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 do we effectively teach social skills? Helping students with cognitive impairments. How to identify behaviours, as oppose to speculating/managing?

2014-2015

  1. Is there a structural change (model) that significantly improves students’ engagement in their learning?
  2. Does improved school culture engage students and increase student learning and success?
  3. What resources can we develop to help student learning for method review?
  4. Is the French language alive and vibrant on a daily basis in our school and is bilinguilism present in our environment?
  5. Will offering a combined English and Science course be more engaging for students and help their critical thinking?
  6. When students answer a questionnaire to evaluate their career preferences and identify math concepts they enjoy in order to choose an appropriate math course does it positively impact student success in math?
  7. Can a student curated online database help students, (parents) re-mediate, enrich, and engage their learning of secondary mathematics and science concepts?

The Planning PLC

The Planning PLC worked on vertically integrating HCE8, HCE9, Planning 10 and Grad Transitions 12 curricula to avoid duplication, introduce topics at more age-appropriate years, and find ways to personalize the teaching strategies. This was undertaken based on student feedback that said the stream of study was repetitive, boring and useless. Initial feedback on the changes implemented have been uniformly positive. The Planning PLC then looked at what our graduates need in the first year after graduation that they are not getting from us. From a list which included money management, tenant agreements, eating on a budget, how to buy a car, and so on. We contacted community specialists and asked them to present to our grade 12 students, who willingly signed up for workshops held during PLC Wednesdays.

School Garden PLC

A world of sustainably grown food for all, ripe with rich educational experiences to nurture caring citizens, is a goal that can be addressed through the work of a PLC. School gardens are a vital learning environment in which to pursue these goals, getting students outdoors and engaging in physical activities, learning about nutrition, health and food security, building environmental awareness and stewardship skills, and fostering collaboration, teamwork and leadership in the community. These varied foci are at the heart of personalized learning for the 21st century.

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.

The Planning PLC
Students are seeing more opportunity for active engagement in their planning courses, which are more seminar-focused to bring out discussion on meaningful experiences, rather than completing a series of worksheets to entire scores on a marks spreadsheet. Students have provided feedback indicating that they enjoy and even look forward to their HCE and Planning classes because they find them participative, relevant and thought-provoking. Grads have attended sessions on their own time for no marks or course credit because they have accepted that these sessions have been put on to improve their quality of life after graduation.

“I continue to advocate for PLCs as the best means to promote collaboration and shared leadership among staff, allowing for the best ideas to be heard and promoted, and giving all levels of the organization a sense of efficacy.” Gerald Fussell, Mark Isfeld Secondary VicePrincipal