Year: 2020 — Province: Ontario
Certificate of Achievement Recipient
Groh Public School
English, history, geography, math, science, health, drama, and dance, Grade 7
Kitchener, Ontario
Although [my son's] academic achievements in the past two years have been outstanding, as a parent I am most thrilled with the fact that he has learned HOW to learn.
Jessica Neilson and Jennifer Schaefer may start the year teaching in separate classrooms, but soon their students are flowing freely back and forth to participate in inspiring joint projects. Whether students are Skyping with children in Yellowknife, shipping a teapot to Singapore, visiting seniors, fundraising for charity or collaborating with a university, they are becoming confident, digitally literate global citizens.
Teaching approach
Instead of focusing on memorization, these team teachers help students develop deeper learning skills, such as research, collaboration, communication, self-management, creativity, innovation and critical thinking. Inquiry-based learning is key.
In the classroom
- Coach students in design-thinking techniques: challenged class to make a dental mouth guard that a woman with arthritis in her hands could still use; in another project, students rethought school portables; in both, they used design software and 3D printers to create prototypes.
- Tailor approaches to student needs: taught a school-averse student with learning disabilities that mistakes are okay; within a year, all accommodations were removed from his Individual Education Plan; he achieved an 88 percent average in math and 83 percent in written language.
- Motivate students creatively: while learning difficult concepts, students write things on one side of the Learning Pit (a large-scale drawing of a deep valley) such as "This is hard" and "I can't"; on the other side, as they persevere, they write "School is meant for trying new things."
- Promote deep learning of math concepts: use manipulatives, dice, cards and other visual aids and spiral their teaching to come back to important ideas regularly; Grade 8 teacher reports Jes and Jen's former students thoroughly understand patterning and fractions.
- Encourage self-reflection: after working on challenging problems or projects, students record their thoughts on personal Google pages and class bulletin boards; this helps them develop metacognition, remember concepts better, become comfortable with digital tools.
Outstanding achievements
- Made pollution issues real: had younger kids throw garbage on the Grade 7 classroom floor; angry Grade 7s graphed data about the Great Groh Garbage Patch, researched recycling, wrote letters to officials about pollution, and created apps and websites about garbage.
- Ran a collaborative history project to answer the question "Is Canada boring?"; students created websites, podcasts, written materials and a video quiz show, developing critical-thinking skills along the way.
- Helped students build gardens: to build a pollinator garden, students communicated with landscapers and city officials, and chose and planted plants; students also created a heart-shaped garden as an act of reconciliation with residential school survivors.
Get in touch!
Groh Public School
225 Thomas Slee Drive
Kitchener ON N2P 0B8
519-748-5987
laura_griffin@wrdsb.ca
https://gro.wrdsb.ca/
Twitter: @grohjenjes; Instagram: @grohjenjes