Building a Strong Foundation

The junior years of elementary school - Grades 3 to 5 - are about continuing to build a strong foundation and consolidating some of the skills - both academic and life - students will need as they look ahead to Middle School.

Grade 5 teacher, Barb Prevedello, and Grade 4 teacher, Suzanne Newell, talked about how they engage their students through problem-solving and shared ways that they ensure their students are able to learn in the best way for them and can be advocates for their own learning.

Learn more about the work of Jo Boaler and the work of Carol Dweck. Learn more about the “power of YET” concept.

You can learn more about academics at the Junior School by visiting our website. You can find Suzanne on Twitter @SuzNewellTeach and Barb @BarbPrevedello. Follow the hashtag #Yorklearns to see education in action.

Written and Produced by Natasha Estey
Audio Editing by Andrew Scott

Transcript

Natasha Estey: 0:02

Hi there, and welcome to Season 2 of YORK Talks, a podcast for families wanting to learn more about how The York School - Toronto's leading co-ed independent school delivering the IB curriculum from JK to Grade 12 - views education. I'm your host, Natasha Estey. This season, join me in conversation with teachers from the Junior, Middle, and Senior Schools about their craft, and get insights into some of the most progressive approaches to education today. Last episode, we learned about how teachers inspire the hearts and minds of our youngest learners. The junior years of elementary school - Grades 3 to 5 - are about continuing to build a strong foundation and consolidating some of the skills- both academic and life - students will need as they look ahead to Middle School. Amazing things happen at The York School during these years such as the introduction of competitive

sports, 1: 1:06

1 Chromebook access and the PYP Exhibition, the celebration of each student's achievement acknowledging their transition from the primary school years to the middle school years. Teachers Barb Prevedello and Suzanne Newell have played a key role in helping students develop strong skills, knowledge, and understanding in literacy, numeracy, critical thinking, research, problem solving, communication and the arts as well as encouraging them to become independent learners who are aware of their own strengths and talents. Barb Prevedello has been at York for almost 18 years. She is teaching Grade 5 this year. Barb is a highly engaged member of her community as a volunteer and board member and an avid outdoorswoman. Suzanne Newell has been at York for 10 years after teaching overseas in countries like New Zealand, England, Hungary, Qatar and Chile. She's an alum of Cohort 21, which Justin Medved and I spoke about in Episode 1. She is teaching Grade 4 this year. Suzanne is known for her innovative and engaging approach to teaching math. Barb, Suzanne, welcome. Thank you for speaking with me today.

Suzanne Newell: 2:21

Thank you for having us.

Barb Prevedello: 2:23

Yeah, thank you, Natasha.

Natasha Estey: 2:25

As I will with all my conversations this season, to begin, I would love to hear about both your journeys to being teachers and IB teachers in particular. And what makes teaching the junior grades- or Grades 3, 4, 5 - your sweet spot, so-to-speak.

Barb Prevedello: 2:42

I can start. I was a camp counsellor. I went to camp as a camper forever and then I was a camp counsellor and everyone said, "Oh my gosh, you should be a teacher because you love camp so much." And I actually avoided being a teacher because I didn't want to have to discipline in the classroom. So I kept away from teaching for many years, and then decided in my 30s that I would go into teaching because everything came back to being a teacher. And so I did my teachers college programme away in Scotland, in Glasgow, and then came back and started supply working at The York School and decided to become a full time employee at The York School. My career at the Junior School has been Grades 2, 3, 4, and 5. And while I really enjoyed teaching Grade 2 when I first started at The York School, I have really felt my energy flourish towards the Grade 5's and I think having them be the oldest within the Junior School, excited for them to move on to the Middle School, I get to have them as leaders of the school and just trying to instil those leadership skills to further develop when they get to the Middle and Senior school. It has been something that I've really enjoyed.

Natasha Estey: 4:02

That's great. Thanks, Barb. Suzanne, what about you? I'd love to hear about your journey to teaching and how that all played out for you.

