Author: Sarah Endsley

I believe the purpose of education is to ensure that all students gain access to knowledge, skills, and information that will prepare them to contribute to communities and workplaces. This becomes more challenging as schools accommodate students with increasingly diverse backgrounds and abilities. It is important that as educators we recognize and celebrate these differences. However, it requires us to come up with non-traditional methods of delivering content to students to allow each of them an opportunity to access knowledge in their own way. Inquiry-based learning has allowed me to create a differentiated approach that allows each student to learn at their own pace. I encourage students to make choices in content and assessment methods based on their experiences, values, needs, and strengths. I want my students to assume their share of responsibility for their academic, social and character development. By providing challenging learning experiences involving higher order thinking and critical inquiry, I am able to enhance meaning to my students. My students also address relevant, real world issues in an action-oriented manner, which creates enduring understandings.
Classroom Reflections

Testing out new strategies

Written by Sarah Endsley

This year, I identified one of my challenges being that students are not always utilizing feedback in the most effective of ways. My students shared with me their favourite types of feedback and we worked together to develop a variety of strategies to ensure they were getting the most out of each learning engagement. I […]

Classroom Reflections

Genius Hour

Written by Sarah Endsley

I have made it a part of my practice to do my best to share with students the real-world significance of learning the concepts we cover. I used to believe, that this alone, would be enough to keep students engaged in the course and curious about learning. For example, we recently were learning about isotopes […]