Integration Projects Offer a New Take on Culminating Activities

Final evaluations are fast approaching, and the Grade 7 & 8 Integration Team is hard at work developing a second round of interdisciplinary integration projects. Each grade will participate in a four-day task designed to provide an authentic opportunity to apply a year’s worth of subject knowledge and skills to a real-world problem. (Read about the first Grade 7 and Grade 8 Integration Projects.)

As subject teachers, we have always been encouraged to create culminating tasks that would have students play a role and apply their subject knowledge to make real-world decisions. These integration projects are a perfect opportunity to take these individual subject role-playing tasks to the next level.

This second round of integration projects are designed to primarily assess skills and learning from the year, rather than teach new content. The development of these culminating integration projects therefore present their own unique set of strengths and challenges. There is more time within the schedule for students to focus in on their task, since less time is allotted to teacher-facilitated instruction. 

The actual project design has been more challenging this second time around. Our goal is to develop an authentic problem that requires a year’s worth of subject knowledge and skills, touching upon essential learning from at least four different courses. All of this while remembering, of course, that the problem-solvers are Grade 7 and 8 students - not yet ready to take on the complex problems that actually do require this level of integration. “Please draw upon your understanding of science, math, social studies and English to solve the problems in the Middle East.”

As teachers, it is causing us to reflect upon the curriculum in our own individual subjects in a new way. We are asking ourselves questions such as “If it is difficult to find a place for a particular concept or skill within a real-world, integrated project, how essential is it to begin with?”.

As we reach the final stretch, we are excited to see these culminating projects in action.This first year of Grade 7 and 8 projects have certainly be making all of us, teachers and student alike, think and reflect in new directions.

Samantha Moser
Grade 8 Science Teacher

The Biology Learning Cycle & Blended Learning Tools Create Student-Centred Learning Experiences

The Biology team continued to apply consistent learning cycles and blended learning throughout the final two units: Physiology, and Evolution.

In Evolution, the learning cycle has provided strong opportunities to reinforce the patterns that lead to natural selection. Our starters, called “Questions of the Day”, are focused on reviewing content from the previous lesson to help reinforce students’ understanding of evolution. This particular strategy was also used to help students prepare for their final exams.

The Learning Cycle: Making Dry Content Engaging

A particularly challenging lesson for many students in previous years was understanding the value of evidence for evolution. It is a lesson that contains a lot of content, and can be quite dry at times. This year, the Biology team utilized the learning cycle model to reinforce the content in an engaging way. 

The learning cycle has put learning into the hands of students. They use inquiry and act like scientists to develop concepts.

The students entered the classroom and their “Question of the Day” prompt was to put a series of unknown fossil images in order, as a team of 2-3. There were no other instructions provided and students needed to get their work checked after each attempt, until discovering that ancestral whales evolved from terrestrial ancestors.

Students then deepened their exploration of whale evolution by determining which type of ungulate a whale was most closely related to. They analyzed more fossil evidence, by comparing the ankle bones of different species, and then compared different sections of DNA to create a phylogenetic tree. Students that were unable to participate in the in-class activity completed an online simulation that echoed the activities done in class. Our students were able to act as detectives and come to the same conclusions as evolutionary biologists, using DNA analysis, fossil records, and physical characteristics.

Then, we debriefed and explained the content so students could check their understanding of material, and watched a short video describing the evolutionary history of a whale. Finally, students completed an exit card to check their learning before next class.

Looking forward, after successfully using this learning cycle template for the Grade 11U Biology course, we are excited to use a similar lens on the Grade 12 Biology course to expand our resources for delivering a very content-heavy curriculum using a student-centred approach.

Vanessa Floras & Nancy Clarke
Science Teachers

Canadian History Through Interest!

Streamed field trips were key in
supporting this interest-based approach
to studying World War Two.

Interest-based learning is a potent factor in enhancing students’ individual experience during their secondary and postsecondary school careers. The Grade 10 Canadian history course has been an excellent avenue for students to experience the way that they learn and engage with their history and Canadian identity this year.

Through the use of historical thinking skills, including historical significance, historical perspective, continuity and change, ethical dimensions and primary sources, there are limitless ways that students can approach history’s events, people and places. Most recently, while studying Canada’s role in World War Two, students were able to choose specific topics to help gear content towards students’ interests. To further individualize experiences, students in each of the streamed topics (Living History, Holocaust or Technology) were able to identify specific events to which they could connect in order to develop a broader understanding of the Second World War.

This method led to several important observations for teachers. Students showed higher levels of:

1. Engagement, motivation and accountability;
2. Understanding of the content; and
3. Perseverance towards learning skills.

I would like to write briefly about the last point above. It was my experience that through students’ increased level of interest, teachers were able to challenge students to persevere and develop a number of academic skills.

• Students persevered through a critical analysis of primary and secondary documents. They challenged themselves to research, find and analyze primary historical sources which gave very specific accounts of perspective within each of the events being studied, and to think critically about how these particular stories fit into the global picture of World War Two. 
• Students in the technology stream were able to choose various pieces of technology and determine how each individual piece of technology impacted the war overall. They chose items like the enigma machine, Alan Turing’s computer, the Spitfire, the Lancaster bomber and the Sherman tank, among others. 

While studying individual topics, students challenged themselves to:

• Practice research skills more rigorously;
• Write reports more thoroughly;
• Organize their ideas more effectively; and
• Present their findings verbally with increased confidence. 

Teachers agreed that there were some exceptional pieces of work and the consensus is that interest-based learning created a richer environment for students to grow.

What did students think about the unit? See some of the feedback below.

“I found it easy to find primary documents.  I like using the historical concepts of thinking because I think it takes your ideas out of your head and makes you put them on paper.”

“I enjoyed being able to explore a path I was interested in and not just what the teacher was teaching. I enjoyed going on a personalized field trip to a place suited to our unit path. I liked how all the classes learned the same thing, although all in different paths."

“I think that I was definitely able to pursue some of my own interests. Through the project, I was able to research a relative. This gave me the chance to know more about my family history."

“I think that the historical concepts helped me focus on my research and thoughts because they gave me a sort of guideline that helped me find more research."

“I think that being able to choose which subject I was going to study made me much more interested. I chose that subject because it was something I wanted to learn more about.”

There were some very good observations made by teachers and some excellent experiences had by students. Moving forward, teachers will be collaborating on how to enrich this unit of study further.

Anthony Costa
History Teacher, Health & Physical Education Subject Team Leader