How We Show Our Learning: Personalizing Learning through Assessment

There are many approaches our teachers use to personalize the learning experience for students. One way is by giving students different ways to demonstrate their learning. Edwin Bryson, Greenwood's Vice-Principal of Teacher and Staff Development, shares an example from his Grade 10 Introduction to Business class, in which differentiated assessments were used to personalize for student readiness, interest and learning profile.

Step 1: Identify what students should know, understand and be able to do (skills)

I began by identifying what each student should know, understand and be able to do as a result of a particular chunk of learning. In this case, students needed to "demonstrate financial planning skills and produce a...personal financial plan (e.g. monthly plan, budget)."

Step 2: Identify one or more formats for the product

Next, I brainstormed all of the types of evidence that a student could use to show they have met these learning outcomes. For example, they could

• Complete a monthly budget worksheet for themselves
• Analyze a case study that requires a monthly plan
• Complete a quiz on key terms and processes
• Role-play between a financial planner and client
• Create a board game that illustrates income, expenses and savings, etc.

The goal is to determine financial planning skills, but the teacher has the flexibility to create more than one type of assessment for this skill.

Step 3: Determine expectations for quality

The third step was to clearly describe the success criteria; it should be general enough that a student can achieve the top band of achievement, regardless of their choice of activity. I did this in the form of a rubric, using the following criteria to evaluate each assessment:

• The student understands the relationship between types of income, fixed and flexible expenses.
• The student demonstrates the use of planning skills (gathering information, organizing a budget/project).
• The student uses critical/creative thinking processes (evaluation of spending and saving goals, actual versus planned budgeting).
• The student makes connections between the financial planning process and future career and life goals.

Step 4: Decide on scaffolding needed

The fourth step was to select a few assessments that would meet the different levels of student readiness, interests and learning profile.

Complete a monthly budget using a template: This option would suit students who are still gaining confidence with financial planning, liked working individually and benefited from concrete and sequential tasks rather than abstract and non-sequential tasks.

Work in pairs and create a board game: The game should demonstrate the key concepts of income, personal income tax, expenses, savings and investment. This option would suit students who had attained a conceptual understanding of financial planning, liked working collaboratively and enjoyed abstract and non-sequential thinking.

Create a role-playing game: This option was created by a few students who wanted to modify the board game assessment to create a role-playing game. Since the rubric focused on learning outcomes, rather product specifications, it was very easy to accommodate this request.

Below is a summary of the differentiation found in each assessment.

Assessment	Readiness	Interests	Learning Profile
Create a monthly budget using a template	Basic understanding of terms and concepts	Wants concrete application of learning of this topic	Works best with clear instructions, small steps and linear approach. Prefers working on own assignment
Create a board game	Strong conceptual understanding	Wants to expand and extend their learning of this topic	Is stimulated by creative challenges and conceptual thinking. Prefers working with peers.
Create a role-playing game	Strong conceptual understanding	Wants to expand and extend their learning of this topic	Is stimulated by open-ended challenges and enjoys abstract thinking. Prefers working with peers.

Regardless of which assignment was chosen, students were engaged in an authentic learning experience and making meaning by linking the concepts to their own lives. Each assignment allowed students to reach the top level of achievement and provided different approaches to suit their learning styles. The end result was increased engagement and more accurate evaluation of each student's progress toward meeting the course's learning goals.

Note: Many of the concepts discussed here are borrowed from one of the foremost authors on the subject, Carol Ann Tomlinson, in her book How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms (2nd Edition).

Grade 8 Social Studies: Extending Students Inside and Outside the Classroom

Part of  personalizing education is creating opportunities for students to extend their learning when they are ready and able to take on more of a challenge. Teacher Cara Pennington gives some examples of extension opportunities for students in her Grade 8 Social Studies class.

Grade 8 Social Studies is a unique course that utilizes the history of Canadian Confederation and Western settlement, along with different aspects of human geography, to develop critical thinking, reading and writing skills. On many occasions, students are encouraged to think outside the box and imagine what life would be like in different time periods or in different parts of the world by taking on the roles of different people and characters throughout history.