Suzanne Newell: 4:12

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. And so when I went to university, it was all about getting to Teachers College. But unfortunately, when I graduated, there were no jobs. And so I ended up going overseas to get some experience and then come back and teach in Canada. Well, I started off with a six month contract in New Zealand and ended up being away for 12 years on five different continents. So it was pretty exciting. I think that that experience internationally drew me to the IB programme, and because I wanted to share my understanding of different cultures and different countries and in terms of IB, having some experience with that abroad, I just really loved the inquiry-based nature of the programme. And I liked that the programme focuses on the process and the skills as opposed to the content. So the kids are working with information. They're not memorizing. They're doing problem-solving. And I also really love that the IB encourages children to take action. And that's something that we're always striving to encourage our children to do within our grades.

Natasha Estey: 5:38

Absolutely, yeah. We were talking about that a little bit in our conversation from the last episode. This idea of the action piece is really big in IB. I want to throw this out at both of you and whoever would like to start, but I'm really curious to know who or what inspires you in your work?

Suzanne Newell: 5:59

I'll go first this time, Barb. You mentioned earlier that I like to teach math. And that is indeed the case. I think part of the reason why is because when I was younger, I felt like I wasn't a math person. I started to follow and learn about this woman whose name is Jo Boaler who works at Stanford University. And she talks about having a mathematical mindset, which is based on the work of Carol Dweck. She goes on to say that everyone can be a math person. There's no such thing as being a math person. You either have it or you don't, that just doesn't exist, that everyone can learn math to high levels. And for me, that's a really important message for our students to have, especially in math, but also in any other subject. And so Jo Boaler really inspires me, and the school paid for me to go and see Jo Boaler Stanford three years ago. So I was fortunate enough to see her in person. And that just further inspired me more.

Natasha Estey: 7:12

Maybe we'll get into this a little bit later, but my sense is the the focus of some of the work you're doing as part of the Cohort 21 experience was looking at sort of math mindset stuff, if I'm not mistaken.

Suzanne Newell: 7:23

That's correct. So my project was to gather some information about the mindset of math across the entire school, right from kindergarten to Grade 12. And I was able to see that there were some trends, that students didn't always have a positive attitude about themselves in terms of math, and it provided a springboard for what we can do for our students to ensure that they do have a positive attitude and want to keep going with math beyond the junior grades.

Natasha Estey: 7:57

For sure. Thanks, Suzanne. That's so interesting. And Barb, what about you? Who or what inspires you and your work?

Barb Prevedello: 8:03

I'd like to just add with the Jo Boaler inspiration, one of my favourite parts of her philosophy is, I just don't know this yet. Why the YET word is so important. And we've already tried to instil it in the classroom and and I think through Grade 4 and having Suzanne as a teacher and the Grade 4 team have done a really good job of my students in Grade 5 now saying, I just don't know how to do this yet. And having this growth mindset. To further that, I think the inspiration comes from my students and what they're willing to learn and the excitement for the learning that's going on, whether it's math or looking at the Exhibition, which we look more closely at in Grade 5 as the culminative programme in PYP, to graduate from that programme. The Exhibition is such a great project for the students. And I'm always inspired with how excited they are to find their own research project and to be able to find their own avenue and their way of researching and their way of learning. They just inspire greatness and creativity all around with the exhibition. So I would say the students and my colleagues around me inspire me because people come from all walks of life and all different schools and international schools. And they bring new ideas and new programmes. I know I've been here for 18 years. And it is always good for me to be able to be inspired by other teachers that come from a different schools, to have different ways of teaching, learning, and being creative. So even within the walls of the school, there's lots of inspiration.

Natasha Estey: 9:50

Absolutely.

Suzanne Newell: 9:51

And I'd like to add that Barb also does her share of inspiring other teachers as well. So it doesn't go one way!

