A Proud Part of Grande Yellowhead Public School Division

Learning Principles

  1. Learning is purposeful and contextual.
    Therefore, students will be guided to see the purpose in what they are asked to learn. Learning will be framed by relevant questions, meaningful challenges and authentic applications.
  2. Experts organize or chunk their knowledge around transferable core concepts (“big ideas”) that guide their thinking about the domain and help integrate new knowledge.
    Therefore, content instruction is framed in terms of enduring understandings and transferable processes, not as discrete facts and skills.
  3. Different types of thinking (such as classification and categorization, inferential reasoning, analysis, synthesis, and metacognition) guide and enhance learning.
    Therefore, learning events engage students in complex thinking and deepen their learning. Keep in mind different types of multi-level thinking during the planning process (reference Bloom’s Taxonomy)
  4. Learners reveal and demonstrate their understanding when they can apply, transfer, and adapt their learning to new and novel situations and problems.
    Therefore, teachers plan, teach and assess for transfer and provide students with multiple opportunities to apply their learning in meaningful and varied contexts. Teachers will use school developed common assessments that identify transfer of knowledge and skills.
  5. New learning is built on prior knowledge. Learners use their experiences and background knowledge to actively construct meaning about themselves and the world around them.
    Therefore, students must:
    • Have opportunities to share/show what they already know.
    • Be helped to actively connect new information and ideas to what they already know.
    • Have opportunities to share what they have learned.
  6. Learning is social.
    Therefore, teachers will provide a balance of opportunities for interactive and mixed grade level learning in a supportive environment.
  7. Attitudes and values mediate learning by filtering experiences and perceptions.
    Therefore, without judgment, teachers will guide students in forming their attitudes and values explicit and understand how they influence learning.
  8. Learning is nonlinear; it develops and deepens over time.
    Therefore students will review basic outcomes in order to develop deeper understanding.
  9. Feedback enhances learning and performance.
    Therefore, ongoing assessments will provide learners with regular, timely and user friendly feedback. Learners will be provided with the opportunity to use feedback to practice, retry, rethink and revise.
  10. Effectively accommodating a learner’s preferred learning style, prior knowledge, and interests enhances learning.
    Therefore, teachers will pre-assess for readiness, interest and learning style using common assessments throughout the school to provide continuity that leads to differentiated instruction.