1. Knowledge Building Partnership: An Ontario Story
2014 Knowledge Building Summer Institute, Quebec City
August 12, 2014

3. The power of School, University and Government partnerships
SUNG
The power of School, University and Government partnerships
School
University KB
Government

4. Government: Ontario Ministry of Education
Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat (LNS), Student Achievement Division (SAD):
Bruce Shaw Director, Leadership and Implementation Branch, LNS
Elaine Hine Student Achievement Officer, LNS
Denis Maika Consultant to the Ontario Ministry of Education Knowledge Building Project

5. University: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT)
Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT):
Dr. Marlene Scardamalia Director, IKIT
Dr. Monica Resendes Research Coordinator, IKIT

6. Schools: The Three Ontario Principals Associations Leading Student Achievement Project
Ginette Huard LSA Coordinator, l’Association des directions et directions adjointes des écoles franco ontariennes (ADFO)
Mary Cordeiro LSA Coordinator, Catholic Principals’ Council | Ontario (CPCO)
Linda Massey LSA Coordinator, Ontario Principals’ Council (OPC)

7. Student Achievement Division, Ontario Ministry of Education
Ontario’s Story
Student Achievement Division, Ontario Ministry of Education

8. Our “K-12 Journey” for the past 10 years: A Small Number of Ambitious Goals
High levels of student achievement
75% of students with high level of literacy and numeracy skill by age 12
85% of students graduating from high school within 5 years of starting grade 9
Reduced gaps in student achievement
Increased public confidence in education

9. Elementary Outcomes: Achievement Results
150,000 more students at provincial standard
4 key levers for elementary reform:
Improving classroom teaching and learning
Improving school effectiveness
Leadership capacity building
Research and evaluation

10. Levers to successful improvement systems
A small number of ambitious goals
Leadership at all levels
High standards and expectations
Investment in leadership and capacity building related to instruction
Mobilizing data and effective practices as a strategy for improvement (internal/external research)
Intervention in a non-punitive manner
Reducing distractions
Being transparent, relentless and increasingly challenging

11. Achieving Excellence: A Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario
Our renewed goals for education are:
Achieving Excellence
Ensuring Equity
Promoting Well-Being
Enhancing Public Confidence

12. Knowledge Building Principles and Ontario’s Renewed Vision for Education
Real ideas and authentic problems
Improvable ideas
Idea diversity
Rise above
Epistemic agency
Community knowledge, collective responsibility
Democratizing knowledge
Symmetric knowledge advancement
Pervasive knowledge building
Constructive uses of authoritative sources
Knowledge building discourse
Concurrent, embedded, and transformative assessment

13. University: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT)
Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT):
Dr. Marlene Scardamalia Director, IKIT
Dr. Monica Resendes Research Coordinator, IKIT

14. Institute of Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto
Researchers
Graduate students
Programmers / Developers
Visiting scholars
International Network

15. Partnership - Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study
Administration
Teachers
Students
Student-teachers

16. Leading Student Achievement (LSA), Tri-Board projects
Participation in:
LSA webinars
Regional sessions and symposia
School site visits
Meet with teachers & principals in schools
One-time or repeatedly, if more support is requested
Work with regional student achievement officers
Support with Knowledge Building and Knowledge Forum
Provide resources for Knowledge Building; introduce Knowledge Forum; support early experimentation with KB/KF
Engage with students around their experiences (one or two cases)
Interaction with school board research team

17. Goals For The Next Year
How can we better support teachers, students and principals involved in the LSA project?
e.g. — Development of professional learning resources and networks
How can we engage participants as co-designers in teacher/student—researcher—development teams to improve KF?
e.g. — Networks to support addressing user needs, testing tools, refining designs.
What theoretical advances can help inform the adoption and spread of Knowledge Building?
Conceptual models - from Collaborative Inquiry to Knowledge Creation

18. From Inquiry to Knowledge Creation
1 – Simplistic to complex questioning
2 – Single source to explanatory coherence
3 – Teacher-directed to student agency
4 – Individual inquiry to collective responsibility of community knowledge
Etc…

19. Our Story

20. Schools: The Three Ontario Principals Associations Leading Student Achievement Project
Ginette Huard LSA Coordinator, l’Association des directions et directions adjointes des écoles franco ontariennes (ADFO)
Mary Cordeiro LSA Coordinator, Catholic Principals’ Council | Ontario (CPCO)
Linda Massey LSA Coordinator, Ontario Principals’ Council (OPC)

21. Partnership and Leadership
Association des directions et des directions adjointes des écoles franco-ontariennes (ADFO)
The Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario (CPCO)
The Ontario Principals’ Council (OPC)
In partnership with and funded by the Student Achievement Division, Ministry of Education
Supported by Curriculum Services Canada (CSC)
Ontario School System
Districts:
31 English Public
29 English Catholic
4 French Public
8 French Catholic
3,978 elementary and 913 secondary schools
2,031,195 students

22. ADFO, CPCO and OPC Participation
Year 1
Year 9
Districts 22 57
Principals and their schools
925
3,333

23. Leading Student Achievement: Networks for Learning
SCHOOL
Professional Learning Communities
DISTRICT
Principal Learning Teams
INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP
LEADING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP
INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP
PROVINCE
LSA STEERING TEAM
(ADFO, CPCO, OPC, EDU, CSC)

