Tag Archives: core competencies

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Incorporating the First People’s Principles of Learning

The First People’s Principles of Learning (FPPL) “describes a set of learning principles specific to First Peoples. These were articulated by Indigenous Elders, scholars and knowledge keepers to guide the development of the curriculum and teaching of the the English First Peoples course created by the BC Ministry of Education and First Nations Education Steering Committee in 2006/2007.” (FNESC website)

Classroom Posters are available for download

Explore a few opportunities! 

Jo Chrona explains that “an inherent interconnectedness exists between all the principles. While they are described discretely, they operate in concert with each other in a robust and healthy learning environment and education system.” 

Teacher Disposition  

Chrona suggests that incorporating the FPPL has as much to do with an educator’s philosophy and disposition as it has to do with curricular content. It is about much more than hanging up a poster!

Some of us will see our own values already reflected in the FPPL, and others of us will be challenged by them. Look closely at the FPPL and think about where you see them in your own life.  

  • When do you make time for your own elders, grandparents and mentors? How do you use their guidance to understand the world?  
  • How do you develop quality relationships with the people in your life so that you have a strong foundation to withstand conflict and stress? 

Now how do those values help you manage your class culture?   

Connections to Core Competencies  

Poster: https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/cardev/gr9_found/docs/courage_poster.pdf

In order to thrive, all children need the opportunity to be in schools and communities that cultivate belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. We know about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but do you know about Martin Brokenleg’s  Circle of Courage? In “The Science of Raising Courageous Kids,” Brokenleg and Van Bockern explain this model that integrates Native American philosophies of child-rearing, the heritage of early pioneers in education and youth work, and contemporary resilience research. The Circle of Courage is based in four universal growth needs of all children: belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. 

Instead of a class discussion, consider incorporating a class circle. Talking/sharing/class circles are also a great way to invite relationality into your classroom. Dr. Carolyn Roberts offers an exploration of this in her blogpost: Circle work: Being together as a relation.  

Context and Perspectives

For teachers exploring the FPPL, “It’s not a set of lesson or unit plans” nor “a detailed list of criteria and specific content to match up with grades and/or subject areas.”  

Consider how you can plan your lessons to: 

Resources

The choices you make as a teacher matter. When you use a celebrity as an example, do you look for Indigenous or BIPOC people? Choosing Indigenous authors and poets and musicians to discuss in class gives everyone an opportunity to look for connections to the FPPL. Consider sharing current examples rather than relying solely on historical references so that you highlight Indigenous brilliance (see Carolyn Roberts’ blog post for a few ideas)

A deep understanding of the FPPL reflected in our disposition will guide the decisions we make about what students should learn and how they experience it.

For more subject specific ideas and resources, see these Sandbox Blogposts:

UBC Booklists: 

The UBC Education Library booklists are available for educators and teacher candidates, offering an abundance of resources ranging from picture books to use in the classroom to lesson-planning guides. The library offers multiple booklists regarding Indigenous culture and history. These booklists cover topics such as residential schools, storytelling resources and literature written by Indigenous authors. 

References

Chrona, J. (2024, April 10) Background of FPPL and Current Contexts. https://firstpeoplesprinciplesoflearning.wordpress.com/background-and-current-context/ 

Brokenleg, M., Van Bockern, S. (2003). The Science of Raising Courageous Kids.  https://martinbrokenleg.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/12_1_Brokenleg_Van_Bockern.pdf

adapted from a post by Greta Bartsch, Program Manager (Practicum- Secondary), 2024; editing & contributions by Yvonne Dawydiak, Learning Design Manager, Teacher Education.

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by | May 13, 2026 · 3:07 pm
by | September 4, 2024 · 10:33 am

Developing, interpreting, and accessing student thinking

According to Teaching Works Team (2022, May 9), eliciting students’ thinking involves classroom practices that develop, interpret, and access student thinking, such as questioning, discussions, and assessments with the purpose of identifying students’ prior knowledge, understanding, and misconceptions. It is a pedagogical approach where…

“Teachers pose questions that create space for students to share their thinking about specific academic content. They seek to understand student thinking, including novel points of view, new ideas, ways of thinking, or alternative conceptions. Teachers draw out student thinking through carefully chosen questions and tasks and attend closely to what students do and say. They consider and check alternative interpretations of student ideas and methods. Teachers are attentive to how students might hear their questions and to how students communicate their own thinking. Teachers use what they learn about students to guide instructional decisions and to surface ideas that will benefit other students. By eliciting and interpreting student thinking, the teacher positions students as sense-makers and centers their thinking as valuable” (Teaching Works Team, 2022, May 9).

