Pacific Heights »

The Pacific Heights learning community understands the importance of social emotional learning.  We have a multicultural and multilingual from diverse social and economic backgrounds. The staff values and works hard to provide a safe and positive learning environment.  From kindergarten to grade 7 our students become increasingly more self-aware, self-regulated, and are able to make responsible decisions that help with relationship skills.

Our learners enjoy diverse learning activities where they actively participate to problem solve and share ideas. The students at Pacific Heights are curious, observant, great storytellers and risk takers. Our observations and student feedback confirm our students are more focussed and enthusiastic when they are provided with open-ended inquiry/problems and/or provided with tasks that allow for more than one way of solving the problem.

The students at Pacific Heights  are adept at using technology to create, research, and share information.  Our students take the initiative to use a variety of tech tools  to support their learning.  Our students like to  express themselves in a variety of ways and we empower them to do so. Many of our students use a variety of tech tools to create their own games

Our school goal for the last 5 years has been Social Emotional Learning (SEL).  We are seeing the long term benefits to SEL as listed below:

• The zone where optimal learning happens is the green zone. Our students understand being in the green zone allows them to be ready to learn;  the green zone is when students are able to pay attention, communicate effectively,  and ignore distractions. Students refer to our zones of regulation charts in the classroom when they are feeling off balance
•  Students use strategies like taking a run or a walk to calm down and burn off some energy so they can focus
• When teachers ask students what zone they are in , students are able to identify how they are feeling and therefore identify their zone (red, yellow, or green).
• Our students in grades 3 – 7 have at one point or another participated in either Roots of Empathy or Friends for Life. These programs allow our students to learn and apply relationship skills, responsible decision making, and social awareness.   Teachers have observed the improvement over time.

Evidence of our students experiencing optimal learning from collaborative work  with open-ended problems demonstrating engaged and focussed learning are listed below:

• STEM challenges done in groups (primary classes)
• Maker Faire for the last 3 years (whole school)
• PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs (intermediate classes)
• Genius Hour (intermediate classes)
• Inquiry Days and Guided Inquiry (whole school)
• Kindergarten students creating their own play activities

The students at Pacific Heights  are adept at using technology to create, research, and share information.  Our students take the initiative to use a variety of tech tools  to support their learning.  In particular our teachers provide a variety of tech tools for students to create their own games and code as this fosters problem solving and computational thinking skills.

• Me to WE Team uses iMovie to share their messages during school assemblies
• 3D printing to create
• Book Creator is used by all grades to share information
• Maker Faire allows for students to use a variety of tools to create anything the students chooses to (from woodworking to cardboard challenge to science experiments to coding)
• Playing games using the Osmo to help with Math, reading, spelling, and coding
• Creating fun games with technology like the Makey Makey
• Coding programs used on the iPad to tell a story in a game form
• Coding used to design games with the following technology: Sphero, Ozobot,and Dash

We have decided to focus on assessment as our staff inquiry question.  Teachers are collaborating with one of the following questions:

1.   What impact do “WALT”  (We Are Learning To) statements have on student learning in Kindergarten? For example, “We Are Learning To print our names the kindergarten way”.
2. What impact do WALT statements have on student learning when statements are more visible to students?
   • Are students more aware of their understanding?
   • Are students more focussed?
   • Are students more reflective?3.
3. How does the consistent use of learning intentions and criteria affect student learning?  Does it engage student more?
4. What impact do exit slips have on student learning int he subject area of __________?
   • Do exit slips allow students to be more accurate in their self assessment and reflection of learning?
5. How do “I can” statements impact student learning?
   • Are students more motivated
   • Is self-assessment more accurate?
6. What impact do WALT statements with criteria have on student engagement?

Professional Learning Needed:

1. Resources:
   • Adrienne Gear Reading and Writing Power
   • assessment websites
   • assessment books
   • sample of exit slipsPro D
2. Release time to collaborate with colleagues working on the same inquiry question
3. Professional Learning workshops/sessions on assessment

Our plan is to meet as a primary team and intermediate team once a month to share our learning.  During this time each teacher will share instructional strategies and  activities students have been doing related to the inquiry question. Teachers will share student work, reflections, and observations as evidence of learning.  Our colleagues will provide feedback and from there we will tweak/adjust our inquiry as we move forward.

In June we will share our learning stories supported by student work samples.