about what we intend to do.

  This is Education Canada, powered by voiced Radio, a unique approach to knowledge mobilization that connects insights from Canada’s research, practice, and policy communities. This cross-platform professional learning experience gathers researchers and practitioners from right across Canada to help us explore some of those big-picture questions facing all of us about the future of education post-pandemic. The first essential question we will focus on is:

  How will we teach in a (post)-pandemic Canada?

  To deepen your knowledge, read these in-depth articles and join the conversation featuring the researchers in this very podcast episode.

  ARTICLES:

  Why NOT to Quit After First Attempts in Online and Hybrid Learning By Valerie Irvine, Assistant Professor, Education Technology, University of Victoria

  A Focus on Human Flourishing By Kristina R. Llewellyn, Professor, Department of Social Development Studies, University of Waterloo

  “How Can This Be More Accessible?” By Ian Matheson, Assistant Professor of Special Education, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University, with Co-author Jeffrey MacCormack, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and Inclusion, Faculty of Education, the University of Lethbridge

  Reconciliation: A Chance to Heal as a Nation By Kevin Lamoureux, Instructor, Faculty of Education, University of Winnipeg

  LIVE CONVERSATION:

  Watch the 5-minute highlights video of the 90-minute live conversation that took place on Monday, December 6th, 2021. This first live conversation provided an opportunity for the researchers and audience to weigh in on this important question from their own unique perspectives.

  *EXPLORE THE LATEST EDITION OF EDUCATION CANADA, POWERED BY VOICED RADIO (MARCH 2022)

• “How Can This Be More Accessible?”

  3:09 PM Comments Off on “How Can This Be More Accessible?”

  ADAPTABILITY HAS NEVER been a more important skill for educators than during the COVID-pandemic. From intermittent shifts between online and in-person learning environments to planning within restricted classroom working conditions, educators have been forced to hustle since the spring of 2020. As they continue to adapt and adjust to change, they must also consider how to prepare students for a labour market that is transforming before our very eyes. We are seeing significant shifts to remote work arrangements that appear to be both permanent and increasing (Castrillon, 2020; Lund et al., 2021). With so much change, pursuit of an enjoyable and valuable learning experience for any student can feel elusive or even unattainable – and this may be especially true for students with exceptional learning needs.

  We know that students with exceptional learning needs were among the hardest hit during the pandemic. While many students faced abrupt discontinuations to specialized services such as speech and language therapy, others struggled to keep up with online lessons and expectations without the kind of direct support they’d been used to receiving in the classroom. In addition to losing supports, new “quadmester” formats see students learning fewer subjects at greater pace, leaving many feeling anxious, stressed, and burned out. With educators already doing everything they can to deal with changing and sub-par conditions, it is essential that students take on greater management of their own learning. Like adaptability for educators, self-regulated learning has become paramount for students. This is a skill that that students with many types of exceptional learning needs tend to struggle with (Nader-Grosbois, 2014; Schunk & Bursuck, 2013). 

  During the pandemic and beyond, educators must focus their efforts in education on helping students with exceptional learning needs on their path to becoming self-advocates. Even better, through the lens of inclusion, this should be a universal endeavour within our classrooms to benefit all students.

  For students with exceptional learning needs, self-regulated learning can involve consideration of what additional learning supports they will need and be provided with. At the elementary and secondary school levels this kind of planning is driven by educators and parents, but responsibility shifts dramatically to the students following their completion of K–12 education. Students need to understand their strengths and areas of needs, because accessing the accommodations that are necessary for success in post-secondary education is contingent on the student’s ability to request, negotiate, and implement those plans. That was true before the pandemic began, but understanding one’s own strengths and needs has become even more of a challenge during the pandemic. Educators must prepare these students for this shift, and it will take some reconsideration of how educators communicate with and about students with exceptional learning needs. In short, students with exceptional learning needs must become self-advocates. But what does this involve?

  Change is constant: Know thyself

  While the negative impact of the pandemic on our society cannot be overstated, one potential benefit of pandemic schooling may be that educators become nimbler in their efforts to provide supports for students. As students move through the education system, they too become used to change – in how learning happens at multiple levels, in what is expected of students, and in who is expected to be the greatest advocate for students with exceptional learning needs. While we cannot prepare ourselves entirely for the next environment we will find ourselves in, whether it be another pandemic, a post-secondary program, or a new career and workplace, we can focus on what we bring into that environment. We can work to understand our strengths and needs, and prepare to obtain the resources we will need to be successful. 

  Test and colleagues (2005) constructed a conceptual model of what self-advocacy involves, and what it requires of us as educators. According to their model, becoming a self-advocate involves developing:

  • Knowledge of self (what are my specific needs?)
  • Knowledge of rights (what I am entitled to?)
  • Communication skills (how do I negotiate for support?)
  • Leadership (how do I advocate for others with similar needs?)

  Students with exceptional learning needs who become self-advocates are positioned well for transitions (changes in environment). Like learning a language, researchers agree that developing self-advocacy skills is done best when students are young. During the pandemic and beyond, educators must focus their efforts in education on helping students with exceptional learning needs on their path to becoming self-advocates. Even better, through the lens of inclusion, this should be a universal endeavour within our classrooms to benefit all students. 

  Steps to self-advocacy

  Providing students with self-knowledge can involve distinguishing between what a student’s exceptionality actually means and what they might think it means. Educators should look to inform students about their specific learning challenges; we know that students who have the same label (e.g. learning disability) do not necessarily experience the same challenges. Experimentation is encouraged here – work with students to figure out what conditions are most and least ideal, and collaborate to generate ways to overcome the obstacles they face. The better they understand themselves, the better prepared they’ll be to seek what they need in whatever environment they find themselves in next. 

  For students who are identified with exceptional learning needs, educators have a legal responsibility to provide the supports that they document on their individual education plan (the term varies by location in Canada). These students must be taught to recognize when their needs are not being met, and to understand what kinds of accommodations and supports they may expect. This kind of education sets students up well to learn their rights as individuals with disabilities entering a labour market that will almost certainly not include an individual who advocates for them in the way that educators do for their students. Advocacy skills should be transferred to students and Pearson and Gallagher (1983) famously provided us with a model of how to do this. Educators must model for students, collaborate with them, scaffold supports as needed, and work toward the students’ independence. 

  Knowledge of self and rights are almost useless without the skills to communicate with others. Educators should focus on teaching students to seek what they require by being assertive and proactive, rather than aggressive and reactive. Often, students with exceptional learning needs will find themselves in situations where they cannot access the supports they need (e.g. prompting students to refocus during asynchronous learning). Here, educators should focus on helping these students learn to negotiate for support; the student and teacher/supervisor can consider the task demands, the environment and resources available, and find a way to compromise. 

  An essential component of self-advocacy is peer support. Students needs to look out for one another because, whether they are learning remotely or in the classroom with restrictions, educators may not as easily notice when students are struggling. It benefits everyone to encourage all students to consider how their peers are doing through regular check-ins, and to speak up when someone is having difficulty. Whether a student has exceptional learning needs or not, all students can advocate for their peers when additional support is required. Developing a culture that values this team-first approach begins with the teacher. 

