The education ministry recognized the annual Education Week from March 18-25 as a celebration of personalized learning.
Locally, School District 27 (SD 27) superintendent Diane Wright recognized Education Week by providing an oral report to the board with the highlights from her recent visits to schools.
“I provided the trustees the letters I provided to each school after my visit, talking about the work that the schools are involved in for their learning and sense of belonging.”
While the superintendent has previously presented video clips of these visits, she explains this was the written description of some of the “wonderful education things that are happening.”
Wright says she wasn’t aware of any other events or activities going on in the district for Education Week.
In another progression towards personalized learning, rural school districts have an opportunity to participate in a new Growing Innovation project with the ministry and the University of British Columbia (UBC).
A $300,000 research grant allows for 15 rural school districts to be eligible for up to $14,000 to bring forward their innovative ideas and concepts of personalized learning.
SD 27 secretary treasurer Bonnie Roller says the Cariboo-Chilcotin district will likely apply to get involved with the project.
“I believe we are far ahead of some other districts in the sense of our personalized learning, and we would love to share our experience with multi-grade classrooms and our district’s expertise on all the personalized learning subjects.”
Districts selected to be part of this pilot program will be used as case studies to share among other school districts, with UBC’s faculty of education to establish the evaluation criteria.
Roller explains district principal Jerome Beauchamp will investigate the potential for submitting an application and then work together with the district to look at contributing to the project.
This will likely involve sharing the knowledge gained from the district’s distance education and rural secondary programs, as Roller notes staff is “really excited about” their success with those.
