2016-2017 Goals & Development

Since the year began we've

The scale of our accomplishments last year is pretty amazing! Collectively, we did a lot of work and learned a great deal in our many minutes together! In staff development, we spent 1700 formalized minutes learning about GRASP tasks, about the structure of knowledge, and the structure of process. We collaborated, meticulously examining our scopes and sequences, weaving the new BC Curriculum into our MYP framework and designing inquiry units with concepts first.

In additional to the formal staff collaborative minutes, each teacher spent thousands of additional minutes of their time thinking, talking, and learning about how these big system road map pieces fit into our daily practice.

Throughout the year, we travelled to locations across the lower mainland to Middle Years Programme round table discussions to collaborate with our provincial colleagues in eight different curricular areas. We attended the Coast Metro series workshops on Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction with Lynne Erikson and the one on Understanding by Design with Jay McTighe. We attended professional workshops around the province and learned through online courses how to further our ability to indigenize our school and our curricular areas. We honoured and remember during Orange Shirt day and we opened our hearts and classrooms to the experience of the blanket exercise.

Last year, 18 teachers attended IB training across our two programs representing nine curricular areas. Some stayed close to home in Vancouver but some travelled as far as Quebec and Florida to engage with the curriculum and to collaborate with one another - to strengthen our relationships and our capacity to authentically deliver our programs.

Our programs are stronger because of each of us and our commitment to professional growth and because of the systems we have been able to implement that support us in what we do.

Throughout the years, Carson Graham has tried many different approaches to setting our students up for success in the IB. We had something called First Week, something else called IB homeroom. We tried to equitably distribute responsibilities for Personal Project and EE and CAS support across the staff; but none of these accomplished quite what EPIC Wednesday has allowed us to.

Our new EPIC Wednesdays formalizes the work we do supporting our DP students and supervising the research and writing of their Extended Essays. EPIC Wednesdays also supports the development of CAS - Creativity Activity and Service and allows teachers who do not teach in the DP to be formally attached to the character growth of our most academic students.

EPIC Wednesdays allow for teachers in key areas around the school like design and art to support students through the product of their Personal Projects.

Lastly, the EPIC Wednesday inquiry groupings helps us to grow in our youngest students a connection to our community and the development of the approaches to learning skills – the skills required to achieve those later IB milestones.

In fact, the feedback around and support for EPIC Wednesdays was so strong last year that this year we have implement EPIC Wednesdays for all students in grade eight through twelve.

As well as establishing systems for student success, we also formalized systems for reporting on that success – reporting on MYP levels, reporting on the Approaches to Learning, - reporting this year for the first time on the Interdisciplinary Units, and for the first time, formal reporting of the student self-assessment.

And on top of all of this, people had enough energy left over to start on some new initiatives…

New initiatives

Wow, we were busy with curricular initiatives last year and it has continued into 2017-2018!

We piloted a Grade 8 Choices Cohort in which we identified 13 Grade 7 students out of our feeder schools who appeared to need focused and in-depth outreach to ease with their transition and make positive connections to the school. Students were pulled from one trimester of an elective rotation last year and this.

Another pilot for the past year was our Pre-Calculus/Calculus cohort. We took a group of 30 students under Mr. Amory Wong’s direction and they had his class every day and were able to focus on Pre-Calculus for the first half of the year and are now finishing up with Calculus. The cohort was hugely successful and we are repeating it next year.

And then there’s ELL… Ms. Leina Richter and Mr. Lucas Mann were previously on the “outside” of MYP. Last year, though, they have implemented new assessments that use the MYP Language Acquisition rubrics… and these are still a work in progress as we maneuver through MYP guidelines and provincially mandated.

IB Physics and Physics 11 blended model. We took the best instructional practices from the IB DP and brought them in to the BC physics classroom. Students are being assessed on IB-inspired rubrics. Teachers will take this year to assess the success of this model.

New initiatives we began this year include the Music Program expanding at Carson. We run five more blocks this year than last, including Guitar 9-12 and Music Composition 11/12.

Social Studies or the Individuals and Society Department is excited about the range of options and the student choice. Last year, students were surveyed in the spring as to their intentions so that options reflected their interests and we are proud to say that nine new courses have been offered at the senior level, 8 of them are running now.

And lastly, in the way of curricular initiatives is Spanish 8. This is something that we are very proud of as we offered it as a choice for the first time during last year’s course selection process. Students were obviously in favour as we enroll 3 sections this year.

This year, Carson fostered collaborative alliances between staff in a variety of ways. For example, the Learning Support Push IN model which provided increased opportunities for learning support and regular classroom teachers to network with the goal of broadening our knowledge and experience in teaching to diversity in the classroom. Carson and Collaboration have become synonymous.

With the increased staffing in the spring of 2017, Carson was able to arrange co-teaching opportunities across multiple subject areas to strengthen new partnerships through teaching and learning together.