24. Project Research and Evaluation: Dr
Project Research and Evaluation: Dr. Ken Leithwood Professor Emeritus, OISE/UT
“The Leading Student Achievement project is unique among efforts across developed countries, at the present time, in approaching leadership development as directly and extensively as it has.” (Leithwood, 2013)

25. LSA Theory of Action Four Paths of Leadership Influence
on Student Learning

26. Principal Learning Teams (PLTs):
A group of school leaders in a district, usually including at least one system leader, as well, with same purposes as professional learning communities but with a focus on improving their own leadership. PLTs often also help guide district as well as school-level decisions.
Professional Learning Communities (PLCs): a group of teachers and school leaders, often in the same school, who meet together regularly to learn from one another, share their challenges and successes, and to work on improving their instruction.
Collaborative inquiry processes: Such processes may take several different forms (Teaching-Learning Critical Pathways and Professional Learning Cycles are examples) but all include an effort by groups of staff to improve the design of lessons, analyze student work and create meaningful ways of diagnosing and monitoring student learning. These processes are often the content of the work that takes place in PLCs.

27. Northern Districts Pilot
Purpose Moving concept of Knowledge Building to Principal Learning Teams (PLTs)
How Invitational to those interested in exploring this work with colleagues
Supports LSA District Facilitator(s)
Knowledge Forum/Technologies
Ministry and District Resources
Participation in LSA PL Sessions

28. Northern Districts Pilot
Involvement
Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board
Keewatin-Patricia District School Board
Lakehead District School Board
Who
Principals/Vice Principals (Team Leaders/Members)
Teacher Leaders
LSA System Leaders
Next Steps

29. Success Stories and Differentiation
Conseil scolaire catholique franco-nord
Real story in an elementary school
Collaborative Inquiry in literacy for grade 2 to improve students’ reading performance
Collect data to improve reading
Analyse data and make decisions regarding winning strategies to improve reading
Using collaboration as a tool to ensure student success

30. Success Stories and Differentiation (cont’d)
Conseil scolaire catholique franco-nord
Real story in a secondary school
Developing the emotional path in a secondary school to improve student motivation, commitment and the graduation rate
Use strategies that enhance emotional well-being and contribute to strong involvement in school work
As a result, student attendance and graduation rates have improved significantly

31. Partnership with « École en réseau »
Collaboration with Dr Thérèse Lafernière and her team to facilitate the use of KF and the philosophy of KB
Participation in virtual sessions and symposium
Sharing French material with the French school boards of Ontario
To ensure a collaborative relationship between small French schools in Ontario and establish pilot projects to implement KB an KF

32. Development of a KB Community by a District PLT (cont’d)
“Our work has included both cross-curricular and cross-panel development of strategies and supports for teachers to enhance practice centred around asking students to explore deep and meaningful questions connected to curriculum and the world around us.” “Our story features the principal learning team and our lead teacher’s interactions with teacher learning teams connected to Knowledge Building.”

33. Development of a KB Community by a District PLT
Upper Grand District School Board In their own words from: More Real Stories: How LSA Participation Has Improved Leadership, Teaching and Student Achievement (May, 2014) “This story is about the journey that our teams have undertaken to introduce and develop Knowledge Building communities in three secondary schools and one elementary school.”

34. For further information:
LSA Web Network (NING)
(English)
(French)
LSA Website
(English)
(French)
Curriculum Services Canada
(Click on Leading Student Achievement or Diriger la réussite des élèves)

35. Tri-Board Pre-Pilot Project
This project emerged out of collaborative work being done since 2013 between researchers at the Institute for Knowledge, Innovation and Technology (IKIT) at OISE/University of Toronto, Leading Student Achievement, staff in the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat (LNS), and principals/teachers and researchers in several school districts.
The purpose of this collaboration has been to support teacher and principal professional learning relating to the principles of knowledge building (KB) and to introduce Knowledge Forum.

36. Tri-Board Pre-Pilot Project (cont’d)
Activities for educators relating to this work have included:
Face-to-face and webinar learning sessions
Use of Knowledge Forum (KF) knowledge building software
Support for instructional planning and development
These activities took place throughout the academic year, and culminated in a sharing opportunity in May, 2014.

37. What Did This Project Look Like?
Tri-Board Pre-Pilot Project
March – June 2014
3 district school boards
10 elementary schools
2 secondary schools
2 face-to-face sessions
3 webinars for capacity building and sharing of ideas/school support visits/KF support
Ongoing research component (internal and external)

38. What Did We See and Learn?
3 big trends coming out of the work…

39. High Engagement and Excitement
Moving to co-design
Activating Knowledge Building Principles
Activating Knowledge Building Circles
Using Knowledge Forum software…a space where ideas and curiosity live
Sharing thinking and ideas
Improving ideas in a very respectful manner
Contributing to the community knowledge

40. Sharing of Ideas
Students, teachers and administrators using Knowledge Forum in classrooms and in Principal Learning Teams to share and spread thinking and ideas

41. SPREAD Principals influencing… Teachers Students influencing…
Parents
Teachers
Teachers influencing…
Principals

42. Knowledge Building – Inquiry Based Learning Website
Resources
Digital Stories
KB Principles
Case Studies
FAQ
A place for people to share and meet

43. Please Help Us!
Our burning question for you…. What advice can you give us as we move forward with the Tri-Board Project and think about our next steps?