The Ontario Government released the new grade 9 destreamed curriculum for this school year and I have never been so excited to see a curriculum in my life. You see, I have dedicated so much of my time and energy over the past several years impressing upon teachers the need to embed media literacy, digital citizenship and leadership, information literacy and digital well being into the context of their classes. In a world where technology and social media exist, these are the important skills students need in order to become creative and critical thinkers, collaborators and problem solvers.
These are the big ideas in the curriculum:
In addition, there is an emphasis on transferable skills as defined below (taken directly from the document):
Critical thinking and problem solving: locating, processing, analysing, and interpreting relevant and reliable information to address complex issues and problems, make informed judgements and decisions, and take effective action. With critical thinking skills comes an awareness that solving problems can have a positive impact in the world, and this contributes to achieving one’s potential as a constructive and reflective citizen. Learning is deepened when it occurs in the context of authentic and meaningful real-world experiences.
Innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship: the ability to turn ideas into action in order to meet the needs of a community. These skills include the capacity to develop concepts, ideas, or products for the purpose of contributing innovative solutions to economic, social, and environmental problems. Developing these skills involves a willingness to assume leadership roles, take risks, and engage in independent, unconventional thinking in the context of experimenting, conducting research, and exploring new strategies, techniques, and perspectives. An entrepreneurial mindset understands the importance of building and scaling ideas for sustainable growth.
Self-directed learning: becoming aware of and managing one’s own process of learning. It includes developing dispositions that support motivation, self-regulation, perseverance, adaptability, and resilience. It also calls for a growth mindset – a belief in one’s ability to learn – combined with the use of strategies for planning, reflecting on, and monitoring progress towards one’s goals, and reviewing potential next steps, strategies, and results. Self-reflection and thinking about thinking (metacognition) support lifelong learning, adaptive capacity, well-being, and the ability to transfer learning in an ever-changing world.
Collaboration involves the interplay of the cognitive (thinking and reasoning), interpersonal, and intrapersonal competencies needed to work with others effectively and ethically. These skills deepen as they are applied, with increasing versatility, to co-construct knowledge, meaning, and content with others in diverse situations, both physical and virtual, that involve a variety of roles, groups, and perspectives.
Communication: receiving and expressing meaning (e.g., through reading and writing, viewing and creating, listening and speaking) in different contexts and with different audiences and purposes. Effective communication increasingly involves understanding local and global perspectives and societal and cultural contexts, and using a variety of media appropriately, responsibly, safely, and with a view to creating a positive digital footprint.
Global citizenship and sustainability: understanding diverse world views and perspectives in order to effectively address the various political, environmental, social, and economic issues that are central to living sustainably in today’s interconnected and interdependent world. It also involves acquiring the knowledge, motivation, dispositions, and skills required for engaged citizenship, along with an appreciation of the diversity of people and perspectives in the world. It calls for the ability to envision and work towards a better and more sustainable future for all.
Digital literacy: the ability to solve problems using technology in a safe, legal, and ethically responsible manner. With the ever-expanding role of digitalization and big data in the modern world, digital literacy also means having strong data literacy skills and the ability to engage with emerging technologies. Digitally literate students recognize the rights and responsibilities, as well as the opportunities, that come with living, learning, and working in an interconnected digital world.
The new curriculum seems like a tall order considering that the destreamed grade 9 classroom means that you may have some students in your class reading at a grade 4 level, and others reading at a grade 11 level. You may have students with learning disabilities or behaviour needs. As well, this time in adolescence is one of extreme variance in terms of physical maturity, and cognitive and social development. Successful implementation of any curriculum needs to take into account these learning needs. As a former English teacher, I have reflected on the fact that we had the flexibility to do much of this in the existing curriculum. I wrote about it here, here and here and Social LEADia: Moving Students from Digital Citizenship to Digital Leadership makes the case for expanding our definition of Literacy to reading and writing the world. I am definitely happy to the see that the curriculum explicitly shifts the focus and expands our the definitions of literacy.
I will be working to support the English teachers at my school as well as a few others who have already reached out. As I do this, my focus will be:
Teaching in the Destreamed Classroom
Building Thinking Classrooms. In an effort to support teachers in destreamed classrooms, I co-facilitated professional learning around Peter Liljedhahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms. We actually engaged teachers in the learning and then debriefed the strategy. When co-planning lessons, I am incorporating some of the 14 practices of a thinking classroom. Link here.
Universal design for Learning. How does our planning allow for all students to succeed? For this, I am referring to Katie Novac’s exceptional work around UDL. Start with 10 UDL Observations in the Classroom Katie even shared a UDL chatbot powered by AI with me. Check it out here.
Design Thinking. I have been using the design thinking framework to solve problems for several years now. I am thinking deeply about how might I use this framework to create engaging learning for students?
AI. How might I use and model the use of Artificial Intelligence for both teacher productivity and digital literacy lessons? I am trying Magic School AI for lesson planning and TOME for digital storytelling. For lessons, I am using the Day of AI resources (you need to register) as a starting point.
For many English teachers who primarily focused on literature in these courses, embracing this approach to literacy may feel overwhelming. Here are a few places to start:
Global Student Chat: Our first chat scheduled for October 24th at 1 pm EST is in collaboration with Media Smarts. I invite every grade 9 class in Ontario and the WORLD to join our conversation, to participate, and to extend the conversations in their own classes. Check out our website here. You will be hitting several specific expectations and transferrable skills! Also feel free to check out all of the archived chats here and ask your students which ones they are interested in viewing. Please ask your students which topics they would like us to cover this school year by completing this Google form.
The Student Leadership Playbook. This is a resource I created when I attended the Google Innovator Academy in New York City in 2019. I was attempting to solve the problem: How might we foster student mentorship opportunities when it comes to using technology and social media? It is a place to help students lead and shine online. Check it out here.
The Media Triangle The new curriculum touches upon forms, conventions, techniques, production as well as creation. These are all elements of the Media Triangle which I have been using as a springboard for deconstructing media for decades. Check out the video for teachers, for students and discussion cards.
Social LEADia Resources. As I said before, this bulk of my professional work has centered on all of the ideas shared. You may find a variety of resources useful. Link here.
The Power of CO. Be sure to collaborate with your teacher-librarian or digital literacy consultant for support in these areas. Not only will you be able to tap into their expertise, but having an extra person in the room can be so powerful.
Need more? Please reach out to me. Here is a link to my speaking page.