Students receive ample choice when it comes to assignment topics. The choice allows for personalization and challenge for students who require a push. Some of the topics that students are able to select include extensions that require students to complete additional research and analysis of their topic. This allows students who are ready for more of a challenge to make deeper connections and to develop their critical thinking skills.

Furthermore, day-to-day tasks in class include extension options for students who are quickly developing an understanding of the material and content. These more in-depth questions encourage students to analyze the same material in different ways and from different angle, in order to to come to new conclusions about the topic.

 Students in Grade 8 Social Studies are also extended outside of the classroom through a field trip to Black Creek Pioneer Village. Here, the students are able to live like the pioneers they have learned about in class, both in British North America and during the settlement of the Canadian western provinces. They perform tasks reflective of the time period such as woodworking and candle-making, and are able to bring the knowledge they have learned in the classroom to life and apply their understandings in a real-world setting.

Personalized Learning and Challenge in Physical Fitness

In the Grade 10 and 11 Personal Fitness courses, we strive to offer a program that can target individual goals and interests. Health and Physical Education teacher Martha Hall discusses how this is achieved at Greenwood.

In a recent class, we utilized technology to encourage activities that are personalized to an individual's needs. Each student downloaded the Nike Training App to their mobile device. This app allowed them to personalize their workout in a variety of ways.

Firstly, students can choose the type of workout they want to do, focused on getting lean, toned or strong. Within the program, they can choose to target areas for growth, such as endurance, strength, power or abdominal muscles. They can also select beginner, intermediate or advanced levels in order to challenges themselves and work at their own level. The app also allows students to select their own music to play during their workout, which helps to motivate student participation.

Once the students start the program, the teachers monitor the students' technique by videotaping short segment of training to provide instant feedback on how to improve their form. This use of technology also enables students to analyze their own form and make any necessary corrections to ensure they are using proper technique. This is called Assessment as Learning and Assessment for Learning. Students in these courses assess themselves on a regular basis, using Assessment as Learning, in order to reflect upon their participation in class and to determine their areas of growth for future classes.

Moving forward in this class, students are given choice on a daily basis. With two teachers facilitating in the course, we are able to offer specialized classes (such as yoga or CrossFit) or visits to GoodLife or other local gyms.

Computer Literacy Skills Both Stretch and Support Student Learning

Grade 7 and 8 students at Greenwood participate in a Grade 9 course titled Information and Communication Technology in Business (informally referred to by staff and students as BTT) which gives them the opportunity to reach ahead and develop skills they will use in their other courses. BTT teacher Sarah Thornton discusses how this personalized, independent course helps students gain valuable skills in communications, technology, planning and organization.

Students complete the BTT course independently over two years (with fifty percent of the course completed in Grade 7 and the remaining fifty percent in Grade 8), which is both valuable and challenging. To scaffold this effort, there is a BTT coordinator appointed to the Grade 7 and 8 programs respectively. The coordinator oversees the BTT co-curricular periods that are supervised by each student's Adviser, marks assignments, and tracks and reports individual student credit accumulation to students, Advisers and parents. The personalized support provided by the individual Adviser and the oversight of the coordinator ensure that the students are able to set and meet clear goals so that they can achieve the credit in the most efficient and organized way possible.

The enrichment that Greenwood students gain by participating in the BTT course is twofold. Firstly, they are able to demonstrate the mastery over communication technology and online organization necessary to be successful in Greenwood's innovative technological environment. Moreover, participating in the course challenges and further develops students' executive functioning skills, as they are required to take responsibility for their work in a course that exists beyond the walls of their physical classrooms.

In this way, their participation in the course encourages perseverance. It teaches them how to implement and execute strategic plans, as they negotiate their way through the personalized assignment options. It provides an opportunity for Advisers and the BTT coordinators to coach the students on how to choose the best and most effective way to navigate an assignment or topic. Finally, the BTT course challenges students to maintain a clear organizational system that allows them to balance the homework and assignments required to complete the BTT course in a timely manner.

Grade 7 and 8 students benefit in both the long and short term by participating in a BTT course. This course prepares them to be successful throughout their high school careers, by giving them freedom of choice to personalize their schedules and perform to their best, as well as equipping them with critical technological skills. It also allows them, with the support of their Advisers and the BTT coordinators, to practice and apply executive functioning skills that will allow them to be successful in their current courses and beyond.

