With new Ministry of Education-mandated curriculum being implemented in September, a Nanaimo school district committee helped teachers get up to speed.
The curriculum will focus on flexible learning, with emphasis on the environment and a First Nations perspective and the joint professional learning committee, comprised of district stakeholders, used 10 hours of professional learning time provided by the province, to help with acclimatization.
Laura Tait, district director of instruction and committee co-chairwoman, said a majority of time this year focused on curriculum in-service.
“It’s a very big shift, this curriculum. Initially, the first learning opportunity was really around navigating the aspects of this curriculum,” said Tait. “It used to be quite heavily-laden with prescribed learning outcomes, which was ... the facts, the content. Well the shift has gone more now to processes of learning.
“We needed to give teachers an opportunity just to be acquainted with even how the redesigned curriculum is structured and laid out now. It’s very different because the priorities are different.”
The committee also dealt with core competencies, which Tait said focused on creative thinking, critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills, versus science, social studies and math content. While subjects are still important, the competencies are given more of an equal weight in the new curriculum, said Tait.
“Teachers have always been teaching kids how to communicate, hopefully giving kids the opportunity to be creative, but these are now put under a microscope and we’re actually stating in the curriculum that we need to focus on teaching these skills,” said Tait.
Teachers were also given time and support to “dig into the curriculum” to meet their own needs, to allow time to plan, said Tait. The curriculum is organized so differently that planning is a whole different learning experience for teachers.
The committee is breaking for the summer and will meet again in September.