NORCAN 2015 - Norway
Our first glimpse of Norway. A lot like the farm fields in Alberta but much hillier.
The partnership began with school staff from Norway, Ontario and Alberta having a one day conference about the importance of the parternship and getting reaquainted with each other. The partnership's goal is to make Mathematics accessible to all students and to work with others to debunk the myth of "I can't do math". Here is a picture of the two of us on the balcony of the meeting room with Oslo in the background.
Dennis Shirley is a huge part of the project and will be partly responsible for compiling our action research. He spoke passionately about the strength of working together to work smarter, not harder.
Roger was an amazing presenter. His main message was that "math is everywhere". He captured the imagination of all of us and made us want to look for interesting and creative ways of engaging students.
We were also treated to a presentation by Krisstopher who is the president of the Student Union in Norway. He represents all Student Councils. Each school in Norway has its own Student Council and they are all under the umbrella of the Student Union. He spoke very passionately about student voice.
The next day we flew to Molde. This is the view from my hotel window. The small city was right on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean (well, one of the fjords anyway). A gorgeous city of about 35 000 people but many students from the surrounding areas would go to Molde for their education. The main industries were factories in ship building, fishing and some oil.
Students generally arrive by bus or moped. You have to be 18 to drive a car. We had a presentation of Molde. It is a school of about 760 "high school" students. They grades were 11-13 and equivelant to our grades 10-12. Molde is considered an "academic" school and the students enrolled here have to have a specific congnitive ability to attend. However, they do have two streams of students similar to our -2 and -1 students. Norway streams their students in Grade 9 and 10 to different schools including vocational and acadmic. Molde did not have any students who had any kind of IPPs so it was quite different in this way but similar in many other ways. Despite having excellent education available in Norway, only 50% of the students continue their education. This is a great concern of the Norweigans.
Class sizes were on average 20-25 students. There is a staff of 110 for 760 students but this included all staff such as counsellors, custodial staff, school nurse etc. Another big difference is that teachers generally teach 18 out of 30 blocks a week. All other time was spent on marking, preparing or meeting with other teachers. Molde has worked a lot on assessment for/of and as learning in the past. They also have done a lot of work on teacher reflection. Keep in mind however that the average salary was about $50 000 CAD and the cost of living in Norway was a bit higher than in Canada.
What we noticed right away was that generally "kids are kids". In our conversations with the students, they were very honest with us - if they liked mathematics they were enjoying it, if they didn't like it, they weren't as engaged. The teachers in Molde were struggling with exactly what we struggle with - how to engage or reingage students in Math. The highlight of our days was sitting with students and having conversations with them. We experienced classes equivalent to AP to -3. They were so fun to talk to and they were all curious about Canada.
We were honoured to attend a concert that was put on by the music students from Molde school. The students played everything from folk songs in English and Norweigan, Red Hot Chili Peppers, blues, jazz and classical. We were very impressed. I had to take a picture with Johan who looked like a younger version of Danny. He was amazing - played us a great blues piece. The enjoyment and creation of music is a big part of Norway's cultural fabric.
We did have the opportunity to do some sightseeing as well. Among the highlights were the outdoor museum of a fishing village, the Atlantic Highway and a museum that had German bunkers. All very interesting and a big part of the team building.
After three days in Molde, we returned to Oslo where we had another full day session regarding the project. Here we discussed what our research question will be, what our plan for WW would be and how we will utilize the partership. This is an action reseach project so there will be many opportunities for the Math department and students to participate.
Our final night was spent in a beautiful restaurant overlooking all of Oslo. Amazing. They really did spoil us and we can't wait to see where the NORCAN project will lead !!