Challenging Civics Students through Authentic Learning

If it were up to students in Grade 10 Civics at Greenwood College School, Toronto residents would face harsher fines for neglecting to pick up after their dogs; all new building projects in the city would have a green roof feature; it would be mandatory to offer your seat on the TTC to the elderly and pregnant; and wearing a  bike helmet would no longer be optional for people over the age of 18.

These and other new by-laws were enacted in class during a mock city council debate, where students proposed and voted on a series of new regulations that they considered to be in the best interest of their constituents. The heated debates that occurred leading up to the votes could be heard ringing in the Greenwood hallways and are testament to the potential for enthusiasm and passion from a generation that is too often labelled as apathetic and disengaged.

The process was part of a larger project we have been working on in the Civics classroom for the past month and will continue to work on until the municipal election on October 27. Students have been learning about democracy as a system of governance and the functions of the municipal government. Given recent happenings in our city and the upcoming election, it has been an exciting time to explore the many facets of local government and how this impacts our lives. The Civics teachers have worked to offer a variety of challenging learning opportunities and projects that suit individual interests as a way to prepare for our school's participation in Student Vote, a province-wide initiative run by CIVIX that allows high school students to vote on who they think should be mayor of their town or city.

By personalizing learning through choice, our students have been working on one of four different roles related to the election:

• Journalists have been covering the lead-up to the event from a number of angles and are finding ways to use social media to encourage a high voter turnout.
• Politicians have been spending time critically comparing the platforms of the front-running candidates and are preparing to campaign on their behalves on the day of the vote.
• Elections officers have been investigating issues related to voting such as citizenship requirements and electronic voting and will be running the election itself on October 23.
• Social justice activists are coming to a more in-depth understanding of some of the major issues facing the city of Toronto and will be on hand on Election Day to provide information for their fellow students and perhaps offer suggestions as to which candidate would be most likely to advance their causes.

All four options not only require students to engage in the research process, using tools such as the recently released Toronto Vital Signs report, but also have the added challenge of engaging with the entire student body, lending a degree of authenticity to the task.

To supplement the students' choices, visits from two recent guest speakers have been a real highlight of the unit. Journalist Desmond Cole, who writes for Torontoist and Now Magazine spoke to students about his passion for local government and his role as project manager for the City Vote campaign, which is aiming to give permanent residents the right to vote in municipal elections. And Luke Larocque, Ward 2 candidate, spoke with students about the campaigning process and the issues with our current voting system. Both speakers were quite engaging and have given students valuable insight into the political process.

The Civics class's collective goal is to encourage a high voter turnout on Student Vote day by sending the message of the importance of voting and engaging in local politics. We will look forward to receiving our school's election results from CIVIX and comparing them with the rest of the city's schools. Often, by factoring in the Student Vote tallies, the results of the official election would be very different. In that case, I would not be at all surprised to see a new by-law related to voting age proposed during the next council meeting in the Greenwood Civics class.

Michelle Johnson,

Teacher, Civics, Humanities and English

Blended Learning in Media Arts

Teachers Johanna Liburd and Amy Adkins discuss how personalizing learning for their Media Arts course helps students to acquire not only technical skills but also confidence in their learning capabilities.

What is Media Arts?
Media Arts provides an avenue for students to experience new technologies and the ways in which those technologies interact with and build on the traditional arts. Students explore such areas as photography, image manipulation, sound recording and editing, video recording and editing, digital animation and web design. Students acquire communications skills that are transferable beyond the media arts classroom and develop and an understanding of responsible practices related to the creative process. Students will also develop the skills necessary to create and interpret media art works.

The Traditional Media Arts Class
There are many ways to personalize student learning in the arts. One of the more traditional methods is personalizing by student interest. This year, the course has been further developed to incorporate even greater opportunities for personalizing learning based on readiness. For instance, in each unit students are given a variety of options for how they go about learning course concepts, skills and the ways in which they express their knowledge and understanding. With a focus on choice, students are able to use their interests and strengths to navigate their own learning through each project.

