Voices From the Field
Name: Vince Campolongo
Board: Wellington Catholic DSB
Learning Team Facilitator
(Professional Learning Cycle)
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Engaging Boys – A Collaborative Inquiry ProjectChallenges, Responses and Tools
Vince Campolongo
Vice-Principal
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School
Overview of Presentation
2011-12 School Improvement Context
Collaborative Inquiry• A Shift In Thinking• Challenges• Responses • Tools
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2010-11 Literacy Collaborative Inquiry Project
1. Student comprehension needs were assessed through moderated marking of a diagnostic (Plan)
2. Student needs were addressed by explicitly teaching a literacy strategy (Act)
3. Differentiation in the context of using gradual release (Act)
4. Measuring success through artefacts that showed student progress using the strategy (Observe)
2011-12 School Improvement Plan
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2011-12 School Improvement
Inquiry Based
• Professional Learning Cycle guides the process• Purposeful staffing of targeted courses with teachers that were
open minded and/or had experience with professional learning• 10 teachers were chosen • Half of these teachers were involved in collaborative inquiry
devoted to supporting cross-curricular reading comprehension in the previous year
• 1 full day for orientation and 3 half days of facilitated sessions in semester 1
• 4 “vulnerable” students identified in targeted courses and these are used to track progress
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Assessing Student Needs
• A survey (My Opinion Matters) was designed by the group to empower students and to develop lessons that were correlated to self-identified interests, needs and strategies that would promote engagement
• Student need was substantiated from both survey results and teacher observations
• Student work was used as the foundation for focused professional learning conversations
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Moving
From…
• Instructional decisions based on teacher preferences
To…
• Instructional decisions based on student need
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Facilitation Challenges and Response
Challenge• It was common for participants to want to implement a familiar
strategy for the entire class
Response• More emphasis and time on analyzing the diagnostic data and on
creating profiles first to support correlating instructional decisions to need
• Grouping teachers according to common strategies to co-plan and using coaching to support co-planning
• Focus on supporting teachers in creating a maximum of 3 flexible groupings to meet more student needs
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Tools
13Source: Learning For All Draft Document, Ministry of Education, 2011
Moving
From…
• Conversations that describe what was done during the lesson
To…
• Teaching-Learning Connections
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Facilitation Challenges and Response
Challenge• Descriptions of what was done during a lesson created a
superficial focus on the actions of teachers which led to discussions on how to replicate the lesson
Response• Facilitators need to model questions that shift the
conversations from “story telling” to how teaching decisions and actions influence student learning
• There needs to be an expectation that participants use specific artifacts to respond to these questions
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Tools
Moving
From…
• Major Emphasis on
Achieving a SMART goal
To…
• Gathering rich data which can guide teacher adjustments that are most likely to impact on student learning
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Facilitation Challenges and Changes
Challenge• When the SMART goal becomes the major focus, what is lost is
the dialogue that centres around student learning and progress
Response• Student work can come in many forms but the use of
appropriate organizational structures, such as graphic organizers to help students gather, organize, manage and communicate information and ideas can form rich data that visibly shows student learning
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Tools
Still Working On…
• Researching and adopting formal indicators of engagement to be used for assessment
• Incorporating co-teaching to provide more visibility into the classroom environment that supports the teaching-learning dynamic
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[email protected] 836-2170 Ext. 103503
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