Deliciously Innovative

Have you been to Purebread in Whistler?  If you have not, you should pay them a visit.  A long line-up curls out their ever-open front doors and leads to a sensory overload.  Glass panes are the only thing between the customers and their multitude of options.  Sweets abound, savory reigns, the choices are endless.  The best thing about it all is that the flavours you bite into after ordering are as rewarding as they look to be upon first sight.  What more do you need with your coffee or tea?  As I participated in our district’s launch meeting last evening for this year’s Innovation Grant recipients, I couldn’t help but draw a delicious comparison.

Each year our district offers an opportunity for its teachers to apply for grant monies to foster innovation and improve student learning through the process of inquiry.  I was proud to be present yesterday as part of Ecole Pauline Johnson’s team.  Ilona Barran, Heidy Visona, Genevieve Brisson, and Tracey Carter have all been granted an opportunity to delve deeper into language acquisition at the Late French Immersion grades in order to enhance deeper leveled questioning, inquiry and French language literacy skill development.

Lynne Tomlinson and Sean Nosek led the charge, engaging over 20 teams from all over the district as they asked us to ‘challenge our assumptions about learning and innovation’ through collaboration.  They laid out the foundations for our work ahead this year with our research action plans.  The ‘characteristics, criteria and commitments’ we will honour include:

Teamwork – a willingness to work in learning teams on behalf of learners in our community

Interdependence – a willingness to work with and on behalf of all interested schools in WV

Inquiry – an interest in developing and collectively pursuing significant learning improvement questions in depth and over time

Assessment – a belief in the central importance of individual and classroom assessment evidence as a powerful change force

Communication – an acted upon belief in telling change stories honestly with both qualitative and quantitative evidence sources

Depth of Thinking – a commitment to going deeper by asking increasingly challenging questions about practice

Sustained Thinking – an understanding that realizing genuine learning gains requires time, focused work, reflection, and on-going commitment

Metacognition – using knowledge about learning to strengthen thinking

Use of Evidence – a commitment to using clear evidence patterns to illustrate and describe improvement

To conclude our session, each Innovation Team was asked to share a snapshot description of their project for the year.  Similar to the feeling I get each time I enter Purebread, I was overwhelmed by the creativity, selection, and quality of my colleagues’ plans.  West Vancouver Secondary will be analyzing, aligning and enhancing the English Language Arts courses for high school students to complement the new transformative curriculum’s changes.  Caulfeild Elementary will be designing student-centred choices around Maker-Spaces and connections to the new curriculum.  A team comprised of teachers from four schools will be creating workshops for all West Vancouver teachers K-7 to attend and explore the variety of Aboriginal Education resources that align with the First Peoples’ Principles.  Another cross-district team will delve deep into the ‘Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies’ big ideas of the redesigned curriculum to provide resources for educators highlighting some of the already-incredible inquiries and projects that our own teachers have developed and are using.  Yet another team will explore teacher-mentorship in our district and the benefits and effects it has on the mentored and the mentor.

I left the launch meeting yesterday afternoon with the same joy and satisfaction that I left Purebread with a couple of weekends ago.  Okay, maybe with more…!  As I listened to West Vancouver’s teachers burst with excitement as they described the work ahead I was, yet again, very proud to work with the finest.  Like a bakery that goes above and beyond, when you are not afraid to get at it early, mix a little sugar with creativity, display the innovative options for others to take a hold of, and then sit back and see the enjoyment that it brings to others then you’ve done an outstanding job.

As these Innovation Grants take hold this year I can only imagine the benefits they will have for motivating our teachers, empowering our students, and raising everyone’s success to newer heights.  Thank you to Chris Kennedy and our District Leadership Team for understanding the need for joy, providing the ingredients, and supporting our district’s staff and students as they get messy and fill themselves with the ‘good stuff’.  So if you can’t find me deep in thought and collaboration at PJ with our own Innovation Team, then I bet you know where to find me in Whistler.  Please come and say hi.  I would love to talk to you more about the great things our school and district are doing for your kids.