April 16th, 2014

April 16, 2014

Today, the Futures Forum Class at Forest Heights Collegiate, on behalf of the WRDSB, received  one of seven  Ken Spencer Awards for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.  The award celebrates the work of educators in the WRDSB who work tirelessly to provide their students with the space to follow their passion and contribute to the development of their own learning pathways. In the process, these learners have become very engaged. Today this award was presented by Dr. Ron Canuel, President of the Canadian Education Association.

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This year’s Ken Spencer Award winning programs leverage teacher expertise beyond their subject areas to provide inquiry-based, real-world learning that takes the classroom outside school walls.  Many of these programs involve regular teacher collaborations that focus on teaching 21st century learning skills.  Each project awarded demonstrates a common commitment to the quality of the relationship between teacher and student.

“Many of these great ideas were built by determined educators willing to push the boundaries of traditional schooling to better engage their students,” says Canadian Education Association (CEA) President and CEO Ron Canuel.  “But the real challenge still remains for school districts to embed this type of disruptive change beyond individual classrooms and schools.”

The Future Forum brings together students, teachers, administrators, central staff, superintendents, community members, trustees and others with a common purpose of improving learning and instruction across the Waterloo Region District School Board.  It offers encouraging evidence of innovation that can result in sustainable, improved instruction and learning that is inquiry-based, increases achievement results and is relevant to the world in which students are preparing to live, work and succeed.  It has been carefully developed and assessed over time, and has documented conditions for scaling similar approaches to improved learning and instruction across the system.

The Ken Spencer Award for Innovation and Teaching and Learning was established with the generous contribution of Dr. Ken Spencer to recognize and publicize innovative work that is sustainable and has the potential of being taken up by others; to encourage a focus on transformative change in schools; and to provide a profile for classroom innovation within school districts, schools and the media.