President's Report

by Leslie Andersson (andersson_l@sd36.bc.ca)

Welcome Back to a wonderful school year. We look forward to sharing curriculum ideas and plans for up and coming workshops as we continue to invest in the Whole Child. As educators, we all greatly appreciate the value of ensuring students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged. Children are growing up in a world that is more interconnected and interdependent, and we know the huge impact that educators make on the students we work with. We do it because kids are worth it. [more president's message...]

On the Road to 2010

Developing a Healthy School Community – Part I

by Pepi Kotsalis (kotsalis_p@sd36.bc.ca)

Becoming a Healthy School Community – as outlined by ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) utilizes the Healthy School Report Card Canada tool to analyze a school’s current practices and processes. Outlined below is the experience of Queen Elizabeth Secondary as the school began its journey toward becoming a Healthy School Community. [read more...]

Popular Titles: recommended reading

• The Power of Formative Assessment to Advance Learning
• Personalizing the High School Experience for each Student
• Teaching Reading in the Content Areas
• A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works
• Leadership for Differentiating School and Classrooms

Contact Don Truscott to purchase at: dtruscottconsult@shaw.ca

ASCD on the Whole Child

The current direction in educational practice and policy focuses overwhelmingly on academic achievement. However, academic achievement is but one element of student learning and development and only a part of any complete system of educational accountability. ASCD believes a comprehensive approach to learning recognizes that successful young people are knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, motivated, civically inspired, engaged in the arts, prepared for work and economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond their own borders. [read more...]

Using Blogs in the Classroom

by John Franklin
From Educational Leadership,
February 2005 | Volume 47 | Number 2

Although blogs and wikis may help educators find advice and support outside the classroom, a number of creative teachers have begun finding ways to use them inside the classroom as well.

“I started using blogs in the classroom last year,” says Marsha Ratzel, a technology teacher for the Blue Valley School District in Blue Valley, Kans. “I'm not a writing teacher by tradition, but blogging has had a multiplier effect and really helped our kids. If you can trip the switch inside your students, they'll have a spark that can exponentially turn up the volume on learning." [read more...]

On the Road to 2010

BCASCD Executive

Date TBA - dinner meeting on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland featuring highschool reform, poverty and effect on schools.