The B.C. Ministry of Education is launching a new partnership and strategy to help support innovative teaching practices aimed at personalized learning, Education Minister Peter Fassbender announced last week.
The new K-12 Innovation Strategy will help identify ways teachers can move towards the personalized learning called for in the new B.C. curriculum, which is still being shaped by the province.
“At the heart of the strategy is the K-12 Innovation Partnership, which will be a community of practice focussed on bridging the theory and practice of personalized learning,” a press release from the Ministry stated. “The partnership will be composed of identified schools from throughout the province that are interested in developing new approaches.”
Each school selected will be matched with a post-secondary school, which will provide research and evaluation support.
Whether School District No. 46 (SD46) will be selected to take part remains to be seen however, SD46 superintendent Patrick Bocking said the SD46 is already utilizing many innovative approaches.
“For instance, the NEST (Nature Education for Sustainable Todays and Tomorrows) program in Davis Bay works with researchers to measure the affect of the program on students. West Sechelt staff and students work with a different timetable known as the balanced day. Pender Harbour Secondary School is actively considering different curriculum delivery approaches to meet student needs in a very small rural school and our elementary teachers are very focused on honing their teaching skills in a variety of ways to ensure that every child successfully learns to read at grade level,” Bocking said.
“Our Learning Together model for teachers also ensures that teachers are able to be fully trained in a very strong professional model of learning directly related to their daily work. And classroom teachers work very hard to vary their teaching strategies to ensure that every student is able to learn.”
The innovation in SD46 may make it an obvious choice to include in the K-12 Innovation Strategy however a decision won’t be made this month.
In February the Ministry of Education must establish a governance structure and working group of superintendents, principals, vice principals and teachers.
That group will come up with the partnership criteria and work with school districts and post-secondary institutions to select participating schools by April.
