In this episode, we interview Rasulan “Q” Hoppie, and he shares how he is trying to weave Empowering Modern Learners inside and out of everything happening at Castlebrooke Secondary School. He shares how the teachers are empowering students through the use of Project-Based Learning, and that they have an ICT Mindset throughout the building. There are no textbooks in the schools as they are trying to encourage learners to use technology to access information. He also shares the amazing work he is doing with the We Rise Together Action Plan in the board.

What’s New in the World of EML?

Jim shared a recording of a grade 5 student sharing his thinking and his actions in the midst of coding a game using Scratch. His Pacman game was progressing very well and on the day Jim recorded him, we had some conversations exploring ideas regarding how to code the walls so that Pacman bump into them and not pass through.

The video below captures his first successful attempt to get Pacman to bounce off a wall when he runs into it. This success came at the end of many other attempts, each of which were not mistakes or errors; a growth mindset culture in the classroom is being built and sustained, one in which everything done and everything learned in the process of solving problems is new and valuable knowledge.

Amit shared the work he was doing at James Grieve Public School with Monika Jaitly‘s kindergarten class. They were working with Scratch Jr. as a new way to tell stories about what they were doing over their Holiday Break. The students were not only collaborating, but they were problem solving and communicating in a new way. It was very empowering for these students as most of them can’t write yet, but this gave them a way to tell their stories using technology.

Links from the Interview with Q Hoppie

• Q talked about the Leadership Conference that will be happening on May 3rd and May 4th for the We Rise Together Action Plan.
• Q shared a book by David Chariandy called Brother
• Q can be reached on email at rasulan.hoppie@peelsb.com
• Q on Twitter

Shares for the Week

Jim shared a recent blog post called How to Learn? One of the main ideas of his post is the notion that highly ranked hits in Google when searching for “how to learn” result in resources that assume a transmission or delivery approach to how people learn. Jim wonders if readers will infer that that what learning is all about and not a more active, constructive process.

Amit shared a Ted Talk by Ritu Karidhal who is an Indian scientist working in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). She was a Deputy Operations Director for India’s Mars orbiter mission, Mangalyaan. She is one of the women scientists who are now popularly known as “Rocket Women of India”. He was so impressed by her passion and hopes that it something that can be shared with students through Empowering Modern Learners.

Amit talked about the connections to making our students become global citizens and how the talk speaks to the UN Goals for Sustainable Development #5 talks about Gender Equality