Think Responsibly is an innovative online resource developed to help children grow into responsible youth and adults. The purpose of Think Responsibly is to provide distributed learning resources that support The City of Calgary safety educational programming while aligning with CBE End Statements and the Alberta Program of Studies for grades 4-7 students.

Students will explore these important citizenship concepts in an interactive, accessible, flexible and inquiry based online learning environment. It is designed to attend to multiple learning styles by offering a variety of flexible entry and exit points for all learners. Students have an opportunity to share their learning through Think Challenges.

An Innovative Partnership in Learning!

The Think Responsibly resource is the result of an exciting partnership in learning between the Calgary Board of Education, The City of Calgary and the Calgary Police Service.

Students and teachers can utilize the resource in this public forum or in Desire2Learn.

In order to get the most out of this resource, you will require the following specifications on your computer.

PC

• Firefox 3 (or higher), or Internet Explorer 7 (or higher)
• If you are unable to upgrade Internet Explorer or install Firefox on the computer you are using, Click here to download Firefox Portable and the Flash Player plugin here. No installation is required – the downloaded file will unpack into a folder where you can run Firefox directly.
• Adobe Flash Player
• Adobe Reader

Mac

• Firefox 3 (or higher), or Safari
• Adobe Flash Player

Tech Support for Calgary Board of Education Schools

Be sure to consult with your School Technology Support Specialist to have your computers updated with the necessary requirements as described here.

Why Use Desire2Learn?

Desire2Learn (D2L) is a flexible Learning Management System that is only available to Calgary Board of Education teachers.

Advantages of D2L

The D2L version of Think Responsibly enables teachers to:

• customize the release and availability of specific content
• create quizzes and surveys to assess student learning
• create threaded discussions for student inquiry
• manually register students and customize student profiles
• track student login and identify what specific content is being viewed by each student and how often
• post assignments, useful resources or news items

Teachers can access and customize D2L content from any Internet connected computer on either platform!

Calgary Board of Education teachers are welcome to join us for some hands-on exploration time as we explore how to utilize the Think Responsibly resource in the Desire2Learn environment.

To learn more about how to obtain your D2L version or how to access professional learning opportunities about this resource, contact Fiona Kramer at Learning Innovation at fckramer@cbe.ab.ca

Additionally, sessions for other school jurisdictions or educational organizations are also welcome to inquire.

What is inquiry based learning?

Inquiry is an element of all areas in the Alberta Program of Studies where students learn and use skills that may be transferable to daily life outside of their school. Teachers become facilitators of the learning process rather than disseminators of knowledge. Students become problem solvers creating new knowledge and understandings rather than merely restating the same information they researched.

Download a PDF version of Alberta Education's Focus on Inquiry.

Alberta Education has created the Focus on Inquiry document, which was created to reflect changes in curriculum, the way students learn and work, technology integration in classrooms, research findings, and the processes in the world of work. The document represents one approach toward using inquiry based learning in your classroom, and should be modified depending on the needs of students and teachers.

The Focus on Inquiry document outlines a non-linear, systematic process model that involves the following phases:

• planning
• retrieving
• evaluating
• reflection
• processing

Processes of meta-cognition become a major piece of the puzzle of education, where students learn how to learn and evaluate their process and results. As in real life, they will be working with challenges and questions that do not have a definite or easy answer, forcing them to develop and modify a procedure for their search for explanations and solutions for their problem. The development of these types of skills will assist students in dealing with problems in everyday life and prepare them for lifelong learning, further studies, and the future world outside of school.

What does an inquiry based learning classroom look like?

Inquiry based learning within a classroom is really about seeing a transformation take place in the way students learn and work together. The manner in which content is presented, the process students will work through, and how the teacher interacts with students are made meaningful and real for the learners, as compared to presenting information and testing using knowledge questions. An inquiry based classroom encourages:

• authentic problems and explorations within the bounds of the curriculum that have relevance to the real world outside the school walls
• students taking genuine ownership of the learning process
• student curiosity in asking questions that are meaningful to them, thus generating their own enthusiasm and excitement
• student findings to be discussed, interpreted, reflected upon, and deliberated upon
• teachers acting as learners also, where they collaborate right along with the students and interact more often on an individual or small group basis
• teachers facilitate the learning process through discussion, support, guidance and monitoring
• experts from the community and the greater society, such as historians or other social scientists, are involved with the inquiry
• students use ICT to approach or solve a problem in a manner that is better than it could be done without using technology
• evaluation is used as a tool throughout to increase learning, allowing students to create evaluation criteria, set new goals and directions, reflect upon the process, and re-evaluate
• learning may go in a different direction than anticipated at the beginning of the inquiry

The inquiry based learning process

Inquiry based learning is really about seeing a transformation take place in how students learn. There is no one right process that all teachers will use in their classrooms, although most have very similar elements involved. The inquiry based learning process is student-driven using open-ended, broad-based questions of study. It allows students to construct their own understandings through examining, discussing, working on challenging problems and dealing with competing notions and points of view.

Students will observe, discuss, ponder, research, measure, assess, reflect, evaluate, and communicate their new information and understandings to fellow learners, parents, and community members, and experts in the field of study. Inquiry based learning allows students to go beyond a surface examination into a deeper understanding of the issues and significance surrounding a specific topic.

Helpful Websites

• Concept to Classroom: The Inquiry Page

Who can use Think Responsibly?

Students in grades 4 -7 are the intended users of this resource. While many of these issues are addressed already in schools and at home, the online project gives children another venue to learn about responsible behaviour and safety.

How does Think Responsibly fit under Teaming Up! 4 Healthy Learners?

Teaming Up! 4 Healthy Learners is a joint partnership between Alberta Health Services and various departments of the Calgary Board of Education to support schools in accessing and helping school based health teams monitor and assess actions to positively impact student health in 3 targeted areas:

• Physical activity
• Healthy eating
• Positive social behaviours

Think Responsibly is one resource that aligns with this initiative to support schools in the above targeted areas.

For more information on Teaming Up, go to http://projects.cbe.ab.ca/sss/teamingup

How does Think Responsibly connect to Campus Calgary/Open Minds?

Campus Calgary/Open Minds is an innovative curriculum-based program that moves the classroom into the community for an entire week. The experience is a catalyst for learning activities that occur throughout the year. Classroom teachers work closely with community experts to custom design a week that meets individual needs. The program length, the deep thinking about first hand experiences that transcend curricular lines and the time to reflect, transforms learning to its highest levels.

Fire School:

The Calgary Fire Department is committed to making Calgary a healthier, safer, and more vibrant community. This website offers opportunities for teachers and students to explore an essential service that assists in creating a city in which citizens and visitors feel safe and secure.

City Hall School:

City Hall school provides a wealth of opportunities for students and teachers to participate in the public realm, becoming informed and civically engaged citizens.

Examples of study topics include:

• Structures: investigating Calgary’s downtown landscape
• Discover Calgary: a sense of place, identity and belonging
• Social Issues: Who is responsible?
• Waste in our World: What happens in Calgary?

For more information visit: http://ccom.cbe.ab.ca.

Parent and Community Videos

In 2005-06, nine Calgary Board of Education schools piloted the Think Responsibly resource in their classroom. These schools included:

• Glendale Elementary
• Sherwood Community School
• Ethel M. Johnson Elementary
• Roland Michner Elementary
• Senator Patrick Burns Junior High
• William Roper Hull School
• Salvation Arm Children's Village
• Chris Akkerman Elementary
• Catherine Nichols Gunn Elementary
• A special thank you to our pilot schools!

Check out the following videos to explore what teachers, parents and community members think about the Think Responsibly resource: