Teaching to Diversity B.C. projects

The following projects involved B.C. teachers looking to support inclusion in various ways. Some are BCTF projects, some are school-district projects, and some are collaborations.

Projects

Mentoring/Professional Conversation

Several projects throughout the province reflected on mentoring and professional conversation practices in different contexts. See page for reports and discussion.

The Boardmaker Project PDF file; Acrobat Reader required. A joint project of BCTF, PGDTA, and School District 57.
For teachers interested in Boardmaker, see also the following Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded Research in which the BCTF was a partner. This report on Picture Communication Symbols was written by BC teachers Karen Husak and Debbie Little, Speech Language Pathologists Jean Fowler and Sydney Hook and BCTF Researcher Charlie Naylor.

A Communication Framework for Family Literacy: Bridging differences, planning and building skill sets PDF file; Acrobat Reader required. by Jean Fowler and Sydney Hook
A joint project of the BCTF, Vancouver School Board and Literacy BC.

SHARP (Students of High Ability in the Regular Classroom)
An initiative of School District 43 (Coquitlam) Student Services which started in September 2003. Elementary and middle school classroom teachers enroll cluster groupings of gifted students and intentionally provide differentiated curriculum and socio-emotional support for them.

Implementing and Evaluating a School-Based Peer Tutoring Program PDF file; Acrobat Reader required.
This document contains two reports: Implementing the program by Mary Chipman, Nicole Roy, & Charlie Naylor and Evaluating the program by Dr. Monique Bournot-Trites & Dr. Elizabeth Lee, UBC. In 1998, Chipman and Roy from Lord Tennyson Elementary School, Vancouver, established a peer-tutoring program to support student reading. Dr. Bournot-Trites and Dr. Lee, from UBC's Department of Language and Literacy Education, analysed the program. The reports were published together in 2001.

Behaviour problems and early intervention: Teacher research reports from the Maple Ridge Special Education Review PDF file; Acrobat Reader required.

The review of Special Education in Maple Ridge was initiated as a joint project of the Maple-Ridge Teachers' Association, the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District #42, CUPE Local #703, and the district's Principals' and Vice-Principals Association, supported by BCTF Research. The report was published in January 2000.

Exploring literacy: How teachers and parents can collaborate to support early literacy PDF file; Acrobat Reader required.
The report outlines a collobrative project between teacher-researchers and parents and provides resources and workshops for others to use, published in 1999.

The Teacher Research Project: Assessment
The report includes reflections on assessment practice from a number of teachers, publihsed in 1997.

The BCTF Case Studies: Partners for Inclusion (1994)

The BCTF Research “Partners for Inclusion” Case Studies share several BC elementary and secondary schools’ approaches to supporting the learning of students with special needs. While these were originally written in the 1990s, they still contain useful information, including Appendices with documents and forms used to support the schools’ inclusionary approaches.