  Discoveries within the pandemic

  Sudden shifts to online learning required educators to think quickly about how they were going to create a new learning environment. The use of online platforms, a mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning, and flexibility were all common features across the country. Many students with exceptional learning needs experienced obstacles with these new forms of learning and instruction, but these experiences also point to some tremendous lessons that we can take forward. Ultimately, the pandemic has been (and should be) a reminder that educators must develop a reflex of asking “can this be more accessible?” While educators should be asking themselves if learning can be more accessible for their students, there is a great opportunity to involve students with exceptional learning needs in this conversation to share their perspectives and insights from what they have experienced. In addition to focusing on the development of self-advocacy skills for our students with exceptional learning needs, several findings from pandemic research are worth considering. 

  We must also consider how, based on their experiences during school closures, educators might create more active opportunities for parents of students with exceptional learning needs to inform what happens in the classroom. Whitley and colleagues (in press a) identified that parents of children with exceptional learning needs generally did not feel confident in their ability to support their child’s learning needs during the pandemic-related school closures and remote learning. In a lot of cases, parents and caregivers were required to assume, to some degree, the role of “teacher” for their child. This was especially necessary for many parents of children with significant exceptional learning needs who were not able to access remote learning in the same ways as many of their peers. However, these researchers (Whitley, in press b) also identified that parents who felt they had greater social-emotional support from the school (e.g. supports for the child’s emotional well-being) felt more confident in their ability to support their child. In the same research study, some parents were able to identify new approaches, based on the knowledge they gained about their child’s exceptional learning needs during their focused time together. 

  Together, the results of this research highlight the opportunity we have in education to foster stronger parent/teacher relationships. While parents and caregivers have always been the experts on their children, many now have new insights about the exceptional learning needs of their children, and how learning happens best for them. As we move forward in education with uncertainty, we can be certain that students with exceptional learning needs can benefit when school and home collaborate to generate ideas about how learning can be more accessible. While this sort of collaboration may be often limited to annual meetings to review the child’s individual education plan, Whitley and colleagues (in press B) have documented that parents and caregivers can provide ideas for consideration about how teaching and learning happen. 

  IT DOES NO GOOD to dwell on what we cannot change. Despite the challenges and tragedies that the pandemic has brought, we should rather dwell on the opportunities it has given us to reconsider how we can give students a great learning experience, and how we can prepare them for an uncertain future. Pandemic-related research on children with exceptional learning needs not only highlights the challenges these students face regardless of the learning environment, but also reveals the anxiety and stress that these children and their families experience in dealing with these challenges. Communication among educators, parents, and students with exceptional learning needs is paramount to provide them with the support they need to succeed now, and the knowledge they need to thrive in whatever lies ahead for them.  

  Photo credit: Adobe Stock

  This is part of the first edition of Education Canada, powered by voicEd radio, a cross-platform professional learning experience.
  

  EXPLORE THE LATEST EDITION OF EDUCATION CANADA, POWERED BY VOICED RADIO (MARCH 2022)

  Have you listened to the lively podcast episode featuring Dr. Ian Matheson, among other researchers? Listen here!

  REFERENCES

  Castrillon, C. (2020, December 27). This is the future of remote work in 2021. Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2021/12/27/this-is-the-future-of-remote-work-in-2021/?sh=14a485721e1d 

  Lund, S., Madgavkar, A., et al. (2021). The future of work after COVID-19. McKinsey Global Institute. www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-after-covid-19

  Nader-Grosbois N. (2014). Self-perception, self-regulation and metacognition in adolescents with intellectual disability. Research in developmental disabilities, 35(6), 1334–1348. doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2014.03.033

  Pearson, P. D., & Gallagher, M. C. (1983). The instruction of reading comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8(3), 317–344. doi.org/10.1016/0361-476X(83)90019-X

  Schunk, D. H., & Bursuck, W. D. (2013). Self-regulation and disability. In M. L. Wehmeyer (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of positive psychology and disability (pp. 265–278). Oxford University Press.

  Test, D. W., Fowler, C. H., Wood, et al. (2005). A Conceptual Framework of Self-Advocacy for Students with Disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 26(1), 43–54. doi.org/10.1177/07419325050260010601

  Whitley, J., Matheson, I., et al. (in press a). Perspectives of parents of children with special education needs: Self-efficacy and school supports during COVID-19 school closures. Exceptionality Education International. 

  Whitley, J., Specht, J., et al. (in press b). Holes, patches and multiple hats: The experiences of parents of students with special education needs navigating at-home learning during COVID-19. In R. Turok-Squite (Ed.), COVID-19 and education in the Global North: Storytelling as alternative pedagogies. Palgrave.

• Why NOT to Quit After First Attempts in Online and Hybrid Learning

  3:07 PM Comments Off on Why NOT to Quit After First Attempts in Online and Hybrid Learning

  

  G. Forsythe, licensed by CC BY NC SA 2.0
  *Click on the image to view full-screen

  There’s no return to pre-pandemic teaching. We must accept the reality that the need for flexibility is endemic in the K–12 education system. 

  Without question, teachers, educational administrators, staff, and learners have been run through the gauntlet since the pandemic created sudden and massive shifts to how we teach. These shifts were executed without preparation, without supports, and – for many – while also juggling family commitments while working from home. It makes sense that, through fatigue and frustration, some may want to return to pre-pandemic teaching as quickly as possible. However, in looking at how we will teach in a post-pandemic world, we must examine the privileges and biases that existed in the pre-pandemic school system and resist perpetuating them. We have an incredible opportunity to transform our systems and our practices. 

  In this article, I’ll review the intersection between pedagogy, modality (i.e. online or face-to-face), and access, explore commonly held biases, and argue that the K–12 sector needs to stay the course – not in repeating how things were done during the pandemic, but in iterating to new and improved ways that support teachers, learners, and educational staff in offering a more socially just and equitable school system. 

  Modality and equity

  As we shift back into a post-pandemic era, how can we teach in a way that ensures access and flexibility for all learners? We were able to pivot an entire system on short notice. Surely, we can embrace inclusion and human rights so as not to abandon those who still remain marginalized and require flexibility when we return. 

  Ultimately, whenever we pick a modality, we marginalize a learner. When we choose to offer face-to-face-only classes with rigid schedules, we fail to support learners who require flexibility – whether it is to self-regulate and control anxiety or their response to trauma by not being in a classroom a full five days a week, or to get relief from a two-hour commute to the nearest school. Many learners require frequent medical appointments or recovery time for health issues, while others require flexibility for family travel or sport programs. In contrast, when we choose to offer online programs, we may assume the learner has access to the internet at home or the technology to access the course. The design might also require significant parental support, which may not be possible. Which learner has the right to be served within their local community school? Why does one learner get supported in their local context, while the other is asked to leave their community?