Why is eliciting student thinking essential?

There are many reasons to teachers invest classroom time to elicit students’ thinking:

  • Value students’ ideas, competencies, and ways of seeing the world, changing the focus from the teacher to the students;
  • Understand students’ connections to previous knowledge, making learning meaningful;
  • support students’ deepen understanding of essential concepts in each subject matter, generating the development of high-level skills;

How can teachers elicit student thinking?

The Teaching Works Team (2022, May 9) suggests some steps teachers can take to develop, interpret, elicit, or assess students’ thinking:

  1. “Formulating and posing questions designed to elicit and probe student thinking, with sensitivity to how students might hear or respond to the questions
  2. Listening to and interpreting student responses
  3. Developing additional questions, prompts, and tasks to probe and unpack what students say”

To help you understand the specific features in each one of the steps of this cycle, you can check in the Teaching Works Team document.

Circular Model with Children at the Center where Teachers formulate questions design to elicit and probe student thinking, pose the questions, listen and interpret responses, develop additional questions and make sense of what students know and can do.

Source: Visual representation of eliciting and interpreting student thinking (Teaching Works Team, 2022, May 9).

Designing effective questions

Making questions to students is one of the most common and powerful pedagogical strategies used by teachers during the process of teaching and learning. Read the blog post “Asking Questions that promote deep learning” to learn more about asking effective questions.

Probing as a formative assessment

Another way that teachers can interpret students’ understanding is through formative assessment probes. Tobey and Arline’s books (2014) give many examples of how teachers can build formative assessment probes to identify misconceptions or prior knowledge that conducted students to develop their current way of thinking about specific contents or concepts in a subject area.

The difference between using assessment probes to evaluate learning and to understand students’ thoughts, is that the latter wants to reveal parts of the learning process and not its final results.  In this sense, the goal is to uncover the connections students have made during their learning. Another feature is that these types of formative assessment probes are designed to show students’ understanding of specific (and in general essential) knowledge of a subject. For example, Tobey and Arline (2014c, p. 5-7) claim that teachers should design assessments that allow uncovering students’ misconceptions about “area” and “volume”.

As a consequence of better understanding students’ thinking, teachers may be able to design new learning experiences to deepen or correct students’ conception at this point. Therefore, teachers may be able to improve the process of teaching and learning and deepen students’ understanding.

What does eliciting students’ thinking look like in different content areas?

The Teaching Works Team (2022, May 9) from the teacher education program of the University of Michigan shares some specific tips and classroom resources for different subjects:

More resources:

The course, Eliciting and interpreting, offered by the University of Michigan as part of their Teaching Works Collection of free and openly accessible resources, shares many classroom videos as examples of how to elicit students’ thinking. The videos discuss classroom situations and show how teachers can use these moments to better understand students’ thinking:

References:

Keeley, P., Eberle, F., & Farrin, L. (2005). Formative Assessment Probes: Uncovering Students’ Ideas in Science. Science Scope, 28(4), 18-21. http://pal.lternet.edu/docs/outreach/educators/education_pedagogy_research/assessment_probes_uncovering_student_ideas.pdf

NSTA (2022, May 9).Using Formative Assessment Probes With Real or Virtual Field Trips. https://www.nsta.org/science-and-children/science-and-children-septemberoctober-2020/using-formative-assessment-probes.

Ok Math Teachers (2022, May 9). Formative Assessment Probes. http://okmathteachers.com/formative-assessment-probes/

Teaching Works (2022, May 9). Eliciting and interpreting. The University of Michigan. https://library.teachingworks.org/curriculum-resources/teaching-practices/eliciting-and-interpreting/

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014a). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, grades k-2. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014b). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, grades 3-8. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014c). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, grades 6-8. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014d). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, high school. SAGE Publications, Ltd.

Guest post by Peer Tutor Ariane Faria dos Santos (Ph.D. EDCP), Aug. 2022.

