Thursday 29 October 2015

2School Collaborates with Nureva Inc.

Nureva Inc., an award-winning collaboration-solutions company opened its doors to 5th- and 6th-grade students from Alexander Ferguson School to help them learn about and get hands-on with collaborative technology, such as the Span™ ideation system, to engage in critical thinking, creativity and communication as a group. Students first created their ideas on personal devices, shared them on the panoramic canvas and then actively collaborated with their classmates to group, refine and shape their understanding.

Alexander Ferguson Gr. 5/6 students were investigating their “big idea” during their week at 2School. One group looked at “How does creativity affect change?” and the other looked at “What does it mean to be a Canadian today?”

Nureva is 1 of more than 30 local company’s participating in 2School, which is a Campus Calgary program that has been taking place since 2011. The 2School’s location at the Education Centre in the
Calgary beltline allows teachers and students the unique opportunity to move their classes for one week of the school year to the historical classroom situation in the Dr. Carl Safran Centre. During that time, students visit participating companies, like Nureva, to get real-world experiences to better understand the world around them and apply their knowledge outside the classroom. “Professionals working alongside students in engaging activities support the educational values of collaboration and exploration,” said Trish Hubbard, 2School coordinator at the Calgary Board of Education. “And the experience with Nureva has been transformative as students are able to learn about new technologies, assess them, revise and justify their new understandings.”


2School provides opportunities for teachers and students to uncover curriculum through the unique lens of public education and the role it plays in our democratic society. The historical classroom serves as a base from which student’s explore past, present and future in a dynamic downtown community.



Blog post contributed by Trish Hubbard, 2School coordinator

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Tuesday 27 October 2015

How do we know? An invitation to explore assessment

How do we know? On Tuesday, October 27th a group of 50 Campus Calgary/Open Minds educators came together around this invitation to explore assessment.  Our quest?  To discuss, define and make visible how formative and summative assessment could be tied to a year with Campus Calgary/Open Minds.

We gathered around some challenging questions with student work to delve into assessment conversation. Who wants to grapple with questions we already know the answers to?  We began with some inspiration from a video clip.

Throughout the evening some themes emerged:

• assessment criteria can be flexible and changes as the students begin to take up the work
• student voice is key: how do we gather student voice? Conferencing around journals, class discussions, one-on-one dialogues, journals (written and visual representations), listening to the questions being asked
• authenticity – keeping tasks and learning authentic for students helps them feel a connection in order to understand the relevance
• time – good things take time
• flexibility – responsiveness and generative are characteristics of good design
• WHY – focus should be on “walking in or towards our purpose”
• Who decides? – do our targets align with our assumptions?

Thank you to the CC/OM site coordinators for their planning and effort.

We are grateful to the teachers who came to engage in this topic.  We look forward to continuing the conversation.


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