When personalizing for readiness, the teachers get to know each student and create lessons and projects that build upon their unique interests, strengths, prior learning and academic needs. We identify when a student needs a push or challenge and gear their choices and projects in a more challenging direction.

How Will This New Course Benefit Student Learning?

Blended Delivery: Students will be given a variety of ways to learn material based on their specific needs and/or learning preferences. By delivering course content in a variety of ways, students will learn the same material, but in the manner that suits them best. Students will also be encouraged to consider when, and if, they need to revisit prior learning. With the guidance and support of their teacher, students will be given opportunities to push themselves and will be challenged to develop strong and effective work habits.

Greater Teacher Support: The course Groodle page will contain resources presented in a variety of formats, such as videos and written tutorials, as well as one-on-one demonstrations provided by the teacher. With a greater focus on online learning, it is our hope that students will further develop their independent learning skills. This also allows the teacher to circulate around the room and provide support based on individual need.

Student Choice: The last unit of the course is an Independent Study unit. This unit provides students with the opportunity to propose a project that revisits and expands upon prior learning in the course. After submitting a proposal, students will be challenged to further develop their independent and collaborative learning skills. Regular check-ins with their teacher will ensure that the student stays on track while exploring the topic of their choice.

Collaborative Learning: Our goal is to give students a realistic sense of what it is like to work in a creative field. To that end, we aim to create and support an environment of collaboration, teamwork and leadership. Lessons will begin with warm-up activities that energize, challenge and promote community within the class. Students will not only gain a broad set of technical skills during the year, but they will also develop their interpersonal and collaborative skills, as well as their emotional intelligence.

In conclusion, it is our hope that students are able to experience greater success in Media Arts because of blended delivery, greater teacher support, student choice and collaborative learning. We aim to increase our students' ability to learn in a self-directed manner, to build their creative thinking skills and to foster a love of the arts. As we prepare our students for the future, our focus is not only on equipping them with competitive skills, but also instilling confidence in their own ability to learn.

Personalizing Reading Assignments in the English Classroom

English teacher Heather Wright explores how students become more engaged in literature when they are able to take an active role in their reading choices.

"There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book." - Frank Serafini

As an English teacher, getting students to not only read, but to enjoy their reading and reflect upon it critically is an ongoing challenge. I have found that in order for students to get the most out of the reading tasks, they need to first be reading the right book - a book that both challenges them academically and also peaks their interest. One of the ways we do this at Greenwood is by offering students choices for reading assignments.

Last spring, the Grade 12 students each read a novel as part of their unity on identity. Students were asked to develop and answer essential questions as part of their reading. Some questions that students created included:

• How does our cultural identity affect the decisions we make?
• How do others' perceptions influence how we view ourselves?
• In what ways do we assess our own worth?

In order to increase student engagement, students were offered three choices for their reading. The first choice was Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, a Canadian novel exploring the history of Aboriginal Canadians and the residential school system. This text, while dealing with very mature themes, tells the story through accessible language, short chapters and a charismatic male protagonist. The second choice offered to students was Camilla Gibb's A Complicated Kindness. This novel, also Canadian, tells the story of a young woman living in a Mennonite community and having to deal with the practice of ex-communication. Though the story also explores the theme of identity, the writing itself is more advanced, making greater use of literary techniques. The final choice offered to students was an enrichment option to read Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, comparing how masculine identity and socioeconomic class are explored in each text. 

By providing these choices, each student was able to select a text that provided them with an appropriate academic challenge and read a story that held their interest. This resulted in some very impressive final essays and presentations from students in each of the three groups.

I have found that encouraging students to take an active role in their reading choices helps them to develop their own reading tastes and practices outside the classroom. This was evident at our recent annual Summer Reading Book Fair. It was great to see so many Greenwood students engaged in selecting the books they wished to read over the holiday and being genuinely excited to push themselves to read new and more challenging texts. Hopefully, this enthusiasm keeps up as each student begins another year of English class this month.

Here's to a great year of reading!

A (Novel) Study in Personalization

Providing students with choice not only allows greater personalization in the classroom, but gets students really excited about learning. English and Student Success Centre teacher Kathryn Connelly details how giving Grade 7 students three book options for a recent novel study made a big impact.