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by | August 30, 2024 · 11:50 am

Teaching math: competencies over content

Mathematics has been known as one of the subjects that focus on content, and consequently, the procedures to achieve the right answer, rather than on competencies, or in other words, on the understanding of the procedure followed by students. However, these two ways should not be seen as irreconcilable!

As the National Research Council discussed in the book Adding it UP! Helping children learn mathematics, mathematics fluency is achieved through the development of five strands:

  • conceptual understanding: comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations
  • procedural fluency: skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately
  • strategic competence: the ability to formulate, represent, and solve mathematical problems
  • adaptive reasoning: capacity for logical thought, reflection, explanation, and justification
  • productive disposition: the habitual inclination to see mathematics as
    sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s
    own efficacy.

Source: Adding it UP! Helping children learn mathematics

Therefore, both math content and competence are essential to achieve mathematics proficiency. Teaching math through competencies emphasizes how important conceptual understanding is to advance to high-level math. It also shows that content and procedures are used to build up understanding and not as isolated goals in the process of learning math.

The following video discusses some of the benefits of teaching math by focusing on competencies. In the video, the teachers highlight that math competencies allow lessons based on student-centered approaches and differentiation, giving space for students to learn at their own pace through pedagogical strategies.

 

Phil Stringer, in his BCTM Vector article “Deunitization in the Mathematics Classroom,” (pp. 38), suggests how teachers can design lessons based on competencies rather than content. He proposes that teachers should not plan their lessons strictly by dividing what students should learn into content units, such as fractions, multiplication, cardinal numbers, etc. He suggests teachers consider a list of competencies related to each content area and how they interconnect. In this sense, while planning learning goals, teachers can work with more flexibility between competencies and content.

By covering competencies and content, teachers have more flexibility to build learning progressions to support their students. As Phil describes from his experiences, students learn more deeply and tend not to forget the content since it scaffolds and is reviewed throughout the term or academic year rather than just for a short time while a specific content-based unit is been covered.

Regarding assessment, a great way to assess competency is to analyze students’ knowledge and skills in each competency. Competency trackers can be a helpful tool since they allow both teachers and students to map the learning goals already developed and the ones that need more focus.

Identifying specific competencies can build independence and confidence in students and support teachers’ planning. Teachers can use an Excel table or a more sophisticated platform that links students’ progression to real-time assignments.

Resources:

Open School BC and the Delta District develop many detailed resources for teachers to develop the following competencies in math:

Guest post by Peer Mentor Ariane Faria dos Santos (Ph.D. EDCP), Aug. 2024.

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by | July 4, 2024 · 10:57 am

BC Curriculum: Core Competencies

Understanding the Core Competencies

Core competencies of Thinking, Personal and Social, Communication

from: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies

According to the Ministry of Education, there are some essential understandings related to the Core Competencies and how they are connected with the other parts of the BC Curriculum:

  1. “The Core Competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need in order to engage in deep, lifelong learning”
  2. “Along with literacy and numeracy foundations, they are central to British Columbia’s K-12 curriculum and assessment system and directly support students in their growth as educated citizens”
  3. “Students develop Core Competencies when they are engaged in the ‘doing’ – the Curricular Competencies – within a learning area” and, therefore, are an integral part of the curriculum.
  4. Even though the Core Competencies manifest in different ways, they are interconnected and are foundational to all learning.
  5. Core competencies are developed throughout the whole students’ life (before, during, and after school graduation, both inside and outside school settings). For these reasons, schools should not only value and integrate students’ knowledge acquired outside school but also give opportunities to students to learn and/or improve these competencies.

The BC Curriculum has three Core Competencies:

Communication

These are the competencies that students should develop to establish healthier relationships with others. In this sense, students should develop two groups of communication competencies:

    1. Communicating: BC curriculum identifies three facets (skills) that students should develop to active a good communication:
      • Connecting and engaging with others
      • Focusing on intent and purpose
      • Acquiring and presenting information.
    2.  Collaborating: BC curriculum identifies three facets (skills) that students should develop to be able to collaborate with others:
      • Working collectively
      • Supporting group interactions
      • Determining common purposes

Thinking

These are the competencies that students should develop to improve their intellectual development and produce new understandings:

    1. Creative Thinking: BC curriculum identifies three facets (skills) that students should develop:
      1. Creating and innovating
      2. Generating and incubating
      3. Evaluating and developing
    2. Critical Thinking and Reflective Thinking: BC curriculum identifies four facets (skills) that students should develop:
      • Analyzing and critiquing
      • Questioning and investigating
      • Designing and developing
      • Reflecting and assessing

Personal and Social

These are the competencies that students should develop to help them understand their own identity in the world. There are three facets within personal and social:

    1. Personal Awareness and Responsibility
    2. Positive Personal and Cultural Identity
    3. Social Awareness and Responsibility

The BC Curriculum recognizes that Core Competencies are developed inside and outside of school. Consequently, students, teachers, and parents/ guardians have different responsibilities and roles in the process of developing Core Competencies.

