{"id":66615,"date":"2023-01-03T23:04:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T04:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=66615"},"modified":"2023-01-03T23:04:29","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T04:04:29","slug":"student-and-teacher-involvement-in-reforming-schooling-matters-how-montreal-schools-are-tackling-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/student-and-teacher-involvement-in-reforming-schooling-matters-how-montreal-schools-are-tackling-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Student and teacher involvement in reforming schooling matters \u2014 how Montr\u00e9al schools are tackling this"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If you could redesign high school, what might you change? How could the schedule be more flexible? What if teachers worked together as teams? What if groups of students were combined based on interest and given the opportunity to connect learning to their everyday lives?<\/p>\n

Noel Burke, the founder of an educational reform initiative in Qu\u00e9bec called NEXTschool, has been asking these questions for years.<\/p>\n

After working as a teacher, administrator and government official, Burke travelled to innovative high schools in\u00a0New Zealand<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Southern California<\/a>\u00a0and met with educators throughout Canada with the goal of figuring out how he might help empower schools in Qu\u00e9bec to \u201cbetter align with the learning needs of students in the 21st century<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Designed for industrial revolution<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Like most educational institutions across Canada, Qu\u00e9bec English high schools\u00a0retain structures designed for the industrial revolution to support shift work and a culture of management<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today though, the realities of students\u2019 lives have transformed, and schools are slowly adapting to a\u00a0knowledge-based economy<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0unpredictable ecological and social challenges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As part of a\u00a0Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council<\/a>\u00a0funded research project, we belong to a team of researchers from\u00a0McGill\u2019s Department of Integrated Studies in Education<\/a>\u00a0studying educational change.<\/p>\n

Working alongside Burke, we examined new models of education that emphasize learning opportunities that connect to what high school students care about and what they need to know for our future.<\/p>\n

New models for schooling<\/strong><\/h4>\n

These new models often feature\u00a0flexible timetabling<\/a>,\u00a0project-based learning<\/a>,\u00a0co-curricular crediting<\/a>\u00a0where students earn credits for participating in extracurricular activities, and\u00a0learning hubs<\/a>\u00a0that offer small groups of students academic and other holistic supports.<\/p>\n

To date, we have worked alongside teachers from several local Qu\u00e9bec English high schools to consider their creative, context-specific responses to how they\u2019d redesign school. We have also been engaging students in activities to ensure that teachers and administrators know what students really want and need from school.<\/p>\n

Teachers discussed concerns such as replacing homeroom with flexible blocks where students can access academic support and turning campus green spaces into shared instructional areas.
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