  Ultimately, we need to support all modalities to implement an inclusive and socially just education system. How we do it requires careful consideration, so it is not burdening the teacher to be a full-time, in-person teacher, while also engaged in online synchronous and asynchronous activities. Both modes can be designed and delivered well, but require some reorganization of roles within a school or district. For example, British Columbia’s School District 69 Qualicum Restart Plan (n.d.) for the 2020/21 school year, hired three teachers assigned to two classrooms in elementary (offering both in-person and remote learning) and cross-enrolled secondary learners in both their home school and the district’s online learning programs. This district supported and retained learners, when other districts forced them into home schooling or out-of-district online programs. 

  We were able to pivot an entire system on short notice. Surely, we can embrace inclusion and human rights so as not to abandon those who still remain marginalized and require flexibility when we return.

  Choosing not to engage technology or not to engage different modes of access results in exclusion for many learners. There are also other considerations, however, such as the loss of funding to a school or district, and loss of teacher jobs, which happens when learners leave a school or district in favour of homeschooling or an online school with a higher teacher-student ratio. 

  And they do leave. BCEdAccess, an organization serving families of learners with disabilities, released 2020 study findings that support the need for flexibility. In 2021, they documented family intentions to leave the system and found that 67.5% of 453 respondents’ children attended in-person public school in the 2019/20 year. That number dropped to 43.9% in the 2020/21 post-pandemic school year. During the same period, they reported that enrolment increased in other schooling alternatives, with the most frequent being:

  • Independent online learning, up 12.1%
  • Public online learning, up 7.1%
  • Registered homeschooling, up 1.6%
  • Hybrid and remote learning, up 1.5%

  Both during and pre-pandemic, many students have been pushed out of their local catchment schools and into homeschooling or online programs that are often out of district or private. By not providing flexible and online designs within schools, we are essentially defunding the public school system, reducing teacher jobs, and abandoning learners who need access to education and inclusion in their community school. The irony is that not providing adequate funding and online designs may have cost the system more in accumulated losses. While the indirect impact on the greater economy is hard to measure, learner exclusion from school has a severe impact on working parents – most often mothers – and sometimes results in loss of employment. We need to address systemic gender inequity in how we design both our workplaces and our schools.

  Types of Modality Explained

  • Multi-access learning: a mix of modes, including a concurrent mix of face-to-face and online learners connecting synchronously via video, and asynchronous connection. The extent to which a learner has freedom to choose their mode varies. For example, there may be a required synchronous portion and required asynchronous participation. 
  • HyFlex: a type of multi-access learning with full learner autonomy to choose. However, few courses offer full choice due to learning design and workload considerations. 
  • Blended synchronous or synchronous hybrid: multi-access learning that involves the synchronous mixing of face-to-face and online learners via video.
  • Blended or hybrid learning: a consecutive mix of face-to-face and online learning, with all learners being required to participate in each mode. (The term “hybrid” has been misused to refer to both concurrent and consecutive mixing of online and face-to-face components, making it unclear to learners what is expected of them.)
  • Online learning: learning that happens fully online. This label is no longer sufficient on its own as learners need to know whether it is synchronous only, a blend of synchronous and asynchronous learning, or asynchronous only.
    

  For more on the landscape of merging modalities, see my EDUCAUSE Review article (Irvine, 2020a).

  Modality bias 

  Since online learning emerged decades ago out of text-based asynchronous learning, we have a historical bias to address: namely, that online learning is passive while face-to-face learning is rich and dynamic. It is key, however, to separate the pedagogy from the modality. The pedagogy applied within a mode will determine whether the learning experience is dynamic or passive (see Figure 1).

  Figure 1: A Modality-Pedagogy Matrix

  

  Graphic and bottom right photo: Valerie Irvine, CC BY 4.0. Other photos: UnSplash.

  A growing body of research concludes that one learning mode is not necessarily better than the other. The no-significant difference phenomenon is well documented, and the famous Clark vs. Kozma debate on whether media impacts learning is distilled in a blog post by elementary vice-principal, Emily Miller. Clark and Feldon (2014) conclude that “studies comparing the learning benefits of different media are a waste of resources.” Instead, they argue, what’s needed is “many more research and evaluation studies focused on the use of media to improve student access to instructional programs and to reduce the cost of learning” (p. 153). (See Open Educational Resources.)

  Open Educational Resources

  Integrating technology-based education can also reduce the cost of learning. This cost savings can be realized through shared services and resource creation by both teachers and learners through Creative Commons licenses. Open licensing empowers sharing and remixing to suit local contexts, and can also reduce costs by averting the purchase of corporate for-profit resources. The post-secondary sector has begun embracing open educational resources (OER) to lower textbook costs for students – $20 million in 2020 in B.C. alone (BCcampus). Moving beyond open textbooks into OER-enabled pedagogy (Wiley, 2017) can help K–12 discover, reuse, remix, and co-create Canadian and locally developed resources.

  We also need to recognize that learners hold different preferences about modality. In my study of preservice teachers enrolled in a core teacher education course offered in multi-access format, with a required synchronous component, learners varied widely when ranking their preferred modality (Irvine et al., 2013). After having taken the course, the rank order across participants was:
  

  1. multi-access learning in the face-to-face group
  2. blended learning
  3. multi-access learning in the synchronous online video group
  4. face-to-face 
  5. online. 

  Note that the lowest-ranked modes were the binaries of face-to-face and online learning. Most learners preferred a more flexible mix of the two. Various factors influence one’s preference or need for modality (e.g. need for geographic relocation, physical and mental health, length of commute, caregiving, prior experience with different modes, etc.) and preferences may differ across contexts and time periods. If those needs do not match the rigid scheduling of K–12 community schools, it puts additional stress on the student to adapt. 

  Unfortunately, in many K–12 online schools, it is the opposite extreme: learners are often able to enroll continuously throughout the year and follow different paces asynchronously through learning modules, which results in additional stress for the teacher and potentially poor scaffolding or community-building for the learner. There needs to be a compromise, with a proper needs assessment study of both learners and teachers.

  The path forward

  We need to ask ourselves why the learners in many online classes do not have the same opportunities as their face-to-face peers in terms of class ratio, design, relational learning, and supports. It is important to address the modality bias that exists around supports required for both online and face-to-face learning. For example, we can and should build inquiry-based learning strategies into our online offerings. We need approaches that focus more on the learner and on co-creating the curriculum, as opposed to course shells literally purchased from a company in Texas. Regardless of mode, the role of the teacher and the conditions around class sizes and supports are the same. Quality learning, whether face-to-face or online, is built around relationships and care-centred approaches for the learner.

