Attending Alberta Education’s annual Speak Out conference was a natural “next-step” for some of the students who had attended the CBE’s Mega End Symposium. Read More
A number of Symposium delegates had expressed concerns over Diploma exams and curriculum – areas of education falling under provincial jurisdiction. Students commented on their dissatisfaction with what they perceived as a heavy weighting on Diploma exams (50% of a student’s final course mark) along with what they felt was curriculum’s lack of relevance to student lives outside of school. Students were anxious to express their opinions on these matters, and so a delegation of Calgary Board of Education students and teachers headed for Edmonton to share educational experiences and opinions with peers from across the province.
Alberta Education’s Speak Out Conference is part of a broader initiative of gathering student voice to guide government in strengthening our education system. Read More
Through this initiative, students are encouraged to Speak Out in a variety of ways. They are given opportunities to voice their opinions and engage in on-line discussions on the Speak Out website, hold Speak Out sessions in their individual schools, attend the annual Speak Out Conference, and/or apply for a position on the Minister’s Advisory Council. For more information on this initiative, click here
The Alberta Government demonstrated it’s commitment to hearing student voice by having the Education Minister for Alberta, the Honourable David Hancock, welcome conference delegates to the Speak Out Conference on Friday, May 14, 2010. Students and teachers were thanked for giving up their weekends to discuss educational issues; providing constructive feedback to the ministry on their experiences in our provincial education system.
Hear an excerpt of the Minister’s opening remarks
The conference focused on student leadership by encouraging students to "Go First" Read More
The conference key note speaker, Keith Hawkins, set the tone for the remainder of the weekend in his welcoming address entitled, “Go First”. Going first could mean anything from being the first person to say hello, the first to smile at someone new, or the first to ask a question. Keith suggested that “firsts” are important steps in building trusting relationships, where one can feel free to speak frankly. He urged each delegate to “Go First” and use the conference opportunity to “Speak Out’ and let government officials hear about their experiences in, and opinions on, Alberta’s education system. He encouraged all conference delegates to connect with others and use the weekend to develop new friendships, make new connections and help the provincial government build a stronger education system for Albertans.
Speak Out Alberta Student Engagement Initiative is a program to motivate students to have their opinions and ideas heard about the education system. Speak Out conference was an opportunity for me to discuss topics regarding education with other students in Alberta from a diversity of cultural and academic backgrounds. The forum discussions were general but it gave me further insight to the differences of education within the province and illustrated the similarities of problems that students faced. The highlight of the conference were the speeches given by the key note speaker, Keith Hawkins, because it was inspirational to me to have a speaker who believes and wants students to have a voice and an opportunity to speak out. (CBE Student Comment)
The cool thing about the conference though was that it wasn’t just about voicing our opinions and views to the government, but also about meeting new people, and having fun! I know I sure did!! (excerpt from a student’s blog – to read his entire blog go to: http://davidcloutier.com/2010/05/alberta-speak-out-conference-2010/)
CBE’s Mega End Symposia 2010
Giving students an opportunity to provide school administrators with a verbal report card on their school experiences while collecting evidence of progress towards the Mega End is the goal of the Mega End Symposia. Read More
The first Calgary Board of Education (CBE) Mega End Symposium was held in April of 2009 with approximately 50 students from 7 city high schools attending. This year, the event was significantly expanded to allow for the participation of representatives from all 24 CBE high school settings. Approximately 170 current and former CBE high school students came together during the evenings of March 9 and 10, 2010, to share their opinions about, and experiences in, our school system. Many students were also interested in providing recommendations for the future.
The Symposia are all about students. Students are given an opportunity to discuss their school experiences with peers in groups led by trained student facilitators. Even the catering for dinner was provided by students (thank you, students from Lord Beaverbrook). The only adults allowed in the discussion groups were CBE staff members assigned to record the conversations. Students were uninhibited in their comments and felt free to speak candidly about their CBE experiences.
Current students were asked to respond to questions related to personalization of learning and the ways in which they had been assisted or encouraged within the CBE to explore their talents and interests, working towards their goals.
Former students provided feedback about the ways in which their CBE experiences had prepared them to function effectively in life, work and continued learning. Both current and former students were asked to provide suggestions on how the CBE might better support students in reaching these outcomes.
The following summaries capture the main themes that emerged from the Symposia discussions.
Key points made throughout the discussions have been summarized in a 15 minute video Click Here
Relationships with Teachers are a Key to Success
Of particular importance to students were relationships with teachers who knew them as individuals and recognised their unique learning styles, needs and interests. They emphasized the importance of having teachers who genuinely liked young people and had a passion for and deep understanding of their subject areas. Read More
The relationship between teachers and students really is pivotal. We’ve had teachers who were enthusiastic and engaged about their job and make us want to learn as much as they want to teach.
