Click on the Inquiry Question links below to see the full survey response and learn what each PLC group is exploring.

2015-2016

  1. How can we use e-portfolios to enhance student learning and communicate individual learning to parents?
  2. How can we support each other in our efforts to teach joyful literacy activities to children who are ready to be independent learners while addressing the needs of students who require direct support in order to be successful?
  3. Explore strategies for how to avoid exclusion by peers through developing and promoting communication skills, self advocacy, and self identity.

2014-2015

  1.  How does the use the technology specifically ipad aps, improve reading comprehension and fluency in learners with an emphasis on high-interest reading sources?
  2. How do we increase student engagement and thinking/reading strategies?
  3. How can we use recent, relevant research to improve our practice and collaborate together to improve primary student literacy learning at Queneesh?
  4. Will focusing on multi-aged social learning,through extra curricular opportunities provide students with a greater sense of school connectedness?

Documenting Student Learning

Teachers are using iPads to take photos, videos and to record student voices. This information is then uploaded to Springpad or Notability and shared with parents. An example of this in action would be in a Kindergarten class where children are at various centres engaged in sorting activities. The teacher would collect information and send it home to individual parents perhaps with the heading, “Div. 1 Math Sorting”. The teacher would describe the learning outcome and then by sending videos, photos and recordings of student interviews or thoughts communicate those directly and immediately to parents. Students are able to receive feedback instantly from their teacher and parents can be instantly made aware of their child’s progress rather than only during the usual three formal reporting periods. Parents can comment or question immediately,too. 

Montessori Vision Quest

Grade 5/6 Montessori teachers have been working on developing what amounts to a scope and sequence of when various Montessori lessons have been taught and when Montessori materials have been presented. More recently the teachers have been focusing on literacy and looking at ways to improve student achievement by combining skills taught in the “neighbourhood” program with traditional Montessori lessons.

Describe in relation to the work of the PLC teams in your building, how this work is having a real life impact on student achievement.

In relation to our Student Reporting PLC, when students get immediate feedback on what they are doing and when that feedback can be immediately relayed to parents then students can build on their successes and be supported more quickly. The students also are more engaged in activities knowing that the work they do could at any point be shared.
Our Montessori PLC has drawn attention to pedagogy in reading and we are in the process of getting some baseline data. Montessori method relies a lot on sight words and grammar and we are noting that our students can ‘read the words’ but that their ability to read beyond the text is perhaps not what it should be. Further work will be done.