Carolyn Durley is a veteran Biology teacher who adopted the Flipped Classroom in the 2011-2012 school year, the same year as Graham Johnson adopted it for Math. They both teach in Okanagan Mission Secondary School in Kelowna , B.C. This paper offers Durley's observations regarding her adoption of Flipped Classroom. She narrates her teaching…

The Flipped Classroom isn't for everyone, but it's been well received by Math and Biology students and their parents at Okanagan Mission Secondary School (OKM) in Kelowna, B.C., and was strongly supported by the OKM principal, Scott Mclean. As teacher Graham Johnson noted in his personal account of his first year using the Flipped Classroom…

High school student Nick Robertson came to Oasis Skateboard Factory (OSF) from a suburban Toronto district. He was surfing the web when he spotted a reference to Oasis Skateboard Factory, an alternative program in the Toronto District School Board. He says his first reaction was "Skateboards in school? It didn't seem possible." He applied, was…

Too much of students' high school experience is impersonal. It leaves them feeling alone, vulnerable, and alienated. Evidence from The Learning Bar's "Tell Them From Me," the widely subscribed Canadian student survey, tells that only half of the students in Canadian high schools find their learning interesting, enjoyable, and relevant and only a…

Many high school students are faced with the dilemma of "what next?" as they go through their final years at school. With new-economy jobs becoming more complex and career paths increasingly convoluted, the decision-making process is no simple task. What do these jobs and careers entail? How does what they are studying in school relate to them? A…

Margie Trovao has taught at Lord Nelson Elementary School in east Vancouver for the past 15 years, but this fall she is also a student in her own classroom. Under an initiative by the Vancouver School Board, Ms. Trovao is being mentored by a tech-savvy teacher, Zhi Su, from another school on how to use iPads and other devices in her split Grade…

This article presents an interview with Jordan Tinney, Deputy Superintendent of Surrey School District, the largest school board in British Columbia. He is responsible for the coordination of educational programs, including technology as it relates to the support of learning. In this interview, he talks about his priorities in integrating…

Two recent peer-reviewed studies support the need to update the traditional school design model that has remained fundamentally unchanged for over a century. In a 2011 study published by the American Educational Research Journal, entitled "Problem-Based Learning in K-12 Education," Clarice Wirkala and Deanna Kuhn document a 200-500 percent…

The refusal by a group of parents in Olds, Alberta, in 2003 to accept a provincial grant to renovate their high school set in motion a remarkable collaboration that spawned an innovative learning campus for an entire community and beyond. The new Olds High School, which opened in 2010, is part of a new Community Learning Campus (CLC), a joint…

At the opening of Olds High School, Principal Tom Christensen held his breath as he watched students inspect the new facilities designed with a new approach to learning in mind. The Alberta school is divided into four so-called "quads," each housing one-quarter of the school's 800 students, with flexible learning spaces to accommodate small or…

In 1999, under federal government legislation, Mi'kmaw communities in Nova Scotia won the right to manage the education of their children for the first time in a century. With support from Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey, an education authority that provides central services, local Mi'kmaw schools deliver language immersion courses, culturally-appropriate…

Using the Flipped Classroom approach, the teacher "flips" the presentation of the material, the lesson, to non-class time by preparing a video that compresses the material and posting it on a website, such as YouTube, which the students can view at home or anywhere they choose. The teacher, in this case a Math teacher, is then free to use…

Since its opening three years ago, Oasis Skateboard Factory (OSF), founded by teacher Craig Morrison, has attracted considerable media exposure and received a Ken Spencer Award from the CEA for its innovative program. OSF is one of three programs offered by Oasis Alternative Secondary School, one of 22 alternative secondary schools of the Toronto…

Seven Oaks Met School, the only high school in Canada that is part of the U.S.-based Big Picture Learning network of innovative schools, graduated its first class this spring. Internships with businesses and institutions in the community are a core element of the Met School experience. Students report on their internship experience, as well as on…

Across the country, with tight budgets and constant pressure to upgrade in the name of "21st century learning," school boards are struggling to put technology in its place. In British Columbia, two boards with different profiles have come to the same conclusion--that effective integration of technology in the classroom requires on-the-ground…