Natasha Estey: 9:59

That's actually a great segue into what I wanted to get into next. I wanted to get a better sense of how each of you would describe your approach to teaching. How would you describe your approach, and maybe you've seen it kind of evolve over time too?

Suzanne Newell: 10:17

For me, the most important part is engaging your students. You have to make it fun. And you have to get them invested in whatever you're teaching them. Because if you don't hook them, it's not going to be engaging. So that's first. Secondly, I think it's important to provide engagements that involve real life problems. And for them to see some value in whatever they're working on within the classroom. And finally, I think it's important for me to share with them that they should believe in themselves, and they can do whatever they set their minds to. I believe that positive mindset will take them a long way. And it's something that we talk a lot about in the class.

Natasha Estey: 11:13

Yeah, big time. Barb, how about you?

Barb Prevedello: 11:17

I look at it through the lens of the PYP Approaches to Learning and through communication skills, through research skills, through social skills. It's really important to make sure that the students have all of these skills to be able to go forward. So my approach to teaching sort of lends itself to the Approaches to Learning in that making it collaborative, making it engaging, making it so that they're able to be the teachers and guide themselves through the learning process as well to each other. So I want them to be able to learn from each other, and be able to communicate with each other, and be able to teach each other. I try to instil that in the classroom.

Natasha Estey: 12:07

So if I could have been a fly on the wall in your classroom today, what would I have seen or heard or experienced? And Suzanne, I would like to get you to think about that same question as well.

Barb Prevedello: 12:21

Well, today, if you were a fly on the wall, you would have seen a lot of big numbers. Because we're looking at place value. And in order to teach the place value, we did a lot of investigating and exploring using playing cards and writing on the board about what a big number looks like. And just the inquiry-based learning. I mean, I will be using textbooks and stuff like that but today was a lot about investigating through manipulative tools. I think Suzanne and I would both agree that, especially in math, manipulative tools is the only way to go. And it makes it fun, it makes it engaging, and you can engage all types of learners when you're using tools in the classroom. So that would be my number one approach is making sure that it's engaging, using tools to help to help guide the learning.

Suzanne Newell: 13:23

So in my classroom today, we were doing some collaborative discussion about what makes a healthy media choice. And so we were talking about what types of media there are and what sorts of things they do and whether it's healthy or not healthy. And so for some of the things, there was one about playing video games for six hours on a Saturday, they had to place themselves on a spectrum from really healthy to really unhealthy, and then they had to justify their reason. So as much as possible, I find that the The York School tries to ensure that the students are moving around within their classroom and not just sitting at their desks. And so another thing that you would notice today is that some children are sat at their spot at their desks, some are sitting on some wiggly stools, and some are sitting on some red chairs that sit on the floor that allow them to stretch a little bit more. And I think it's important. I think The York School is really, really good at ensuring that students are learning in the best way for them. So that's something you would see. And I think the other thing that I find really important that happens a lot in the classroom is just getting and receiving feedback. It's really evident in the research how important feedback is to get it from your peers and from your teacher. In a really timely way. We do a lot of that in the classroom day to day.

Natasha Estey: 15:06

Absolutely. And one of the things that I know might not have been today, but recently, Suzanne, you posted a series of photographs looking at how your students were developing their class contract or the class agreement. Maybe you could speak to that just briefly, and how that worked in your classroom?

Suzanne Newell: 15:28

Sure. Well, the school has invested a lot of time and money into a programme called RULER. And it's a programme based out of Yale that focuses on social emotional learning. And one of the tenants of this programme is to create a class charter. Now, often in the past, teachers would create a set of rules that the students should follow in the classroom; it's co-created. But the thing with the RULER Programme is they call it a Class Charter. And what it is is the students list the emotions or the feelings that they want to feel in class. So my kids chose equal, confident, joyful, lively, welcome, calm, motivated, and optimistic. And then once we decided on those eight feelings, then we had to figure out, well, how are we going to feel those feelings? What are we going to do? What are we going to do to ensure that all of us are feeling welcome, or all of us are feeling calm? And so then we listed some ideas for that. This is the first time that I've done it. And I've really enjoyed building the classroom community in that way through a Charter.