  Moving beyond the haphazard “emergency remote teaching” era and embracing the integration of technology and online modes will take a concerted effort, through professional development, to advance the digital, networked, and open literacies of teachers and administrators. Inclusion requires technology as a pillar, which means all teachers must foster ways to support learner voice, choice, and access through technology. Furthermore, a deeper understanding is needed to develop a critical lens of digital pedagogy, so as not to fall deep into the pervasive “tech ninja” or “corporate-certified educator” approach. For too long, the K–12 sector has been the target of corporate integration and has perpetuated exclusion. To address this, the Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association (OTESSA), a new Canada-based academic and professional association, was formed to drive research, innovation in practice, and advocacy. In its 2021 federal pre-budget submission, it recently advocated for better supports for both K–12 and post-secondary in the areas of digital, online, and open education. 

  Technology presents rich options for inclusion, but discernment is required, for example, in order to mitigate corporate interests in education (Gilliard, 2018); navigate issues around learner privacy, consent, and data ownership; develop and implement rich online learning strategies and technologies; and identify protections needed to address inequities experienced by marginalized learners (e.g. digital redlining). Not everyone experiences the internet in the same way. Some learners may depend on it for expression of learner voice, when speaking in the physical classroom is not possible (see Figure 2). Some require advocacy to access technology, while others need protection from online harassment. It is no longer appropriate for a teacher to decide not to learn how to incorporate technology, nor is it appropriate for districts or governments not to implement supports for teachers.

  Figure 2: Elementary Learner Note Asking for Blogging as a Means of Expression

  

  Photo:  Valerie Irvine (with permission), CC BY 4.0.

  Learning about technology can be a stressful experience. However, practica are similarly stressful experiences for pre-service teachers, with experiences of failure throughout – yet these challenges during face-to-face teaching do not deter most early career educators from continuing. In fact, failure is expected, and these teachers are encouraged to find supports as they learn and iterate in their practice. With forays into technology integration and exploring online modes, teachers and administrators need to work through challenges to discover practices that work best in their context and for their learners. What we do know is that face-to-face classes cannot simply be transferred online; they need to be adapted. As educators, we need to continue experiencing and learning from failures, reflecting and iterating, regardless of modality, and with proper supports.

  In my 2019 offering of a multi-access course with a cohort of 25 MEd learners, I received 5/5 teaching evaluations – but I have been iterating my approaches since 2007. I was fortunate to teach my Educational Technology MEd cohort again in July 2020, after the learners had been through an incredibly stressful spring with the pivot. Many were eager to reflect on their pivot teaching experiences and determine how to return to school in the fall with new designs and solutions. After having this chance to reflect and read relevant research, the cohort co-created a website that shared remote teaching resources that they developed to assist others (Remote Teaching Resources, n.d.). Teachers are the key to shifts in our education system, but they cannot do it alone.

  While it varies by school district and province, modality bias continues in that many online schools are seen as a cash cow for a district. In many collective agreements, there is weak language around the protection of online teachers compared to bricks-and-mortar ones, and this in turn weakens supports for learners. Many of the online schools I have visited use asynchronous learning only, continuous enrolment, and large class sizes, compared to local in-person schools. If we truly want an equitable school system, we need to start by providing online learners the same class sizes and the same access to dynamic pedagogical approaches. If we want to break the bias against online schooling as passive, then we need to stop perpetuating the mechanisms that make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is my strong belief that our K–12 school system needs to move toward embedding online learning within local catchment schools to support inclusion and flexibility, and to ensure equal standards are provided to online learners in terms of class sizes and supports. This may also ensure that when learners experience times when they need flexibility, they can be supported without leaving the public system. All too often, once they leave, they are unlikely to return. As a result of full inclusion, more teacher positions will be retained to be there for the learners. 

  THE INTERSECTION between technology and education is complex and requires an informed and nuanced approach. We cannot return to pre-pandemic teaching, because all of our stakeholders have been changed by the pandemic. It’s time to check our individual and systemic biases and take steps to correct the inequities – and never go back.

  Photo credit: Adobe Stock

  This is part of the first edition of Education Canada, powered by voicEd radio, a cross-platform professional learning experience.

  EXPLORE THE LATEST EDITION OF EDUCATION CANADA, POWERED BY VOICED RADIO (MARCH 2022)

  Have you listened to the lively podcast episode featuring Dr. Valerie Irvine, among other researchers? Listen here!

  References

  BCcampus. (2020, October 31). $20 million in 2020. https://bccampus.ca/2020/10/31/20-million-in-2020

  BCEdAccess. (2020, August 18). Survey results show need for clarity and flexibility in #BCED fall plans. https://bcedaccess.com/2020/08/18/survey-results-2

  BCEdAccess. (2021). Considering leaving the system. https://bcedaccess.com/2021/07/02/report

  Clark, R. E., & Feldon, D. F. (2014). Ten common but questionable principles of multimedia. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369

  Gilliard, C. (2018). How ed tech is exploiting students. Chronicle of Higher Education, 64(31), 1–1.

  Irvine, V. (2020a). The landscape of merging modalities. EDUCAUSE Review, 55(4). https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/10/the-landscape-of-merging-modalities

  Irvine et al. (2013). Realigning higher education for the 21st-century learner through multi-access learning. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2). https://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no2/irvine_0613.htm

  Mayer, R. E. (Ed.) (2014). The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369

  Miller, E. (2019, September 17). Clark vs. Kozma – media and learning. MISSMILLERSLEARNNGJOURNEY. https://missmillerslearningjourney.opened.ca/2019/09/17/clark-vs-kozma-media-and-learning

  National Research Center for Distance Education and Technological Advancements. (2019). No significant difference. https://detaresearch.org/research-support/no-significant-difference

  OTESSA. (2021, August 9). Sharing our OTESSA federal pre-budget submission. https://otessa.org/news/sharing-our-otessa-federal-pre-budget-submission

  Remote Teaching Resources. (n.d.). About. https://edtechuvic.ca/remoteteaching 

  School District 69 Qualicum. (n.d.). Restart Plan. https://web.archive.org/web/20200924133657/https://www.sd69.bc.ca/Lists/Announcements/Attachments/385/SD69%20Restart%20Plan%20with%20UPDATED%20COVID-19%20Health%20and%20Safety%20Guidelines%20-%20September%203%202020.pdf

  Wiley, D. (2017, May 2). OER-enabled pedagogy. Improved Learning. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/5009

• Inclusive Education Supported through Multiliteracies Pedagogy

  October 4, 2021 2:26 PM Comments Off on Inclusive Education Supported through Multiliteracies Pedagogy

  THIS ARTICLE DRAWS on four high school teachers’ experiences to show how a multiliteracies approach can be practised in the classroom. Multiliteracies envisions inclusive education that encompasses:

  • cultural and linguistic plurality
  • a strong commitment to social justice issues
  • technology that enhances pedagogy
  • incorporating multimodalities into teaching that draw upon a variety of modes including visual, linguistic, gestural, oral, and spatial. 

  The examples we discuss are drawn from a national research study, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant. Our research explores multiliteracies in Grades 7–12 classrooms and adult community spaces. 

