Northern Ontario teachers learn about literacy

Teachers from across the region are in town this week to learn more about literacy and how to engage their students in new ways.

The Northern Ontario Education Leaders’ Navigating the Winds of Change conference brought in more than 85 teachers from Northwestern Ontario to the Nor’Wester Resort Hotel Wednesday. The two-day conference, now in its 10th year, features everything from character education to oral math skills.

NOEL Literacy co-ordinator Carol Volbracht said it is a great way for teachers to learn new skills to pass on to students.

"A number of teachers find that it’s a really good way to gear up to get back to school. You have a chance to meet with colleagues you have a chance to learn some new strategies and hone your practice a little bit," said Volbracht. "Our goal is to always have increased learning and achievement on the part of our students so we need to find ways to engage our students. We need to keep looking at different ways of doing that."

In the past, literacy was strictly what came from books, Volbracht said. But this year the conference has a focus on oral traditions. Volbracht said it’s a result of NOEL classroom projects and EQAO testing that shows students across the province need to improve critical communication skills.

"We need to do more critical thinking with students so we have fed those thoughts into the conference," she said. "We tend to be quite good at teaching how to decode but that understanding and being able to communicate that understanding is a higher level thinking and pretty much everywhere across North America that’s a focus."

That higher level can be achieved through oral communication even in subjects such as Math Volbracht added.

"It’s not just doing the calculations it’s talking about how you solve the problem," she said.