[MUSIC] Welcome to lecture number two, as we look more deeply at some examples of innovative environments from around the world. We're going to be taking a look at some case studies, and again, invite you to think about the application to your own setting. Does any of this make sense? Is there one idea from this that you can apply? What would you be curious about learning more about? What do you think the thinking behind the development of these new approaches in these different countries were? We want you to be thinking about how these schools are taking new conceptions of time, space, pedagogy, relationships and connections in response to real issues. So, in each of these settings, the teachers and the principals and head-teachers have taken a look at what's going on for their learners, think back to the scanning process, and new forms have emerged as a result. So, let's start in Portugal. The key learning principle from the work that we introduced earlier, this is around motivation and emotion, and social and cooperative nature of learning. In Portugal, an under-served population, where the children of travelling families, in many cases these children attended up to 40 schools per year and never completed. It was rare for a child from a travelling family to actually make it to a secondary school. And what they did was develop what was called Escola Móvel. And, instead of having the children move from school to school, they established a centre where the children came to the centre, four times a year, met with the teachers in a residential setting, worked online in between. And so, it was the combination of use of technology, of connection with the teacher, of forming a community that at least was consistent four times a year, that showed very promising results. And we've been taking that idea in a very different setting in British Columbia, thinking about how we can make online learning much more a sense of community. So, Escola Móvel from Portugal. The next, also in the area of social and cooperative learning, comes from the connected classroom, and this is a group of three small primary schools, or elementary schools, in the interior of British Columbia, where there was only one teacher teaching at the intermediate level, so grade five, six, seven, in each of the three schools. The teachers were isolated, the learners were isolated, and more important, when they went to secondary school, the young people didn't get along with each other. There was some really challenging relationships. So, the teachers thought, what could we do differently? So, through the use of technology, now the three schools are linked at least an hour everyday, and the teachers are teaching tto their strength and also the learners, the young people, are participating through inquiry and sharing what they're doing in their own classrooms. In addition to what they do, it's not just online, it's very much that sense of community, that three times a year, the individual schools organise a learning fair and a learning set of opportunities and the other schools travel to them, sometimes over distances of 300 kilometres between the communities. What they're seeing is that the teachers are less isolated, they're enjoying the collaboration, they're planning together on a regular basis, and the relationships amongst the young people in those communities is much more positive. Another example comes from Australia, and this is the Australian Science and Mathematics School that is attached to Flinders University. This is kind of an exciting program because it's blurring the transition from secondary school to post secondary school, with a real focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And what we have found is that our teachers are able to look at this particular school in Australia and say how can we apply that in our own setting? We may not have the proximity to a University but can we take this idea and apply it differently? So, we encourage you to take a look at that one. Another one that we have found quite exciting and really interesting is from Finland, and this is the Fiskars Elementary School. In all of our communities, anywhere we go in the world, there are artists, there are artisans, and there are craftspeople. And our question is, to what extent are they actually connected to the school? In Fiskars, what they've done is they've brought the artists and the artisans into the school. On a six year rotating basis, every child in the school has the opportunity to participate in music, in dance, drama, handicrafts, visual arts, working with a community member. They also participate in working at the local museum and getting a much deeper sense of what it is that their community has to offer, and as a result, are making much more positive contributions to their community. So, it's that whole notion of building horizontal connections and bringing the community into the school. Another one that is connected to the notion of the right degree of challenge and hard work for learners comes from northern British Columbia. This is the Enerplex Learning Center in Fort Saint John. This is a very interesting case because the community was booming, and there was an opportunity to build a new secondary school. The community through an appreciative inquiry process came together and said, we don't want a new school, we want a new way of learning. And for the last two years, secondary students have actually been doing their learning in the skating rink, in the arena that was built for the 2010 Olympics. They arrive first thing in the morning, they go to the gym, they skate, they're on treadmills, they have 45 minutes of really brisk physical activity, then they have a coffee break and then they get to work. It is all problem based learning. There are several big ideas that the learners every term have to show their skills in: media literacy, initiative and self-direction, cross-cultural understandings. You can see the list here on the slide. And the teachers have worked to take apart the curriculum and rebuild it under these project based topic area switches, has been exciting, challenging, and is transforming the learning experiences of the learners in that community. Many, many schools are taking a look at connection with nature, saying that in a lot of urban settings, our children are actually nature deficit deprived. And how do we connect learners by getting them back onto the land. This is a picture of an urban school in downtown Vancouver, serving a very challenging community of learners where they've torn up the pavement, torn up the parking lot, torn up the concrete and they've built a garden, as well as a natural playground. And it's having a profound impact both on the learners and on the community that they serve. Five years ago, when the teachers started to think about this idea, it was prompted when they were serving carrots at lunch, and there wasn't a single child that knew that a carrot actually came out of the ground and not out of a plastic bag. So, now they're really thinking about getting that connection to the land, and helping strengthen the community as a result. And one final example is the, Pickle Project in Delta, also in British Columbia, where each elementary school, now in this district and there's 24 of them, has a farm on the school property, where they grow cucumbers. The secondary students that are partnered with the elementary schools, they can and make pickles. The college that is attached to this community has developed a marketing plan. It is just taking off like gangbusters in our schools, around the world through a network of nature schools is really taking a look at the variety of ways in which kids can be attached to the land, use their hands, learn about all kinds of things in the process, and feel a much deeper connection with nature. And the last one we're going to share is just the importance of connection across generations. This is a picture of a kindergarten class in a small town towards the Alberta border. If you take a close look at this picture, you'll see that there aren't traditional kindergarten furniture in there, there are big children furniture. And there are seniors dotted around the room. This school is actually in a seniors' home. It's in Invermere, B.C. and it's in the Columbia Garden Retirement Center. One day a week, every kindergarten child goes to school at the retirement center. This is now in the third year of operation. At the end of the first year, the kindergarteners refused to be full-time in their elementary school, they wanted to stay for grade one in the seniors' home. Grade two, grade three. This has now spread across Canada, and there is a very large seniors' community organisation that is now partnering with every elementary school in a number of communities. So, that notion of learning across generation is really capturing the imagination of lots of educators, and strengthening both the outcomes for the young learners as well as for the older learners. So, connect, extend, and challenge. We just want to invite you to see-- do you see any connection between what's happening in these innovative learning environments and your own setting? Can you see any that peak your interest? Would you like to more about any of these environments? What would you like to know more about? And what are some of the strengths in your setting? What would we see if we came to your school? Which of the seven learning principles would would we see most definite, and how can you share what you're doing to enrich all of us? Thank you. [MUSIC]