Multiple departments were involved and are continuing to collaboratively plan Interdisciplinary Units. Teachers of grade 10 Social Studies & Science developed their unit around “Human interactions, energy, and environmental sustainability.” All grade 10 students participate. Teachers of grade 9 Language Acquisition and PHE developed their unit around “How To” videos, communicating fitness skills and techniques. All grade 9’s who take French participate. Teachers of grade 8 English and Math developed their unit. All grade 8’s participate.

Carson is fortunate to have a strong connection to the Squamish and Tsleil Waututh communities and to have leaders in our school guiding us toward authentically indigenizing our curriculum.

This year, Mr Scott Bennett’s science classes were encouraged to reflect on the topic of ecology from a variety of perspectives.

Scott worked with Ms Steph Maki to find related resources and to introduce this unit through traditional oral stories connected to ecology.

Grade 9 Social Studies classes & Indigenous Studies 12 students scraped and tanned deer hides for the first time last year with Tracy Williams, mom and member of the Squamish community, who continuously shares her traditional knowledge with us. Students were also involved in drying and stretching salmon skin leather.

In the Diploma Programme Theory of Knowledge course, students are encouraged to reflect on the role of knowledge in our culture and the culture of others. With the support from Ms Jennifer Tieche, the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge Systems was introduced as a specific unit of focus in course.

This school year began with our Carson staff sharing the powerful Blanket Exercise.

Students in Indigenous Studies 12, junior and senior Squamish Language classes, Theory of Knowledge DP students, and every Grade 9 Social Studies section also participated in the Blanket Exercise this year.

Given the success of this experience with our staff and students, in the fall of 2017, the PAC sponsored an opportunity for parents in our Family of Schools to learn more about colonization and to explore the 500-year relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada.

Progress made

“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing towards what will be” (The Lebanese author Khalil Gibran).

In the spirit of this Khalil Gibran quote, the following highlights areas of progress starting with progress made in the area of “Curriculum”.

Language and Literature took their entire vision for lesson planning and turned it upside down. They changed their unit planning process so that it was no longer driven by genre types, and is now concept driven. One way this has led to change is an increased focus on Media-Literacy.

One of the Criteria that must be taught and assessed in MYP math is “Looking for Patterns”, and while we can all acknowledge the importance of patterns in math education, teaching and assessing the steps in-between not-seeing patterns and seeing patterns is remarkably difficult. This year the Math department spend some collaboration time finding resources to do this and adapting them for individual grade levels.

Progress has been seen through the introduction of an IB Diploma Programme visual arts block: In previous years IB diploma students have been embedded within senior Art Foundations. This was sub-optimal as the two courses have different visions. This year was the first time we have had enough DP students enroll in IB Art that it was possible to run a course all on its own. This has benefitted both the Diploma Programme and the BC Art Foundations students, as the course can focus on their specific needs.

The spirit of collaboration the Carson staff has is something that makes Carson better than every other school (in our opinion), not to mention a place that we really enjoy working. So, that being said let’s highlight a few areas that Carson has stepped up in its “Formal” Collaboration.

Last year we saw increased IEP meetings between classroom teachers and case-managers. The week that learning services sat in the conference room and met with every teacher allowed them to get and provide feedback on all of the students that they case manage. It also allowed them to learn about students that were not formally on their case-load, prompting discussions about how to best support those students and teachers.

We have seen incredible collaboration between departments on interdisciplinary units. The Math/English Interdisciplinary 8 unit saw collaboration between 20 teachers working and assessing 220 students. 20 teachers! That’s just over a quarter of our teaching staff.

Individuals and society have worked collaboratively to update units at all grade levels and have included authentic indigenous views and culture into their lesson plans be it through studying the red-river rebellion through the eyes of the local peoples or bringing in members of the Squamish nation to share their knowledge on the fur trade.

Individuals and society are not the only department to embrace authentic indigenous views into their lesson plans, in fact, when contributing to the “written” school plan, every single department. Highlighted the fact that they had started taking real steps towards indigenizing their curriculum.

Given that a major section of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls for action centers on education, with a goal of developing culturally appropriate curricula. The spirit with which Carson Staff have embraced these goals is staggering. So here are a few of the steps that we have taken towards reconciliation.

Firstly, be it through improved signage in Squamish language (thanks Bucky!) or through re-naming of school awards, the visibility and accessibility of Squamish Language has increased considerably around the school.

Language and Literature have embraced First Nations Literature, and they now teach a number of Novels written by First Nations authors, including: the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie and Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, and Birdie by Tracey Lindberg.

Teachers have embraced Land as a Source of Information through Pro-D with Tracey and Laurie or by giving classes given on traditional knowledge in the bush in TOK, Senior science and socials.

We have introduced a professional Library for Math and Sciences

Senior sciences have looked at climate change through the lens of indigenous knowledge: both as how it can be a source of evidence of climate change, as well as a reminder of the affects it has on humanity.