At Greenwood, all sections of Grade 7 English meet at the same time in adjacent rooms. We also see this class every day. This method of scheduling in Grade 7 English allows for a great deal of flexibility, which benefits both students and teachers.

Our most recent novel study unit gave us the opportunity to work in flexible groupings based on the individual learner’s interests and needs. Before beginning the unit, each teacher gave a brief introduction of the novels, all by Canadian author Eric Walters: Safe as Houses; Wave; and Shaken. These novels varied in length and difficulty. Students then selected one of the three novels by filling in a preference sheet. Based on both student interest and literacy skills, which were assessed in previous units, the students were grouped.

The English classes were then mixed and regrouped based on which novel the students chose to study. Each teacher took a different novel group.

The individual strengths and needs of each particular group of students determined how the class was taught. Where one class took more time to read and analyze the novel through basic story devices, another class worked on examining and analyzing the novel through real-life examples.

These groupings allowed each student to be stretched to reach their own individual potential, as well as develop a genuine and inquisitive interest about the topic. As a result, all three classes had great success!  

At the end of the unit, student reflections highlighted how happy they were to not only have had the opportunity to explore a novel they were interested in, but happy to have had lessons, activities and assignments that were tailored to meet the strengths and needs of the wide variety of learners in their grade. 

Eric Walters visited Greenwood during this novel study unit to discuss his work with our Grade 7 and 8 students. Read about his visit on our website.

Choose Your Own Adventure: Canadian History Style

This week's post comes from Charles Jennings, History, Law and Politics Teacher.

"You mean we get to choose?!"

If you had the choice, which would you choose to learn about: Prohibition, the Women’s Movement or the Economic Boom in the 1920s? Students in Grade 10 Canadian History were surprised to learn that they had this very choice at the beginning of the Roaring '20s Unit. This is one way in which we personalize the teaching of history at Greenwood. The results of this interest-based approach showed outstanding student success, and greater student engagement and excitement.

Here is why it was so successful:

1. Student Choice: Our first unit provided built-in opportunities for students to explore themes within the broader study of World War One. This prepared students to view history through different lenses, readying them to study the Roaring '20s unit under one central theme. Students jumped at the opportunity to independently select from Prohibition, the Women’s Movement or the Economic Boom, and were grouped accordingly.                                                                                                
2. Blended Delivery: Online materials developed in-house by Greenwood history teachers provided rich content tailored to each theme. These, in combination with the work done in class, create a blended learning environment that helps students work to their interests. Navigation is easy through clear and simple organization and delivery in Moodle and Google Docs.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
3. Self-Paced Learning: Students appreciated being able to independently work through the unit at a pace appropriate to their learning needs. This allowed for more opportunities to extend learning and access support. Assessments dispersed throughout the unit provided students with timely feedback and greater preparation for their final task, and provided teachers with immediate and concrete evidence of learning to better gauge progress.                                                                                                              
4. Greater Teacher Support: During each class, teachers worked with each theme grouping to clarify understanding, ensure progress and extend learning through engaging activities. Teachers acted as learning coaches to ensure students progressed successfully through the unit, providing one-on-one and small group support.                                                                                                                       
5. Collaborative Learning: Engaging whole-class activities challenged students to share their learning, deepen their historical understanding, and make sophisticated connections between each theme. A lively debate highlighted the importance of each theme, and brought history to life.  

It is clear that students ‘do’ history best when they are engaged with content and can find meaningful ways to connect it to themselves and the world around them, Students responded to this new approach with enthusiasm, interest and Roaring results!

Professional Practice in Media Studies

This week's post comes from Katharine Rogers, English and Geography Teacher.

Students in Grade 11 media studies participate in both the analysis and creation of many forms of media. Most recently, they have been working to develop their skills in review writing as a method of analysing television shows, documentaries, and feature films. As a number of the students in the course are interested in pursuing careers in related fields, it is important that the assessment process reflects the reality of the industry.

First drafts of written content are rarely published; as such, first drafts of written reviews in this class are not assigned a final grade. Instead, I provide the students with a temporary grade and ample feedback on their work. I then return the reviews to them, and provide them with the opportunity to revise their work up to four times. Students are required to complete at least one revision, but the others – all assessed by me for temporary grades – are optional. Students can track the improvement in their writing in a measurable way between drafts, which gives them ownership over their learning and revision process.