  Lifelong learning and global citizenship

  Lifelong learning is not just about acquiring workplace skills. It offers a vision for a more just, compassionate, and creative society based on the values of “participatory democracy” (Brookfield & Holst, 2011, p. 5). Ideally, adolescents’ education prepares them to become adults who will engage with passion, intelligence, and integrity in shaping the world. Teachers foster a disposition for lifelong learning in their students by opening up opportunities for students to think deeply and holistically about meaningful contributions they can make to their societies. Many of the students in our research indicated they felt more engaged in courses when teachers allowed them to follow their own interests and included topics or assignments that explored cultural diversity.

  In our study, a Visual Arts teacher provided an interdisciplinary opportunity for her students to collaborate in a multimedia exhibit with the English department’s Indigenous literature course. The teacher noted, “Even through interviews they [students] had conducted with First Nations elders, they wanted to distill it symbolically within a work, and that process alone, coming from an abstraction, and realizing it visually, is a very difficult thing to do.” Shifting from the oral mode to the visual mode, students needed to find ways to visually symbolize their interpretations of the interviews they had conducted with the elders. The teacher observed that students opened up more about their own cultural backgrounds when asked to be a part of this art exhibit. The students’ artwork was shared with a broader audience of teachers, administrators, parents, guardians, and community members. Thus, this exhibit bridged students’ school and home lives.

  The New London Group coined the term “multiliteracies” and called for civic pluralism, involving the “formation of new civic spaces and new notions of citizenship” (New London Group, 2000, p. 15). Our research revealed examples of teachers bringing civic pluralism into their pedagogy. The Civics teacher reflected, 

  “I think it is my job as a teacher to prepare them [students] for life as citizens of the community that they are in, and I try to make sure that whatever I do, whether it be computers or careers or communications technology, it shows them how best to participate in society.”

  This teacher involved students in the community’s Youth and Philanthropy Initiative. Students chose a social justice issue, found a local charity that addressed that social issue, and interviewed someone at the charity. The students then created a presentation to convince the Initiative that this charity deserved their $5,000 grant. Through this assignment, the students had to consider, in philosophical and practical terms, what citizenship meant to them. Initially, the teacher encountered some resistance from students about having to go into the community for this assignment, but ultimately they became enthusiastic, and some students even continued working with the charities afterwards.

  

  Inclusive education and equity

  Teachers in this study modelled inclusive education by reaching out to their students with significant learning disabilities, using multimodalities and differentiated assessment and evaluation tools. As one Special Education teacher reflected, 

  “What’s necessary for some, is good for everyone. And so, ensuring that you are helping every student at the ‘just right’ step of their process of learning, enables them to have the confidence and the tools to show you what they know. And just writing it down on a piece of paper is not the best vehicle for every student.”

  As this teacher recalled, she often had students create “a three-dimensional landscape of where the story takes place. And so, they would tell me why the character starts here doing this… they’re either giving me the plot or they’re focusing on character.” Another example of an alternative assessment involved creating graphic novels that highlighted an important scene or summarized the plot of a literary story through visual means. For example, one student created a graphic novel in English but also translated it into Hebrew. (See photo.) Alternative assessments like these give high-school students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge without solely relying on the written mode to express themselves. 

  In another secondary classroom for students with special needs, a Biology teacher similarly engaged in a multimodal teaching strategy. She explained how she worked with her students to build a model of lungs using balloons. She wanted students to physically see how the diaphragm’s contraction makes the lungs expand. The teacher commented that building the model helped the students “concretely grasp” this abstract concept. 

  This teacher’s assessment used multimodalities: tactile (blowing on balloons), spatial (making organs proportionate), visual (getting colours and shapes accurate), gestural (ensuring movement mimics human respiration), and oral (team discussions). To follow up, she consolidated students’ knowledge by having them create an interactive book about the respiratory system. (See photo.) Theorists such as Kalantzis et al. (2016) believe that “knowing how to represent and communicate things in multiple modes is a way to get a multifaceted and, in this sense, a deeper understanding” (p. 234). Teachers in this research promoted student success and a deeper understanding by building multimodalities into their assessment practices.

  

  Cultural diversity as an asset in any classroom

  An Art teacher in the study questioned, “What would life be like without people wondering and making and doing and creating meaning and connecting culture and using our humanity to inform the good work of the future?” She believed in the importance of identity exploration through various artistic forms. One of her students explored religious identity. This teacher recalled that the student created “a portrait of a girl wearing a hijab – or as an Arabic [sic] student would say a ‘hijabi girl’ – and there were colours all over the hijab that revealed she was wearing [it] as a crown.” Later, that same student painted a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. Her teacher commented on the power of students creating portraits to represent diversity in a positive light. Serafini (2014) makes the point that “visual literacy combines psychological theories of perception with sociocultural and critical aspects of visual design” (p. 29). Through visual literacy, these young student-artists negotiated ways to visually communicate their interpretations of cultural diversity. In an interview, another student said, “I think it’s important to maintain what was brought down from different cultures. And that way we get to see different views on teaching and different styles.” 

  Recognizing the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity on students’ experience, a Civics teacher discussed an assignment she used that encouraged students in a rural, monocultural school to think analytically about their community. She explained, 

  “What I have the students do is create a cultural brochure that introduces immigrant workers to differences that they might face working in Canada as opposed to in their home country. So, it forces the students to actually examine what culture is like here.” 

  This assignment allowed students to reflect critically on their own culture, which they were so fully immersed in that it might have felt invisible to them. This teacher, as a person of colour herself, recognized that it is vital when teaching a homogenous student body to engage in critical thinking about cultural diversity to encourage students to be prepared for their futures in an increasingly globalized, heterogeneous society.

  THE MULTILITERACIES PROJECT web platform (www.multiliteraciesproject.com), founded on this research, is designed for classroom teachers and adult educators to provide them with free resources and ideas for teaching using a multiliteracies approach. The theory of multiliteracies offers a practical way forward for teachers to foster an inclusive classroom that allows students of diverse backgrounds and levels of abilities to thrive in their school classrooms and beyond.

   

  All Photos: courtesy of authors

   

  References

  Brookfield, S. D., & Holst, J. D. (2011). Radicalizing learning: Adult education for a just world. Jossey-Bass.

  Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.). (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. Psychology Press. 

  Kalantzis, M., Cope, B., Chan, E. et al. (2016). Literacies. Cambridge University Press.

  New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 9–38). Routledge.

  Serafini, F. (2014). Reading the visual: An introduction to teaching multimodal literacy. Teachers College Press.

• Why Recess Matters More than Ever

  September 29, 2021 10:46 AM Comments Off on Why Recess Matters More than Ever

  School, for nearly every child, means far more than schoolwork. This point was clearly highlighted by the pandemic-related isolation: children were missing their friends and the social fabric of their school communities. During the pandemic, most children in Canada were isolated at home or confined to cohorts during the school day, often separated from friends. Recess, lunch, extra-curricular sports were drastically reduced, if not cancelled altogether.