To guide students, teachers, and parents/ guardians in understanding how students develop proficiency in the Core Competency, the Ministry of Education has articulated profiles, or levels in the progression of development of each one of the Core Competencies. See an example on the BC government website

How to assess Core Competencies?

Assessment is another big challenge related to the Core Competencies but essential to guarantee that each student is developing them. BC Curriculum suggests that students should self-assess their own Core Competencies, but teachers have an essential role in developing strategies and tools to support students in this task.

Several school districts have published resources to help teachers engage in articulating and helping students self-assess the core competencies:

The Provincial Outreach Program for the Early Years (Popey) has some resources including PPTs with assessment examples  to support teachers implementation in  primary and pre-primary contexts.

Teacher Kerri Hutchinson from Surrey Schools explains and gives many examples of how she has developed and supported her students to self-assess Core Competencies:

Additional resources:

If you are looking for suggestions of how to develop the Core Competencies in your classroom, the UBC Education Library has a Core Competency booklist to support teachers in this work.

References:

Ministry of Education (2022, February 25). BC Curriculum Core Competencies. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies

Guest post by Peer Tutor Ariane Faria dos Santos (Ph.D. EDCP), Feb. 2022.

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by | May 1, 2019 · 6:20 pm

VR Tours & Literacy

NOTE: As of June 2021, Google Tour Creator is being discontinued (and this post and accompanying video resources will be archived/removed)

Have you considered how 360° video, images, Augmented and Virtual Reality might help spark your students’ creativity and, perhaps, engage them in the ‘place’ or setting of a novel? In the past, such technologies were out of reach for the average individual or school… today, smartphones, ipads and laptop computers afford the capacity to create!

In May 2019, I had the pleasure of collaborating, co-planning, and co-teaching with a Grade 5/6 classroom teacher in Surrey to re-imagine how information learned from novel studies could be shared using Virtual Reality. We had a common goal to push the students’ (and our!) boundaries by rethinking the traditional book report and decided to use Google Tour Creator and Google Expeditions. (For some short ‘how to videos’ and links to VR content, visit this post)

To help guide the students we selected some BIG QUESTIONS for them to consider throughout this project:

  1. How do the author’s choose settings and how does this affect the plot of a story?
  2. How can we SELECT SETTINGS and EXPLAIN how they are significant to the novel we are reading?

Here’s how we wanted students to demonstrate their learning:

    • Use Google Tour Creator to find real-world settings that are close to our imagined settings.
    • Explain the significance of the settings by describing the location we selected and why it matters to the story we/they read.
    • Add additional detail to a setting by overlaying points of interest, relevant images, appropriate sound effects or audio, and include a narration of the scene for individuals who are unable to see it (creating accessibility).

Want to try this?

To help our students get started and to help scaffold their learning process we made video tutorials, provided links to additional resources, and a launch button to always bring them back to their tours.

First, we created a website to host everything students would need for this project. It contains tutorial videos and links to creative common images, sound effects, and music to help set the scenes and make them more immersive. You are welcome to use it! NOTE: due to Tour Creator requiring google login, we set up google accounts for each group of students to use so that they were not providing their own personal information. Further, we shared with students the importance of protecting their data and privacy through ‘just in time’ lessons and information. Fore more on protecting student data privacy, visit this blog post. You may require parent consents and/or specific school admin or district permission depending on your school district’s protocols and privacy policies.

We also have shared our resources from this project so that other educators may use this process with their own students. Below are links to each resource with a brief explanation of how and why it was created.