During the most recent revision stage, some students focused on the depth of their analysis, while others revisited the structure of written reviews. Feedback was completely personalized, and students were given up to three weeks to complete their revisions. They appreciated the opportunity to self-pace; some finished all revisions within the first week, while others used the full time allotted. In all cases, the students chose to revise their work at least three times.

Currently, media studies students are researching influential film directors, and will soon be asked to analyse and review a selection of their feature films. Students will have the opportunity to decide whether they’d like to stick with traditional review writing in order to further develop their skills in this area, or move on to the more challenging comparative review as an enrichment option. They will also have the opportunity to select their preferred method of delivery for this task; product options include written reviews, podcasts, videos, etc.

Once the students complete the first draft of their film reviews, they will move on to the second stage of development in their editing process. Now that they have been through a full editing cycle with me at the helm, they will apply the skills learned to critiquing the work of their peers. Students will work in groups of three, and will be permitted to submit their drafts for peer feedback up to four times. They will use this feedback and support to revise their work, and to determine when it is fit for final submission. This process will enable students to self-pace during the review cycle, and will help them to make mature, informed decisions about their own levels of readiness.

Students Pursue Their Passions in the Business Classroom

In the Grade 11 entrepreneurship class, students spend the year envisioning and developing a small business idea and venture plan based on their strengths and passions. Though the components of this venture plan are standard, students have the opportunity to fully personalize their plans by pursuing or creating a market to which they feel connected. Because students work within current resource and skill endowments, the project becomes real and immediate and challenges students to identify their strengths and weaknesses as well as their passions that will represent viable business ideas.

Over the course of this project students will:

• Consider their entrepreneurial skills and strengths
• Select and research an industry of interest
• Determine a form of business ownership
• Define a target market
• Develop a marketing plan
• Consider sources of financing and create budgets and financial projections
• Work to create a personalized brand and company image that reflects their core beliefs

Students tend to find this project rewarding as it relates to real life and offers many opportunities for creativity. This year, some business ideas include:

• Insane IT: An online tech business, building custom computers for gamers.
• Demeter Foods: A food truck, servicing the central business district with healthy and organic snacks.
• Riders’ Bikes: A custom-build bike shop servicing downhill riders
• Kids in the Kitchen: A business teaching young people the art of cooking at birthday parties or in a camp setting.

Some students are creating sole proprietorships, some have developed partnerships with classmates and some have learned how to incorporate their business after considering legal implications and barriers.

Through this project, students not only learn a number of key business concepts, they also learn a great deal about themselves as they are forced to consider their entrepreneurial potential and overall interest in small business ownership. Without doubt, it is both a school project and, more importantly, an opportunity for personal learning and experiment.

Elanna Robson
Instructional Leader, Business and Canada World Studies

Project-Based Learning Drives Personalized Learning

“When will I use this in real life?”

This is the infamous question that many students ask math teachers. The math department at Greenwood uses that question as motivation to change the stereotype that math is only useful for mathematicians. Our hope is that by making mathematics applicable to real life and more meaningful to each student, students will be able to answer this question themselves: math is used each and every day by everybody.

In the split-level college preparation mathematics course (MBF3C/MAP4C), we have just completed our first project-based learning unit. In this unit, students learned about scale diagrams, units of measurement, optimization and cost estimation by designing a new kitchen.
Students posed as designers for HGTV, with the task of designing and planning a kitchen renovation. They were given a floor plan and dimensions for an existing kitchen, as well as an allowable area for an optional extension. The students had to interview their client (a Greenwood teacher) to determine his preferences, taste and needs for his new kitchen.

Students then used the program Homestyler to create both 2D and 3D scale diagrams with many views of their design. Lastly, they had to present their design using a sales pitch to a panel which included the client.

Rather than completing lessons on topics and then completing a project as follow up, in this project-based unit, students:

• Had a real-life goal with a specific role and audience;
• Determined which mathematical skills they needed to learn to achieve the goal; and
• Accessed several resources to determine required information or to find inspiration for their designs. 