  How quickly we were reminded that social connection, play, and overall well-being are critically important to a healthy childhood, and how quickly we were reminded that well-being is critically important to school engagement. Just as there have been concerns of pandemic-related “learning loss,” there has been, unequivocally, a “play loss.” As we start a fresh new school year, we argue that children will need an extended amount of school time to focus on reconnection, healing, and play. Supportive spaces at school will need to be carved out for this to happen.

  Why social connection and play, and why now?

  Schools have long been defined by standardization, academic competition, individualism, and conformity – so much so that play, social connection, and a sense of belonging may seem trivial and counterproductive to the purpose of learning.

  But there is a sizable body of research to indicate otherwise. In a landmark new book, Let the Children Play, Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle (2019) consolidate over 700 recent research studies that link school-based play and social connection to increases in well-being and far better learning. Creativity, imagination, play, and social connection are foundational to well-being, and well-being is foundational to learning. It’s that simple. Yet the education system tends to be deeply entrenched in practices and routines that pay less attention to the social and emotional needs of children.

  But we can change this. If the pandemic is to have a silver lining, it’s that it has highlighted the need to prioritize time and space for human connection. And this is particularly necessary in school, where attitudes and behaviour take root early and are continually reinforced. We have an opportunity now to change up the entrenched routines.

  Let’s start now with something rather simple: provide more – and better – recess.

  Why recess? And why now?

  Recess is a social space. Remember how important recess was to your life, for better or for worse? Recess, from the perspective of students, is far more than a break from instruction, a time for fresh air, or a need to amass the required 60 minutes of daily physical activity. We have long known that positive school friendships provide students with a sense of connectedness that makes school meaningful and engaging. Indeed, we know that learning happens in relationships, and relationships are forged when students have an opportunity to connect with their peers during the school day, most often outside of instructional time. These connections happen during lunch, on the playground, and in other informal school spaces, with important benefits for health and learning.

  Yet, we need to pay attention to these informal settings to ensure that they are supportive and inclusive, otherwise we run the risk of undermining the very benefits we hope to realize. Unfortunately, out of all of the developed nations, Canada has some of the highest rates of school-based social harm – and the majority of this harm has been found to take place during recess and lunch. Many schoolyards, particularly those in low-income areas, are barren and uninviting, covered by a soulless layer of asphalt; and in dense urban neighborhoods, schoolyards are further impeded by their small size. And for some children, particularly those in low-income and urban areas, recess may be the only chance for outdoor play and access to friends in their entire day. Our concern is that when these spaces go unsupported, we see higher rates of boredom, bullying, loneliness, and exclusion – factors that undermine children’s attempts at play and connection.

  We can do better. It’s time to change this and use this time to prioritize well-being and ensure all children have the space in the school day to connect with others in activities that allow for meaningful, inclusive, and playful engagement. Far from detracting from learning, these opportunities can influence mood, well-being, school engagement, behaviour, learning, focus, attendance, and overall school climate.

  More reasons to support play

  Play and social connection mitigate stress. After nearly a year of social isolation, chaotic change, and uncertainty, students are undeniably experiencing stress. Stress makes it difficult for children to access the aspects of the brain that allow for thinking and reasoning. We now know that play activates the brain’s reward circuitry and releases endorphins – the chemicals that make us feel happy and calm.

  Play, by definition, is something we do because we want to, not because we have to (Gray, 2013). This is important for children – particularly now – because it gives them a sense of control and predictability that allows them to feel safe and secure, mitigating the effects of anxiety and stress. Both laughter and physically active play trigger the release of oxytocin and serotonin, chemicals that relieve tension and buffer against further stress. Social play provides the emotionally sustaining qualities of happiness and support, which is precisely what children need to feel safe and secure.

  Play makes children happy. Gasp – dare we consider this as a “metric” to measure school quality? Schools are far more than academic institutions. They are communities where children spend a considerable amount of their waking hours during highly significant developmental years. We know that when children feel included, connected, and accepted by their communities, they are more likely to develop a healthy, positive attitude toward themselves and others that influences their behaviour at school. When children feel calm, secure, and happy they are more likely to enjoy school, engage cooperatively and considerately toward their schoolmates, be committed to their schoolwork, and have higher expectations of success.

  Children have a Right to Play. Because play is so fundamental to a healthy childhood, Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (General Assembly of the United Nations, 1989) deems play and rest to be indispensable human rights: “the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child.” This responsibility to protect and promote this right includes schools. This right can be leveraged by ensuring the recess environment is inclusive, fully accessible, secure from the effects of social harm, and appropriate for all genders, ages, stages, and abilities (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2013).

  Children should love school. We all want our children to experience an ecosystem that supports curiosity, creativity, and connection. When this nightmare pandemic is over, let’s collectively find ways to give them opportunities to laugh and connect again, to have meaningful breaks in their day that allow them to heal from the relentless trauma. Let’s push hard for what William Doyle calls a new Golden Age of Play – and be sure schools are part of this conversation.

  This article is a summary of a chapter from the Royal Society of Canada’s Report on COVID and Schools, in press, 2021.

  Steps to better recess

  As a start, we suggest all stakeholders – teachers, administrators, education leaders, parents – continuously advocate for schools to integrate more and better recess:

  • Engage children in planning and organizing of recess time – especially older youth. Include discussions about activity preferences, inclusion, social harm, equipment management, and fair play. Be sure to set clear expectations and rules for health and safety.
  • Ensure children have a continuum of options to choose from. Create leadership opportunities for older students – they can help maintain the equipment and emphasize the importance of diversity and inclusion.
  • Consider all the available indoor and outdoor spaces to provide a range of activity options and minimize crowding.
  • Encourage principals to lengthen recess times and add recesses. Better yet, pressure the Ministry of Education in your province or territory to include this in the Education Act.
  • Allow and encourage teachers to take their students outside during class time to engage in playful activities that are fun, enjoyable, and inclusive of all ages, stages, abilities, preferences, and needs.
  • Encourage teachers and staff to avoid strict rules like “no running” and “no ball throwing” that can undermine the benefits of play and physical activity.
  • Help schools in low-income neighborhoods raise money for schoolyard improvements – the disparity and inequity are remarkable and painfully unfair.
  • And let’s not withhold recess as punishment for missed schoolwork, poor classroom behaviour, or any other reason. Instead, let’s ensure that all children are able to experience meaningful and playful engagement, free of social harm.

  References

  General Assembly of the United Nations, Convention on the rights of the child (1989) Treaty no. 27531. United Nations Treaty Series, 1577, pp. 3–178.
  https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1990/09/19900902%2003-14%20AM/Ch_IV_11p.pdf

  Gray, P. (2013). Free to learn: why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life. Basic Books.

  Sahlberg, P., & Doyle, W. (2019). Let the children play: why more play will save our schools and help children thrive. Oxford University Press.

  UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), General comment No. 17 (2013) on the right of the child to rest, leisure, play, recreational activities, cultural life and the arts (art. 31), 17 April 2013, CRC/C/GC/17. www.refworld.org/docid/51ef9bcc4.html

• “I Believe in You”

  September 28, 2021 10:09 PM Comments Off on “I Believe in You”

  “Fitton, you baby.”

  I can still remember the nasal voice and twitchy mustache of my Grade 9 wrestling coach as he derided me, and the way he emphasized the luscious double “B” in “baby.” I’d arrived at wrestling practice sick, knowing how important it was to my coach that we attend regularly for the team. I’d asked woozily if I could watch practice from the bleachers.

  I wish I could tell you that his words inspired my immune system to leap into action and triumph like the Miracle at Dunkirk. Instead, I felt gutted. His infectious words meant that within the year, I’d quit the wrestling team. Twenty-three years later, his words served as a powerful inoculation against the use of negative semantics in my own classroom.

  Many people can vividly remember their own short but powerful instance of a time when someone believed in them – or not. Maya Angelou’s wisdom is visceral: “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

  Lighting the fire

  One October staff meeting, our admin team presented a graph that became the reason I get out of bed each day. As the data appeared on a PowerPoint, our principal congratulated us on the results of the previous year’s Ministry of Education Learning Survey of students at our school. He pointed out that when asked “How many adults at your school care about you?” 69 percent of our students reported, “Two adults or more.”

  A few staff members stifled a yawn; others finished their grading. Sedation washed over the faculty like the warm hug of a narcotic – but my reaction was volcanic.

  A good news story? I felt angry. Worse: ashamed. Nearly one in three – 162 kids – were walking through our front doors feeling that hardly any adults in the school cared about them. That’s five to six full classrooms of students disconnected from adults, possibly for four years of their academic experience. That’s not education. That’s a prison sentence.

  But the data was a call to action.

  In 2021, the survey is asking a new question: “Are there two adults in the building who believe you will be a success in life?” Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert, two professors from the University of British Columbia, had urged our district to explore this question. It’s a subtle but seismic semantic shift: Adults can care about a person and not believe in them. Belief is related to “care” and “connection,” but is something akin to a combination of both on steroids. It’s a three-for-one deal!

  Using psychology as a catalyst for change

  In Give and Take, Adam Grant reminds readers of the Rosenthal Experiment. Elementary teachers were told by Harvard researchers Rosenthal and Jacobsen that they had a class with several “Bloomers.” These were students who could make 15 to 20 percent gains in achievement during the year.

  It was a ruse. But as a result, the teachers developed a mindset where they believed in their students. Then the magic happened. When teachers thought their students had high potential, their teaching methods and approach ensured that the kids made significant academic gains. Interestingly, the research was replicated by Dov Eden in the Israeli military. As Adam Grant (2013) reports, these “high potential” students and soldiers were viewed by their instructors differently. When they made mistakes, their instructors believed they simply needed coaching or had made an error that was not indicative of incompetence. Teachers were generally warmer and spent more time with these identified pupils.

  The power of the self-fulfilling prophecy – the Rosenthal Effect – should be revisited in our schools. As a best practice, schools would encourage teachers to consciously adopt the mindset that all students have high potential. Indeed, this paradigm shift is championed in Kaser and Halbert’s Spirals of Inquiry, by George Couros in The Innovator’s Mindset, and by Adam Grant in Think Again. Ultimately, their ideas around education seem to distill into creating meaningful relationships with students that demonstrate that their teachers believe in them.

  The shift to believing in kids can have a 15 to 20 percent positive impact on students academically. Isn’t it time that we educators applied it with efficacy and intentionality? Without duping faculty, could schools adopt the Rosenthal Effect mindset consciously? Let’s work together to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that will positively alter the experiences and lives of our students! Today, will you consciously find something to nurture and believe in, with every student you teach?

  Illustration: Dave Donald

  First published in Education Canada, September 2021

• Mathematics Teachers as Image Makers

  9:58 PM Comments Off on Mathematics Teachers as Image Makers

  My teaching career began as a high school mathematics teacher, yet my focus over the last ten years has been in elementary, both researching and now teaching. I am currently teaching math to two Grade 5/6 classes, with half of them having IPPs. They are a complex group. 

  My interest in elementary math began by watching my own kids struggle. What was holding them back? Why did some students struggle more than others? Both of my kids, early in school, were labelled with learning disabilities in mathematics. Now both are achieving at a high level, one in high school, the other in junior high. My work with them was a journey that ebbed and flowed between barriers and progress. It often felt like going through a maze, heading in one direction, and then hitting a barrier. So, we would turn around and try another direction. Over time, patterns emerged in those barriers, and one telltale characteristic began to reveal itself: memorization. Through this recognition, the barriers became easier to avoid. Upon hitting a barrier, I would ask, “OK, what in this task am I expecting them to just remember without understanding?” Once identified, we would go back and focus on developing the conceptual understanding or image in their mind for this idea or symbol. Once they were no longer expected to memorize a process or a symbol without understanding, they would progress in leaps and bounds, often exceeding my expectations. Where there had previously been a brick wall there was now a passageway. 

  The barrier for many students is not the math but the ability to remember. Presenting students with symbols along with a series of steps that represent concepts before they have sufficiently grown their own personal understanding or image for that concept can be a major barrier. Students who memorize easily have an advantage, but is that advantage rooted in mathematical understanding? I have worked with many students who can find an answer but do not understand the underlying math.

  How can we be more inclusive while focusing on the growth of understanding for the majority? It was this question that took me down the path of exploring how we absorb information and what types of activities contribute to the growth of our mental images for mathematical ideas. Are there ways of offering students information that are richer than others?

  Different approaches to offering information

  May I suggest three categories for offering information, ranked according to their ability to give us information as directly, originally, and optimally as possible:

  • The lowest and most empty way is the signitive, or linguistic, form of mathematics.
  • An indirect offering of information is the imaginative – the utilization of our own mental images.
  • The most direct way is the perceptual, as the acting out of mathematical ideas.

  Signitively

  The first mode of presenting a mathematical idea is through the oral discussion of mathematics and its written symbols. This is the emptiest way of presenting the meaning within a mathematical idea. We absorb information through our senses, and these symbols visually look nothing like the ideas they represent. If a student has not grown the understanding of these symbols, we are not offering them anything with meaning. Symbols are just the tip of the conceptual iceberg; the meaning, which is so much bigger than the symbol, lies underneath the surface. The symbol for four (4) can represent a distance, position, or quantity, which can be represented in an infinite number of ways. The shape of the symbol (4) itself offers no meaning; it is the students themselves who bring the meaning.

  Imaginatively

  The second form, the imaginative, is the act of visualizing. Zimmerman and Cunningham (1991) state that the intuition that mathematical visualization affords is not a vague kind of intuition; rather, it is what gives depth and meaning to understanding. This internal offering of information for the idea through your personally developed images has much to offer in terms of growth in understanding. Images beget more images, leading to deeper understanding.

