Episode 31 – How It’s Made

Empowering Modern Learners - PDSB #Peel21st

https://modernlearnersca.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/episode-31-how-its-made.mp3

In this interview we interview Joe Dallaire who is a Science teacher at Stephen Lewis Secondary School. He shares the work that he is doing with the collaborative inquiry process with his students. He also talks about the work he is doing with the Peel Science 9 Resource.

What’s New in the World of EML

Jim shared some of the visioning and planning going on at one of the middle schools he supports. The grade 7 team is looking at ways to make learning more powerful and relevant by integrating curriculum areas but focusing on a few big questions or themes that connects the topics. They are looking at competencies, and discussing how skills and competencies could be more of a focus by using the curriculum content as the context in which they are developed. Most of the big picture thinking is complete and currently they are planning the nuts and bolts of how it is going to work with timetables and resources.

Amit shared the work that he is doing with the teachers at Castlebrooke Secondary School around Feedback Based Assessment. There were 6 different departments all collaborating to ensure that they are all on the same page delivering a consistent message to all of the stakeholders who are involved once they start their pilot in September.

Links from the Interview with Joe Dallaire

• Peel Science 9 Resource
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
• Joe can be reached by email at [e-mail]

Shares for the Week

Jim shared some exciting inquires a grade 5 class were involved in. Students were exploring different aspects of designing and building a structure with the end goal of being a strong structure able to withstand various forces, such as a bridge supporting a load moving across. Students were experimenting with different methods of attaching wooden popsicle sticks together (wood glue, hot glue, tape, etc.) and then testing each method. They used a free app called Hudl Technique to record the forces acting on the structure until the point of failure. The app made it easy for students to step through the frames and investigate how and why the structure failed. Then, an improvement was made and another iteration took place in the design process.

Amit shared Jim’s Blog Post entitled Scratch vs. Swift Playgrounds where he talks about the differences between the two platforms for coding. Amit shared how he feels Scratch allows more of a coding to learn rather than learning to code with Swift Playgrounds. He also talked about the Grasshopper app which also has a place, but he felt that using Scratch allowed for a bit more creativity.