The SHIFT Blog

  SHIFT Coaching Have you ever learned to play a musical instrument, or a sport, or a new dance step, or a new pedagogical approach?   Did you learn it alone? How long did that take? Do you think it would have been slower and more difficult, or easier and faster, if you had had someone to learn it with? Someone to plan with, someone to bounce ideas back and forth with, someone to try with, celebrate with, fail with, reflect with, and move forward with?  As SHIFT coaches, one of our main goals is to collaborate with people who would like the opportunity to SHIFT their practice, and innovate.   Innovation, as we define it here in Halton, is “an improvement to a product, process or understanding.”  So whether it is innovating a learning process - like flipped lessons or writers’ workshop, an understanding of something - like inquiry-based learning or mastery-based assessment, or a product - such as a communication tool used to better connect us with the ...

  Like most teachers at the end of the school year, we ask ourselves questions like, “Was I effective this semester?”  We usually ask our students to provide us with some form of feedback .  This year, it’s a little bit more challenging.  We are nearing the end of a year long experiment: release two innovation coaches to work with educators across the school board, work alongside educators, plan with them, imagine with them, teach with them. At the same time the innovation coaches would “pop up” and be home-based in redesigned innovative classrooms in Halton schools .   We wondered, as coaches, can we be actively be planted in school communities, to allow ease of access to those educators wanting to experiment with new and improved ways of doing school? We covered a lot of ground this year with this experiment in mind.  We launched a website, a new blog (which you are reading right now!), and a podcast to make our learning transparent.  We created a d...

  Gord Donaldson is the current principal at Maple Grove PS who is also currently trying to innovate his golf game to lower his handicap in between trips to hockey arenas and baseball diamonds with his kids. I had a moment recently to reflect on our school’s journey in innovation.  As I pondered how we got to where we are, I never realized how far we have come in such a short period of time.  When you think innovation, you sometimes think big, or quick. Our journey was neither. What it is, is impactful. It all started with a cool spring day in May of 2017 at the Country Heritage Barn.  Knowing we needed something to “Shift”, but not sure what it was, we sent about 20 staff members.  Did that make it more difficult to have 20 occasional teachers in the building in one day? Sure. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Of course, we learned that we need to move from “ya, but” to “yes, and”, but more importantly we learned that a journey to innovation requires risks. ...

Did you know that this Saturday is World Creativity and Innovation Day? Halton wants to celebrate this day on Friday, April 20th.   Look around your building for examples of innovative teaching practices, students showing off their own creativity, or just something interesting that resonates with you.   Tweet out your observations and pictures using the hashtag #HDSBInnovates. We want to know what is happening in your building!

Tony Churchill is a Principal at Harrison Public School . He is working with staff at his school on promoting a growth mindset in students through design thinking challenges. He is our very first contributor to the Shift from the perspective of a school principal. One school’s journey towards innovative thinking... “So, what is innovation or innovative thinking? How do we foster it...promote it? Once we start to see it, how do we get comfortable with assessing and reporting on it? How do we cover all the curriculum and allow students time to explore without worrying about this lost teaching and learning time?” These were some of the questions that staff on our leadership team and I worked through last year. The reason: I was the new principal and during the first PD day as I got to know everyone, I took the staff through a process...to draw and write about their ideal school. As we worked through the process, similar themes emerged and we narrowed things down toward the beginning...

This semester, interested teachers in Halton were able to apply for funding for projects that explored Innovation.  That is, projects that will improve a Process, Product or Understanding. All in all, 49 applications were received with 18 of those projects receiving funding.  Matt and I have been busy trying to connect with as many groups as possible with the intention of blogging about what we’ve learned.  However, we’ve found that many of the groups want to talk about their learning in their own words. Kelly Bourassa is a Grade One teacher at Brant Hills Public School.  She’s working with her elementary school colleagues at Norton and MacMillan Public Schools on peer to peer collaboration around open ended inquiry projects. Finding innovation Outdoors Every Friday morning my class goes on a ‘Wonder Walk’ in the forest near our school. It is my students’ favorite part of the week. The children are free to explore and commune with nature, ...

Over the past year, many Halton teachers have been given the opportunity to watch the documentary Most Likely to Succeed.  Some of us watched it at evening screenings at various schools. Some schools screened the film during their Professional Development days.  Others have been given the opportunity to watch the film on their own. If you haven’t seen it yet, Most Likely to Succeed follows a group of Grade Nine students as they attend their first year school at High Tech High, a school that focuses on Project Based Learning in San Diego. The Staircase to Nowhere Project If you teach in the Halton District School Board, you can find instructions on how to watch the full documentary here .  If you don’t work for our board, there are ways to screen a copy in your school or board.  It’s worth it! We have lots of questions about how High Tech High delivers its curriculum.  We are fortunate to be attend the Deeper Learning Conference at the...

Amanda Williams-Yeagers has written a number of guest blog posts on the Shift. She is also leading the HDSB Empower Book Talk. Jordie Burton has also written a guest blog post on the Shift. He is an Art Educator passionate about creativity and design thinking. Amanda and Jordie have teamed up with other HDSB educators to use an innovation grant to delve into teaching creativity and design thinking in our schools. Sir Ken Robinson begins his famous 2006 Ted talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” by speaking about the evidence and the range of human creativity. He also begins by talking about the uncertainty of the future. The irony of this, is that this brilliant talk took place twelve years ago . Today we are still wondering what the future will look like and we are still hoping to prepare our students for jobs that don’t even exist yet. We are also curious about the range and extent of human creativity: What is the definition of creativity? What environment is conduci...