George Bernard Shaw tells us that Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

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Success we've had

Curriculum

The PE department has stepped up to cover topics found in the Heath and career curriculum that most have never taught before.
They brought in guest speakers when required and experts in the community to help our students understandings around sensitive topics
They covered topics ranging from sex ed to anxiety and rumour has it used up our textbook budget on bananas

Science

The highly collaborative science department, using the backwards design approach, re-wrote the scope and sequence from 12-8 which is no small feat.
For the second year in a row organized and implemented the science 11 project which brings together all four disciplines (chem , bio, physics and earth science).
This is an inquiry driven project aimed at increasing our student engagement and develop ATL skills while coming up with solutions to world problems
This year the focus was sustaining life underwater if you didn’t realize last year we ended world hunger.

Language acquisition

Language acquisitions chose to focus on international mindedness. They have done this through significant integration.
This has included things such as real world global perspectives in French culture and not just Quebec French
The students studied the effects of colonialism as depicted in French African films

Grade 8 travelling sketch book

This past year music, art and drama combined to introduce the travelling sketch book.
Kids received the book in September and carried it through their 3 rotations to keep a permanent record of their achievements
This will eventually develop into receiving a Fine arts mark instead of separate mark for each discipline

Systems

Personal project 2.0

This year we saw many improvements with the Personal Project
We had the highest completion rate to date and I know all of us were amazed at the quality of the presentations that we saw this year.
The PP team has made revisions to the guide
This year we switched to mentor based Epic Wednesdays to help support and guide our kids and connect them with the most knowledgeable subject specific topics.
As a teacher in the math department I think we were all a bit disappointed our area of expertise wasn’t in more demand but we are hopeful for next year
I know the elective teachers played a big role in this and we thank you for that.

The DP teachers went through and mapped the skills our students need to best prepare them transitioning from 11 to 12.
They mapped out and divided the ATL skills and decided which disciplines would focus on what specific areas. Understandably everyone wanted self-management but thinking was decided by rock, paper, scissors

Collaboration

Language Acquisition - opening up beyond just French

Our Language Acquisition department is excited to offer Spanish 8 in the fall. Lots of collaboration took place this year with the team so that the scope and sequence planning is less "French" specific, and more "language-acquisition" focused - the idea being that down the road, French, Spanish and Squamish Language might all be following similar conceptual lenses while working with different grammatical and cultural material.

Lunchtime teacher collaboration:

We had multiple opportunities throughout the course of the year for classroom teachers to get together over lunch to talk collegially about how to make our classroom practice more relevant and authentic. Some of the topics included:

Differentiation in the classroom
Games that teach
Coaching in the classroom
Critical Thinking

We look forward to meeting again next year for lunch collaborations to continue to share our strengths and expertise as educators.

Indigenizing

Ms Stephanie Maki, Mr Justin Bolivar, and Ms Jennifer Tieche have worked to build a library collection, which includes a broad range of authentic resources – both professional and for the kids. These resources reflect many different indigenous cultures and peoples, locally and internationally.

Effigy bowls – art 8

All or our grade 8s created bowls that represented an animal figure. They were tasked with researching different animals and their significance to culture. They then chose to model a bowl based on attributes that they now possess or would like to possess in the future. (I have an example to show)

The Fine Arts department also had success working with Stuart Jacobs, an artist-in-residence to complete sculptures. (I have an example to show)

We are gaining a better understanding of aboriginal history and colonialism

We continue to move towards embedding indigenous worldviews and viewpoints in our teaching as we work towards reconciliation:

Orange shirt day in our third year, All staff participated in Blanket exercise

Many of our classrooms have participated in the Blanket Exercise as well (TOK, First Nations 12, two Squamish language classes, most grade 9 classes)

Inclusion of indigenous community on our journey to reconciliation

We continue to open our doors to our local Squamish community. Bucky and Tracey Williams have been working with our students in hands-on learning experiences such as tanning, cedar bark harvesting, and salmon leather. There has also been lots of collaboration behind the scenes, with supporting in the design of curriculum. Our connections continue to deepen which was evidenced when our local community felt comfortable to show up to lead a drum circle after the loss of one of our students.

We heal together.

Where we're going

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At Carson Graham, we seem always to be in the midst of change. And while we faced a big change saying goodbye to Principal Mr Karim Hachlaf and hello to Mr Ian Kennedy, we know that it takes each of us – making a collective effort to authentically and successfully deliver the programs we offer and to serve our incredibly diverse and amazing student population.

Next year, our goals are to continue on the path we’ve walked this year:

To strengthen our capacity as educational professionals and further deepen our understanding of curriculum, instruction and assessment

To continue to broaden our knowledge of concept based teaching and learning.

To increase our reflectiveness.

To continue to participate in the process of reconciliation by Indigenizing our school and strengthening our relationship with the Squamish, other First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples in our community.

We aim to become an even more cohesive unit than we already are and strengthen the connections between us and our curricular areas for the benefit of our learners.

This is our story…