Barb Prevedello: 16:50

The beauty of the Charter is you can use it for anything, like if they're having troubles at recess time, you can bring up a Recess Charter. Even looking smaller at a math class, we're just not all able to be engaged in the math class, you could use the Charter for a specific topic or what have you. So I really like the Charter as well in that perspective as you can use it across the board in the whole classroom.

Suzanne Newell: 17:19

I love that idea Barb, using it for different subjects or on the playground. I think that's fantastic.

Barb Prevedello: 17:26

Because bringing out those emotions is so important. And that's what we're focusing on in this 21st Century learning is let's stem from the emotions and work from there, work backwards from there to figure out how we're going to feel those emotions and get in on that.

Natasha Estey: 17:45

That's so interesting. We talked about parents as partners in their children's learning journeys, and whether this idea of creating Home Charters as well and maybe looking at, how do we want to feel at home and almost using some of that same sort of language and approach could be could be interesting. I bet you that we already have some parents that do that.

Suzanne Newell: 18:09

I think that's the goal is to focus on the staff and the students now and then to extend beyond the classroom into the homes so that we're using the same sort of language at home as we are at school.

Natasha Estey: 18:23

Barb, you touched on something, like an interesting point, because this also came up in my last conversation I had in episode#2, and that was around this focus on emotions is really very much like, this wasn't happening even like seven years ago, you know, certainly not 10 years ago. So what does it mean to each of you to be a 21st Century educator? What are some of the things that that includes that are maybe newer now than even they were back when we changed into this 21st Century?

Barb Prevedello: 19:01

Well to further the RULER Programme, there's the Charter, part of it and then we've also moved into - there's four sections of the RULER Programme and the second section is looking at the Mood Meter. And that again is is with a lot of work of Amy Faba, our SEL teacher. She's our Guidance Counsellor. She has instilled this great emotional programme into everybody's classroom, which we're continuing as homeroom teachers and specialist teachers to involve ourselves in this Mood Meter programme where we're feeling our emotions. You can have a high energy and it can graph high energy with pleasantness or low energy and not pleasant or a combination of those two, with the different four different colours of red, blue, green and yellow. To identify these emotions and within those colours are certain buzzwords to go with those colours and emotions. And the the students are engaging themselves. Seven years ago, as you said, and when we were growing up, we never touched on emotions within our school classrooms. So I think this is really helping students engage themselves in relationships with their teachers, with their friends, and to be able to check in with themselves. So they're checking in with the Charter, they're checking in with the Mood Meter, checking in with their learning style, checking in with how they best learn and what is best for them. So they're being advocates for themselves. And I think that's really important in the 21st Century, being advocates for their own learning. It's not something that we were taught, I don't think so. It's nice to see them learning about this. Further that with the morning, mindful moments, engages our students and lets them be more appreciative of how they're feeling in the day.

Suzanne Newell: 21:04

I think because we've gone through such a tumultuous time with COVID and the kids have been here and not, their social development is not what it would have been had we been in school all the time. And so I think understanding their emotions and having that ability to label their emotions is going to be helpful not only for in school, but also in all of their lives.

Natasha Estey: 21:33

It is different these days and it's in a good way.

Barb Prevedello: 21:36

And it feels different for us as teachers too because we're also involved in having mindful moments and engaging in the Mood Meter as well. It's really good to have us check in too, so I I appreciate that part. I like it.

Natasha Estey: 21:50

Mm hmm. I don't know if it was last Halloween or maybe the one before but a bunch of the teachers got together and everyone wore different colour t-shirt from the Mood Meter with the label of the different emotions on it. It really is something that I think has been embraced certainly school wide. And the great news is I'm actually going to be talking to Amy Faba next episode so I will talk to her in a lot more detail about RULER and SEL, you know, social emotional learning, at the Junior School.