  It has been well documented in both sports and music that growth occurs through the act of visualizing. As a teenager, my husband’s swim coach would ask the swimmers to lie on deck with their eyes closed while he orally described a swim race, guiding them through it, while they imagined themselves in the race. The description by the coach is a signitive offering, but where each swimmer takes those oral descriptions imaginatively is different for each person. In a meta-analysis done to answer the question Does mental practice enhance performance? (Driskell et al., 1994) the researchers concluded that “mental practice is effective for both cognitive and physical tasks; however, the effect of mental practice is significantly stronger the more a task involves cognitive elements” (p. 485). In this discussion, it is noteworthy to mention that physical practice was the most effective form, and that those who were experienced in physical practice (perceptual) benefited more from mental practice (imaginative) than those who were novices in the task. The reason suggested for this is that, “the novices who mentally practiced a physical task may not have sufficient schematic knowledge about successful task performance and may be spending their effort imagining task behaviors that could turn out to be somewhat counterproductive” (p. 490). This supports the idea of the importance of establishing the perceptual level of activity, which allows for continued growth when visualizing.

  Perceptually

  Our world is perceived not only in terms of object shapes and spatial relationships, but also in terms of environmental possibilities for action. A perceptual experience in mathematics, I suggest, is the acting out of a mathematical idea. It is within the spatial acting out that meaning is given or “lived” in the most direct, original, and optimal way, for we are experiencing the mathematical idea through our senses when, for example, we physically cut the shape into equal parts, connecting us to the concept of fractions. This physical act will allow for growth when we later imagine this act.

  It is important to distinguish and emphasize the importance of this third category (perceptual) because it is a sensory act. It is this act that allows for the deepening and continual growth of images. So, when a student is stuck and struggling to understand, some kind of perceptual experience must be offered, some level of active interaction with the environment to promote further growth.

  Understanding the Imaginative and the Perceptual together as Spatial Reasoning

  The imaginative and perceptual are closely intertwined. In fact, they are hard to discuss as separate entities, for together they are one idea – spatial reasoning. Spatial reasoning is more than just passively receiving sensations; it is the intentional act of perceiving and then engaging our bodies purposefully (Khan et al., 2015). Through acting out a mathematical idea there is a co-evolving that occurs in both our mental and physical skills. The actions being discussed are not only physical actions, spatial reasoning encapsulates mental actions as well. Visualizing is very productive within mathematics, as spatial reasoning ability and mathematical ability have been shown to be intimately linked (Mix & Cheng, 2012). Mental interactive playing and exercising of our images can stimulate growth in and of themselves without actually engaging our environment, but a foundation for this imagining must first be established (e.g. physically counting, organizing, regrouping, building, drawing, etc.). It is through these physical acts that our imaginative and perceptual experiences interact seamlessly with each other, building and strengthening images.

  The idea that the math classroom benefits from the interaction between the signitive, imaginative, and perceptual is the arena in which my research lies. The perceptual and imaginative strengthen and evolve as we engage with our environment, but also within mathematics there is a strong signitive element that must be attached (memorization) to our mental images. How can these elements interact to the mutual benefit of all three?

  My research in this area

  The classroom teacher and I worked with her Grade 5 students in a school for students labelled with learning disabilities. We began with the foundational ideas of fractions. In our preassessment the students presented as having minimal understanding, many not knowing how to write a fraction (signitive). We had four days with them, offering perceptual experiences that were always combined with the signitive to encourage the association with their growing images. We would have them physically cut shapes (perceptual), practising the concept of splitting into equal parts. Yet before they cut the shapes, we would discuss and imagine how to ensure that they would end up with equal parts (imaginative), i.e. we would fold the shapes and then cut them. Next, the students would write the symbols representing the fraction pieces (signitive). This interaction with pieces offered them a visual, embodied, and imaginative experience connected to the mathematical concept. Later they would combine (perceptual) these different pieces and write the fractions (signitive) using an addition symbol.

  Although we started with the basics, we continued stretching the complexity of the topic to see how far their images/understanding would take them. By day four, we played a game called imagine-build-steal, in which we offered them a signitive question first, such as 2/4 + 1/2 The students were then asked to imagine and give a solution. None were able to answer the question based solely on this signitive offering; they had not yet grown sufficient images. They needed more from their environment to deepen their own images. To promote this further enhancement, the students were asked to build (perceptual) using the fraction pieces that they themselves had cut out. This they could do; they had grown sufficient images for looking at the signitive offering and building the solution. So, we continued with this cycle of signitive first, then asking to imagine, and then offering a perceptual experience. Their images continued to grow until by the end of that period, students began to offer up imaginative solutions to expressions like 2/3 + 2/6 + 2/8, based solely on the signitive offering. They had reached the point of sufficient growth of their personal images to solve this complex expression without having to build it.

  Making a shift in our classrooms

  The growth of mathematical understanding is a complex process, as seen over and over again with my own kids, in my research, and in the classroom. It is also personal; each student must grow their own images for the mathematical ideas in order to be able to visualize and make use of them. For some, they can be slippery. This is true of both the student who finds it easy to memorize and the one who does not. I find spatial reasoning tasks to be a great equalizer in a classroom. The student who struggles to memorize and therefore follow steps may reason and visualize with ease, but those who can follow a series of steps to an answer may struggle to visualize the mathematical concept. Math, however, is about ideas and concepts, not a set of memorized rules. My experience and my research support the claim that mental images are a key element to mathematical understanding that is often underappreciated. Far too frequently, the goal is to get the student as quickly as possible to an answer rather than to deep understanding of the idea.

  If these mental images are the key to deep understanding, then what factors influence the growth of these images? If we accept the idea that images are grown through a dynamic process of restructuring based on a stream of perceptual encounters and conceptual revelations (Arnheim, 1969), then playing with, utilizing, and exercising these images can support their growth. A classroom focused on growing images is one in which students are engaged in imagining, drawing, moving, and regrouping objects while incorporating the signitive to encourage association. If all we offer students are symbols on a piece of paper, only those students who have already grown sufficient images can benefit from such a task. As educators, we are then not providing new opportunities for growth to the various levels of student understanding that every classroom contains.

   

  REFERENCES

  Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual thinking. University of California Press.

  Driskell, J., Copper, C., & Moran, A. (1994). Does mental practice enhance performance? Journal of applied psychology, 79(4), 481–492.

  Khan, S., Francis, K., & Davis, B. (2015). Accumulation of experience in a vast number of cases: Enactivism as a fit framework for the study of spatial reasoning in mathematics education. ZDM: The International Journal of Mathematics Education, 47(2), 269–279.

  Mix, K. S., & Cheng, Y. L. (2012). The relation between space and math: Developmental and educational implications. In J. B. Benson (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (Vol. 42, pp. 197–243). Academic Press.

  Zimmermann, W., & Cunningham, S. (1991). Editors’ introduction: What is mathematical visualization. In W. Zimmermann, & S. Cunningham, Visualization in teaching and learning mathematics (pp. 1–7). Mathematical Association of America.

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