National Leadership Conference

Opening Ceremony – Councillor Margaret Sault

Opening Panel

MODERATOR: The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

PANEL MEMBERS
The Hon Doug Currie, Past Chair, CMEC & Minister of Education, Early Learning and Culture, PEI
Anne-Marie Lepage, ADM, Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur, Quebec
H. Mark Ramsankar, Chair, Canadian Teachers’ Federation (TBC)
Mojdeh Poul, CEO, 3M Canada
Rob Annan, Let’s Talk Science; Genome Canada
Julie Belanger Rand Europe
Councillor Margaret Sault

Session Overview
The opening session will frame the discussion about the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning in Canada and the role of science learning from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

As a starting point, consider that a child born in 2018 will start primary school in 2023, graduate from high school in 2034, and could potentially finish college or university by 2038. In the year 2067 – when Canada celebrates its bicentennial – that child will be 50 years old, at the peak of their career. Teenagers today will be facing retirement.

Questions that will be addressed as part of this panel include: Are our education systems ready to ensure they can succeed in the technology-intensive world that awaits them? Is what we learn, how we learn and how we teach in schools today equipping the citizens, leaders, employees, innovators and entrepreneurs with the types of skills they need in the mid-21st century? And is there a consensus – across regions, across sectors, and across disciplines – about the direction in which our education systems need to evolve in order to remain among the best in the world?

SESSION SPONSOR

MODERATOR: Rhonda Kimberley-Young

PANEL MEMBERS
Julie Bélanger – Research Leader, RAND Europe
The Honourable Stephen Kakfwi – Advisory Board of the Supreme Court of Canada, Past Premier of Northwest Territories
Malisa Mezenberg – Educator, Science Teachers’ Association of Ontario
Rajiv Jhangiani – Senior Open Education Research & Advocacy Fellow, BCcampus and University Teaching Fellow, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Chris Meyer, Educator, Toronto District School board
Steve Brown, CEO, Nelson

SESSION OVERVIEW
Educators are key for ensuring student success. In an era of rapid change and increasing interest in student-centred learning and differentiated instruction, educators face mounting challenges to support learners. This panel will discuss the critical importance of educators and the support, training and resourcing that they require to implement change in STEM education.

SESSION OVERVIEW
Innovative STEM education requires the engagement of multiple stakeholders: governments, educators, parents, community organizations, the science and technology research community, post-secondary institutions and businesses.Collaboration between community organizations, universities and colleges, museums, science centres, parks, cultural agencies, media outlets, and more can result in the types of experiential and innovative learning opportunities that will inspire learners: From classroom presentations and after school programs to student work placements, tutoring support, professional learning opportunities, and more. They not only serve to expand the number and type of direct science learning opportunities for students and educators, they also help to raise the overall public profile of science knowledge and careers which helps build a more supportive environment for STEM education and further stimulate interest in science learning among students.

In this session panelists will explore the nature and value of the opportunities offered by diverse stakeholders to support education.

PANEL MEMBERS
Marie Wilson – Commissioner, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Imogen Coe – Dean, Faculty of Science, Ryerson University

SESSION OVERVIEW
A successful learning framework places students at the centre and emphasizes the need to include and support students from all backgrounds. There are three recurrent inequities in terms of participation and achievement in STEM education and careers:

• inequities between girls and boys
• socio-economic inequities
• inequities between students from majority and minority cultures

In Canada, Indigenous students are under-represented in STEM-related studies and employment. There is also a gender imbalance with girls more likely to pursue life sciences and boys more likely to pursue physical sciences and engineering. With a focus on students from backgrounds that remain under-represented in STEM disciplines, our speakers will each make short presentations and then participate in a moderated Q&A.

SESSION OVERVIEW
In an era of rapid change, what should Canadian students know and be able to do by the end of secondary school? What competencies should education systems foster? How are expected outcomes of learning changing? Are we moving from “what you know” to “what you know how to do”? What are the implications for curriculum and teaching practices? What’s needed to support competency-based learning? How do we measure competency development (e.g. critical thinking, problem-solving) or assess learning outcomes in these areas? How can these changes be made without compromising foundational competencies (e.g. literacy & numeracy)? How can we integrate experiential learning and interdisciplinary learning into STEM learning?

Covering many of the same issues, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) identifies the fostering of the following six global competencies as a critical goal for Canadian education systems and recently agreed to begin working to develop a pan-Canadian strategy for assessing them.

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship
• Learning to learn/self-awareness and self-direction
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Global citizenship and sustainability

Any attempts to improve STEM learning will need to take into account the roles that global competencies play in education and adapt them to the specific context of STEM learning. From this perspective our panel will explore how STEM learning needs to evolve.

SESSION OVERVIEW
There is growing acceptance of the importance of engaging students in experiential, inquiry-based learning opportunities in STEM education. In the past few years, we have also witnessed a rapid increase in the use of computer and web-based technology in schools along with growing interest in enhancing digital skills among students. For some, digital literacy is seen as a key skill required by employees and citizens in technologically advanced societies; others see computer-related skills (such as coding) as having the more general advantage of enhancing broader problem-solving and critical thinking competencies. Less often discussed is the potential for information and communications technology (ICTs) to support new approaches to teaching (including assessment practices) and new forms of interaction between and among educators and students that can transform the classroom and the educational experience – including approaches that are more student directed, collaborative, creative, and linked interactively to the real-world activities of science and discovery. The addition of ICT brings new opportunities and tensions to discussions about innovative approaches to teaching and learning.This panel will focus discussion on the teaching and learning possibilities offered by new ICTs as well as inherent challenges