Margaret Macintyre Latta, project director, and Rhonda Draper from School District 23
A UBC researcher, working alongside students and educators, will be conducting a multi-year project aimed at inspiring creative and critical student thinking, thanks to a federal partnership development grant.
Project director Margaret Macintyre Latta, a professor in the Faculty of Education at UBC’s Okanagan campus, received $160,000 in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
“This funding will help support a three-year research project that gets inside teaching, and seeks ways to draw students into the depth and complexity of learning across all subject matter,” explains Macintyre Latta. “It will allow all involved to learn from one another, enlarging and deepening understanding of Canadian history.”
Macintyre Latta will collaborate with the Central Okanagan School District, the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and research expertise from UBC. In year-one, a large-scale arts experience will celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017. The arts experience will serve as a medium for increasing awareness of Indigenous histories as well as migrating groups’ histories from all over the world.
In year-two, the project will highlight how creative and critical thinking are important toward fostering learning connections that extend across all disciplines and interests.
During this multi-year project, Macintyre Latta will work with staff and students at École Glenmore Elementary School.
“Our school is very fortunate to be in partnership for the next three years with UBC Okanagan as we transform our pedagogy in a collaborative way with our teachers, university team, parents and students,” says Wendy Briggs, Principal of École Glenmore. “We look forward to the learning opportunities that the SSHRC grant provides.”
This September marks the first year that the redesigned curriculum is being fully implemented in schools for students Kindergarten to Grade 9.
“Critical thinking necessitates learning space and time to raise questions and learn from oneanother, while encouraging students and teachers to consider and create new understandings,” says Macintyre Latta.