Barb Prevedello: 22:22

We better zip it so we don't give it all away!

Natasha Estey: 22:27

But it was really, really interesting to to get a sense of how it plays out in your classrooms, right? Because obviously it's going be different, the ways it plays out in different parts of the school. We've talked a little bit about what it's like to be in your classroom, some of the things that are going on, your approaches to teaching, but I'd also love to hear some examples that maybe you could share about, you know, innovation in your teaching, and especially how you might approach teaching numeracy and literacy and social emotional learning. You talked about manipulatives used a lot in math; it's like an absolute must. But any other examples you might like to share?

Suzanne Newell: 23:06

I think what's really special about The York School is that when we teach something, it's not really teaching, it's facilitating learning. And so we're always pulling things apart, and sort of seeing how they work, just like you would with, I don't know, a toy car or something. So for example, we're learning about how to write a recount. So it's not us on the stage, telling the students what to do, it's us showing them an example of a recount, and pulling it apart and seeing what the features are. And so that might not sound terribly innovative, but it does allow the students to actually figure out for themselves and problem-solve what a recount is. And I think that's a really critical skill going forward to allow them to be more independent. And for me, that's something that we were really good at doing at The York School.

Natasha Estey: 24:11

Yeah, teachers as learners as well.

Barb Prevedello: 24:14

I was going to add to that, the collaboration

Suzanne Newell: 24:14

That's right. piece. Again, if I look back on our school years, you know, it might have been desks in a row. And I mean, besides COVID, having plexiglass in the middle of our tables, we generally have these round tables where we're collaborating with each other at all times. So the classroom looks like we're giving them a task to work together to problem solve. And I think problem-solving is the way of the future. To make every child and person successful in a career is to be able to problem-solve and problem-solve with people. So we're not an island on our own and trying to complete a task on our own, we really want to engage the students in working together to solve these problems. And and like Suzanne said, taking a big concept and breaking it down into little pieces for them to figure out how to put those pieces back together I think is important. We're doing paragraph writing the same way that you were doing. Your writing is is picking apart paragraphs. What's important to them? What do you notice about all of these? What is similar? What is different? And then piecing together your own paragraph yourself and trying to write a paragraph on your own. The other piece I was going to say is, in math, we are focusing our unit on the government. But in math, we're doing a lot of inquiry-based math with numbers and big numbers with the election. So we're combining our government unit and the election with these big numbers of who's voted where and how many people have voted in Canada in 1867 compared to 2021, and pulling apart all those pieces to make sense of place value, and then bigger numbers. So I think The York School school does do a really good job, or the teachers are doing a great job of trying to get that inquiry-based learning really active in the kids.

Natasha Estey: 26:24

Mm hmm. Yeah. And it's also in the world, right? Like, it's that sense of it being like, truly in the world. It's not the sort of abstract, it's like, we're actually looking at a real thing that's really happening right now and applying, you know, that other part to it.

Suzanne Newell: 26:41

The other thing I think it's that is really important to mention is the fact that The York School does such a great job at technology. We have the latest technology in our classrooms, the Chromebooks, headphones, iPads, interactive whiteboards, lots of different things. And the administration does a really good job of making sure that we've got the professional development to allow us to use those in the best way possible in our classrooms, while not over balancing it with always technology, but knowing when to use technology to enhance learning the most. And I think that's something that we do really well.

Barb Prevedello: 27:30

I agree. If we weren't on top of it prior to COVID, we're definitely on top of it after COVID. I'm sure we all remember how uncomfortable we felt March 2020 when we had to go online and figure out Google Meets or whatever. And now it's like secondhand nature and how upskilled we've been. But the support we've had to be upskilled, you know, compared to different schools, they were, you know, the teachers were on their own to figure things out. The people in The York School been so fortunate to have such a great tech team to get us where we are and be comfortable with technology in general.

