Christa Walton: Sharing the latest research to help students and inspire colleagues

Year: 2020 — Province: Saskatchewan
Certificate of Achievement Recipient

Sacred Heart School/École Sacré Coeur
Student support/technology coach, Pre-Kindergarten to grade 8
Estevan, Saskatchewan

She has shown tremendous patience and leadership as she works one on one with teachers to help them set and reach meaningful goals that create incredible learning experiences for their students.

colleague

Christa Walton is unstintingly generous with her time. At school, she coaches teams, advises clubs, organizes the STEAM fair, coordinates a Christmas gift drive and mentors new teachers. Beyond school walls, she runs sports teams, represents her school division at the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation, and has served on the local parish council.

Teaching approach

In her school and division, Christa leads projects in 21st-century learning and in new pedagogies for deeper learning. She attends national conferences in these fields and reviews related lessons from teachers around the world, then uses her knowledge to help her students and inspire her colleagues.

In the classroom

  • Connects STEM to literacy: Christa devised STEM literacy boxes to help teachers dovetail engineering challenges and science experiments with books; started middle-school STEM book clubs; researched grade-appropriate books for many reading levels.
  • Created a technology scope and sequence for each grade: helps ensure students learn one foundational skill before moving on to the next; focuses particularly on use of one-to-one technologies, such as tablets and Chromebooks.
  • Lets students choose approaches that fit their learning styles: gives options for completing assignments and giving presentations; offers choices in seating, learning tools and types of cooperative learning; students take responsibility for meeting learning outcomes.
  • Promotes inquiry-based learning: students develop questions to guide their learning, do research and present their findings, and assess themselves and others.

Outstanding achievements

  • Spearheaded carbon-capture research project: students tested materials to see how well they filtered carbon dioxide, shared findings with local government and proposed new idle-free emissions bylaw; as a result, Samsung awarded $40,000 worth of technology to the school.
  • Led the Legacy Project: students visited nursing home residents weekly to learn their life stories; worked with sponsors to create photo books for seniors, while gaining insights into history and compassion for others, honing technology and research skills, and building community spirit.
  • Coordinated Youth Biz initiative: students researched business ideas and pitched them to local professionals in a "Dragon's Den" format; winning students received money to further develop their ideas.
  • Helped colleagues transition to new literacy program: researched the Fountas and Pinnell reading skills assessment system; tracked student reading data to implement system at her school; benchmarked students against local and provincial scores; introduced system to all division schools.

Get in touch!

Sacred Heart School/École Sacré Coeur
1846 Gibbs Road
Estevan SK  S4A 1Y2

306-634-4249
shsc@holyfamilyrcssd.ca
https://sacred-heart.holyfamilyrcssd.ca/