This project was personalized for each student. They received the necessary structures to be successful, the freedom to work at their own pace, a variety of resources to access information and complete control of the creativity of their design and sales pitch.

Erica Keaveney, a student in MAP4C, says “The project was very hands-on and realistic. I enjoyed it because I was able to be creative with my design, but also learned skills I will use in real life.”

Amanda Lester
Math Instructional Leader

Personalized Learning in Senior Biology

Science becomes even more exciting than usual when it speaks to the individual student’s interest. The Science Department at Greenwood offers choice in topic and/or format for many assignments. This allows students to select what intrigues them the most, and then convey this heightened level of engagement with a quality end product.

Many students were so intrigued by their study
of bacteria in Grade 11 Biology that they have
chosen to extend this activity beyond class time
for their own enrichment.

This year, we began the Grade 11 Biology course with the Diversity Unit so that we could create an overarching theme of classification for all of the units in the course. This also provided a jumping-off point for students to discuss their unique outdoor education experiences. (All Grade 11s go on a sea kayaking or hiking trip in British Columbia in the fall).

Using their own photos, students presented a researched organism native to BC during the first class back to school. We use this experience to help each student understand taxonomy before focusing on specific examples from each kingdom.  

Students then chose a source of possible contamination that could be a home for bacteria. Using petri dishes to collect and grow bacteria, students were trained to create pure plates of their selected bacteria as well as determine the identity of the bacteria. Some of the students were so intrigued by their discovery they have opted to extend this activity beyond class time for their own enrichment.

The Grade 12 Biology course includes a unit on Homeostasis (the ability of the body to maintain equilibrium). What better way to learn about the body’s innate ability to handle change than to use yourself as a test subject? Each student in this course collects data on themselves for a period of one week before developing a procedure that will promote greater self-awareness and (ultimately) a healthier lifestyle. 

This personal discovery gets documented in a formal scientific report representative of a university-quality report. With scheduled editing dates, students divide this extended lab into manageable chunks with multiple opportunities to receive timely advice on ways to develop their analytical skills.

Nancy Clarke
Science Instructional Leader

Choice Is Only One Part of Personalization

Providing choice to students is a common method of personalizing the learning experience. However, one of the main goals of personalized learning is to encourage our students to be creative, and in this context, choice can actually hinder this goal. More important than choice, students need to be given control and ownership if creativity is to be fostered. 

Choice often provides students with the illusion of control, when in fact they are simply choosing from a series of fixed options. In his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew Crawford discusses how we have “too few occasions to do anything, because of a certain predetermination of things from afar”. Using examples such as the customization of cars, where users simply pick from a list of accessories, or the Build-a-Bear shops that allow children to create a stuffed bear to their liking, Crawford argues that the user merely chooses from a series of predetermined alternatives. In these examples, users may have choice, but they are certainly not being creative. According to Crawford, this approach encourages reliance and passive consumption.

Many assignments in school follow a similar model to accessorizing a car or the Build-a-Bear, where students simply pick from several choices provided by the teacher. If this approach creates students that are reliant or passive, they will undoubtedly struggle to take ownership over their learning. What is the solution?

While it is unrealistic to provide a blank slate to students for every assignment, it is important to realize that creativity will be stifled when assignments become too prescriptive. Students need to be given the opportunity, and freedom, to explore. Furthermore, it is the role of the teacher to encourage students to take risks and to take advantage of opportunities. A personalized approach that incorporates blended learning provides students with tremendous flexibility in how and when they learn. Students need to take advantage of this flexibility but they will most likely need encouragement, a little push or insight before they will carve out their own path. In order to facilitate this change the teacher needs to know their students’ strengths and interests and create structures that encourage self-reliance and individuality. If we want students to take control over their learning, teachers need to lead by example and give students control, rather than send them down rigid pathways.

Erin Millar, in a Globe and Mail article, writes about a high school in Edmonton where students were given responsibility for launching a café on school grounds. Students oversaw every detail, from selection of furniture to which brands of coffee would be offered. In the end, a tremendous amount of student creativity was observed. While the students obviously had many choices to make in launching the café, it was the control and ownership over the project that promoted creativity, not the choice.  

Kyle Acres
Learning Technology Adviser