  • Scenes from a Novel AR-VR Unit Overview
    • This overview was co-created and includes inquiry questions to guide the teachers which differ slightly from the inquiry questions for the students.
  • VR Planning Page
    • This was the planning page used by students to capture what they imagined the scenes would look like. We wanted to help students narrow their focus by selecting valuable scenes and sketching them before heading into the vast virtual world.
  • Core Competencies Predictions
    • Students used this page to predict what core competency they would use the most through this project. They then used the sheet to self-reflect at the end of the project and write comments about whether they agreed or disagreed with their prediction.
  • Single-Point-Rubric-VR Tour
    • These were co-created with the class. The teachers introduced ideas and explained the process of using the rubric so that the class could decide on what merited a “passable” project. We also discussed what moved the project into the “extending” territory.
    • We had rich discussions about considering everyone in the class and that the goal was to create an immersive project so we had to decide on objectives that were within reach of every student. Many things were decided democratically where students voted on topics. For example, we decided on what the appropriate amount of scenes should be in a tour by displaying the number on our fingers.
    • Students then used the rubric to self-assess their project a week before submission. They marked down areas that needed improvement and areas where they went beyond expectations, then used this sheet to keep track of what they needed to work on. In the end, they submitted their project with their rubric.

 

We presented our learning journey and that of our students’ at the Surrey Teacher Association Professional Development Day in May 2019. You can view the slides below. We also presented at UBC’s Investigating Our Practices Conference, and the BCTESOL Conference.

*parent permission and informed consent provided

*student permission granted

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by | February 22, 2019 · 12:03 pm

Inspiration Maps

Inspiration is a concept mapping iPad app that allows users to digitally brainstorm ideas.

Brainstorming helps learners (and teachers!) connect their background knowledge to new learning concepts and content. There are many available free and paid applications (browser based, computer based or mobile) to support concept mapping. Mindmup is a free browser based application that allows map co-creation across devices.

We’re highlighting Kidspiration and Inspiration here due to the robust nature of the software and the fact that many Coast Metro/BC school districts have purchased licensing for either the mobile or desktop app. This paid software (free trial versions allow for the creation of a limited number of maps) allows students to make changes, copy ideas, or collaborate with the ease of moving things around on their maps. Students can add links, images, and other digital resources to their map which is great for organizing inquiry or research projects or storyboarding too! The critical thinking involved in making the connections on a map has tremendous learning value (and supports BC’s Core Competencies).

  1. Download the Inspiration Map App (free version/trial from the app store allows a limited number of maps)
  2. Create a map from a blank canvas OR use their templates
    • The free version allows for 5 free creations
    • You can draw, add shapes, font, insert your own photos, add audio, and more
    • Build diagrams, graphic organizers, or take notes in a visual way (aka Sketchnote!)
    • The paid version lets you import templates from the inspiration website
  3. Choose to save it or share it
    • The free version allows mail, print, and save to photos

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by | January 1, 2019 · 9:00 am

TeachBC (FR)

What is it
TeachBC est un référentiel de ressources éducatives libres (REL) y compris des ressources pédagogiques, des plans de cours et des plans d’unités pertinents au programme de la maternelle à la 12e année. Les ressources sont fournies par les enseignant.e.s et généralement par des organisations à but non lucratif qui téléchargent leurs matériels ou fournissent des liens afin que tout le monde puisse le parcourir et le télécharger pour ensuite l’utiliser, l’adapter ou le modifier librement pour sa classe.

 

Why is it relevant

Tous les documents sont fournis par des enseignant.e.s ou des organisations de la Colombie-Britannique qui utilisent le programme d’études de la Colombie-Britannique. Des téléchargements ont été effectués récemment. Teach BC est en train de devenir un lieu incontournable pour les enseignant.e.s de la Colombie-Britannique ! Sur Teach BC, on peut télécharger et partager ses propres ressources (ou des ressources du Creative Commons qui ont été adaptées), contribuant ainsi de manière significative à la profession. On peut partager des liens vers des sites Web utiles, des diapositives, des images, des vidéos, un plan de cours ou un plan d’unité. Les utilisateur.rice.s peuvent ensuite effectuer une recherche dans les ressources par matière, niveau, type de ressource, titre, description, langue, etc.

How to get started

On suggère d’aller explorer Teach BC.  On a le choix de parcourir ou partager ses propres ressources.

Pour partager, il faut :

Savoir que pour modifier ou supprimer ses ressources, il faut contacter directement Teach BC via ce lien pratique !

Video demonstration

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