Natasha Estey: 28:15

Members of that Learning Innovation Technology team are many ways teachers first themselves, you know, Justin Medved, Afzal Shaikh. I mean, they're teachers first as well. So it's coming at it almost from that kind of mindset, with that lens. You mentioned the move to virtual learning the the teaching during a pandemic, and how, you know, you had to upskill very quickly and rapidly in that context. And I know, it was actually a pretty challenging time for teachers on on many different levels, we certainly need to acknowledge that. But there are some silver linings too that have come out of this time. And I'm curious to know, what are some silver linings that you have each discovered or experienced as a teacher over the past year and a half?

Suzanne Newell: 29:07

Well, I think one of the silver linings is the dedication of the staff to make the learning engaging, regardless of the forum was pretty outstanding. I know from just hearing about the things that the other teachers have done during their online teacher teaching. It was first rate. Teachers worked really hard to ensure that their kids stayed engaged and did so right until the last possible day. And so that is a silver lining and we can see that as the children come up to us this year, there aren't any gaps in their learning. They're right where they're supposed to be. That shows a lot of commitment to ensuring their students didn't fall through the cracks with the online learning platform.

Barb Prevedello: 29:56

I would say the silver lining is teachers' and students' resilience to the situation. And we've had to, I don't want to use the word pivot, but everybody's had to rearrange their lives and their way of thinking and their way of learning and their way of communicating. And the resilience for the little kids, even the JKs and SKs, being able to function all day online to a Grade 5 for being able to function online. My heart goes out to these kids, they're going to remember this experience, we're going to remember this experience, but they're going to be at university or in their jobs and think, I was learning online. Who knows what that's going to look like in the future? Is that the new way for some people in the future? Who knows? But I definitely think there's a few silver linings. But resilience is one. I just am so hopeful that we will remain in the classroom because we just have to.

Natasha Estey: 31:07

For sure. When you think about the future of primary years, or junior years education, what really excites you when you look to the future? And again, we don't have crystal balls, but...

Suzanne Newell: 31:20

That's a good question. I'm really interested in brain research, and how current brain research influences the way we teach. One of the things that Jo Boaler talks about is how the brain has got a plasticity, so it can grow, it can get stronger. And so for me, I think something that's really exciting is to know how that research is going to play out in the classroom, for both teachers and for students, because I think it's really powerful, and it will change the way that we teach. So I'm excited about that.

Barb Prevedello: 32:04

I think the future is in our students, and what they can create and innovate. Gone are the days where we go and find a job. But this is their opportunity for the future, which is, you know, website research and building or creating new ideas. We have given the students an opportunity to be creative and innovative, and problem solve. And that's where I think our future is and that's where I think the future of primary education is, in order to set them up for success in the Middle and Senior school and jobs in the future.

Natasha Estey: 32:42

I want to thank you both so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences as teachers and as human beings - as we all are- today. You're definitely helping our Junior School students build strong foundations for the future.

Suzanne Newell: 32:57

Thanks for having us, Natasha.

Barb Prevedello: 32:59

Thank you, Natasha, and have a great night.

Natasha Estey: 33:02

Thanks. I don't know about you, but I'm finding these conversations so inspiring. And I always learn something new about how our teachers approach education. I enjoyed learning about the work of Jo Boaler and Carol Dweck, nd the idea of math mindset. I ill include a link to Jo and C rol's work in the show notes. I also love the "power of yet" concept. Barb and Suzanne talked about how they engage their students through problem solving. And they shared ways that they ensure their students are able to learn in the best way for them, and how to be advocates for their own learning. You can learn more about academics at the junior school by visiting our website. You can find Suzanne on Twitter@SueNewellTeach and Barb @Barb revedello. Follow the hashta#Yorklearns to see educat on in action at The York School Visit YORK Talks online at www yorkschool.com/YORKTalks. Subs ribe to YORK Talks where you g t your podcasts and tell othe families wanting to learn more bout how The York School approa hes education. I'm your ho t, Natasha Estey. I hope you en oyed the conversation today. lease join us again for more YO K Talks.