Interest in students and enthusiasm were the most important things about teachers…Teachers that handed out evaluations and asked “How am I doing as a teacher?” ended up being the best teachers any of us had.
A recurring comment amongst students was how much they valued a teacher’s willingness and skill in offering a variety of approaches to learning.
We want to be accepted for who we are as learners because we’re all encouraged to find out who we are as learners but nobody’s really concerned about how we can grow and expand, and it’s really you learn this way or you can find somewhere else to do it. Don’t encourage us to be different learners if you’re not going to accept it.
Students want their teachers to be easily accessible, and so class size was a concern. They reported that smaller classes provided better opportunities for teachers to give meaningful feedback and also gave students a chance to participate and support one another. Students were also appreciative of opportunities to interact with a teacher one on one. The following is one description of a student’s reflections in a large class:
A lot of students are feeling that they are just a number and teachers don’t really know them and sometimes that makes it hard for you to pass a class if the teacher doesn’t know who you are or what your life is like or where you come from.
Students offered high praise for teachers who demonstrated flexibility and understanding by considering student commitments both in and outside of school.
We need somebody to understand that things do go wrong outside of school, things aren’t always about school. We have families, we have jobs, we need you to understand when we have had a hard day and we just need to talk to somebody and be like, “That’s fine you didn’t get that science homework in. You can do it next week.”
Student Choice
Choice in learning was another key issue for students. Students appreciated opportunities to choose the schools they wished to attend and the courses they wished to take. Many applauded the CBE for the wide variety of course options. A number of students, however, commented on the lack of information they felt they had been provided on the availability of those courses. Students expressed a desire to meet more often with guidance counsellors: Read More
We need more guidance counsellors and we need more post-secondary information.
Many students also suggested that if they had chosen a career path, they should be given the opportunity to match their course selections to that path. Students felt that preparation courses for particular careers should be made available in high school.
There should be more specialised paths that you can take, so if you want to take something in university but you’re not quite sure how to get there through high school, maybe have an outline or something of that sort so you can sort of know your way instead of reaching Grade 12 and then being like, “I should have done a Math 10 Pure course and now I can’t get in.”
A number of former students commented that their high school experience had placed too much focus on university preparation to the exclusion of other options:
We find a lot of university fairs and information about university is available…There should be more job fairs and work fairs that are more publicly known just because the knowledge about universities, there’s a lot of that, but not for people who don’t want to go on to university and want to pursue a work base, just to show there are more options.
Connect Learning to Life
Students want curriculum and content to be relevant and current with learning easily applied to daily life. They again stressed the importance of choice in learning, particularly the availability of options such as the fine and performing arts, athletics and sports medicine. CALM courses were a focus of particular concern. Students felt the material covered is important, however, the learning should be more practical and hands-on. Read More
CALM should have more hands-on experience in the work force so people can learn a bit more what they want to do outside high school or what they want to do in post secondary.
Students want schools to better reflect real life by celebrating a diverse set of skills and accomplishments rather than just focusing on athletics or academics. Clubs, sports and extra curricular activities have the potential to provide a broad range of experiences and a greater sense of belonging, but these sorts of opportunities were not always well-communicated. Ineffective communication also meant that important information about graduation, bursaries and scholarships was often missed.
The school environment really plays a huge role in the students’ learning, be it the student life, the actual student body or the physical building, and it was really key to student success.
We liked all the different clubs, but we did point out that most of them aren’t advertised in school and so not many people got to participate in them since they don’t hear about them.
There was concern that tests do not provide a good reflection of learning. Of particular concern were Provincial Diploma exams, as students expressed dissatisfaction with the high weighting of the exam grade compared to class work (50%):
A lot of students have test anxiety and…to solely evaluate us on diploma exams might not be an accurate representation of what we actually know as students.
Students were dismayed with some teachers’ use of D2L.
D2L’s pretty awesome…but D2L isn’t your teacher…It is a teacher aid. Avoid overuse of D2L. It’s hard to do an in-class course online.
Student Voice
Students clearly want to be heard and they recognized leadership opportunities and student council, particularly student-run councils, as avenues for student voice.
Leadership has helped many students get involved, get out of their box, get their voice heard.
Student run projects were often successful if the students were motivated and successful in the school, rather than teachers coming up with activities that need to happen.
At the end of the Symposia, students expressed appreciation for the opportunity to provide feedback to the Board and administration:
It’s our duty as citizens to be able to step forward and say, “This is what we need to make our education positive and more meaningful for us.”
To view a full-length version of the Symposia video Click Here
