self-directed learning

• What Did You Do in School Today?: Transforming Canadian Classrooms Through Social, Academic and Intellectual EngagementThrough What did you do in school today?: Transforming Classrooms through Social, Academic and Intellectual Engagement, the Canadian Education Association, in partnership with the Canadian Council on Learning and school districts across Canada, are bringing life to the idea of student engagement in the classroom, and exploring its powerful relationship with adolescent learning, student achievement, and effective teaching.
  
  A first look at the initiative’s results are presented in the initiative’s first national report – _What did you do in school today?: Transforming Classrooms thro
  
  
  
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  Making sense of the class-size debateFew topics generate as much vigorous debate as class size; the debate has raged for more than a half century. While it is unlikely to quell the passions the topic has engendered, research can shed some light on the controversy and inform the decisions that school officials and policy makers must make.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Student achievement report: What do standardized tests tell us about Canadian students today?How much and how well are our children learning in school? Do they have the skills to succeed in tomorrow’s world? Parents, students, employers, and the general public all want the answer to these questions, and governments and educators have designed a range of tools for monitoring and reporting learning outcomes and performance to measure the success of our learning systems.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Is falling voter turnout linked to diminished civics education?Recent analyses suggest that the drop in voter participation is largely the result of precipitously low election day turnout among young voters. Why? Are young Canadians too cynical? Busy with other forms of political expression? One answer that does find some support is that young people are less engaged in and knowledgeable of current political issues.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  How To: Strategies for Parents to Foster Early LiteracyThere is much truth in the cliché that parents are a child’s first teachers. Simple activities such as reading storybooks or singing songs to a child can have significant impact on a child’s ability to develop language and literacy skills, but there are many more things parents do and can do to ensure that their children get off to a good start on the road to speaking, listening, and reading.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Addressing the rural-urban gap in educationStudents in rural Canada are falling behind their urban counterparts. These adverse educational outcomes limit the range of employment options available to rural youth and reduce the talent pool available within rural economies. What can be done?
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  First language not necessarily linked to reading proficiencyConventional wisdom suggests that lack of oral English proficiency is the main impediment to successful literacy learning for young ESL students, but recent evidence suggests that this may not be true. Fortunately, research provides guidance about promoting the development of literacy in young children, even if they have limited oral language proficiency in English. 
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Apprenticeship training in CanadaThe apprenticeship system has a long history as an effective vehicle for work-based learning, but modern times have seen negative attitudes to apprenticeship and a poor image of trades, as well as a lack of information and awareness of apprenticeship. This is unfortunate because in the contemporary Canadian context, apprenticeship can help to address two distinct problems: labour shortages in the skilled trades and youth unemployment.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  The Skills Gap in Canada: Preparing for the Jobs of the FutureThe knowledge requirements of Canadians’ jobs are growing rapidly. Despite the successes of Canadian schools, a gap remains between the demand for workers with strong literacy and numeracy skills and the supply of Canadians who possess them.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning )
  
  
  
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  Equality in the Classroom: The Educational Placement of Children with DisabilitiesCanadian public schools – as inclusive institutions – educate students who, in previous generations, would have been educated in segregated settings or denied an education. The challenge facing public schools is to determine how best to address the needs of students whose circumstances pose particular learning challenges.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Learning Cities: Optimizing Economic and Social Well-being through Lifelong Learning for AllCanadian cities—now home to 80% of Canada’s citizens—offer economic, educational and cultural opportunities, but also face problems related to equity, maintenance of social cohesion, and civic engagement. Pioneered in Europe and Australia, the creation of “Learning Cities” recognizes that optimal social and financial well-being occurs under conditions that favour lifelong learning for all.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Media Literacy for Children in the Internet AgeStatistics Canada reports that 81% of homes with children under 18 years old are connected to the internet, and the number grows with each passing year. Media literacy is an important tool in the understanding of new media and for ensuring that children’s exposure to the digital world is enjoyable and safe, and guidance by parents and/or teachers plays an important role.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Aboriginal learners can make unique contributions to fields of science and technologyThis report from the Canadian Council on Learning notes that aboriginal people in Canada are sharply under-represented in science and engineering occupations. More can – and must – be done to increase the relevance of learning and engagement of Aboriginal students in science and technology. Choosing careers in science and technology will benefit Aboriginal students directly through employment, but more importantly they can make a tremendous contribution to Canada.
  
  
  
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  Canada slow to overcome limits for disabled learnersFor Canadians with disabilities, learning opportunities are often limited, depriving them of further opportunities and curtailing their potential contributions. Canada and Canadians would benefit from ensuring that Canadians with disabilities have richer opportunities to learn and to make contributions.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning )
  
  
  
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  Science literacy bolstered by free-choice learning beyond the classroomScience is playing a growing role in public policy and in the daily lives of most citizens. As a result, science literacy skills are becoming increasingly important. Free-choice science learning is a form of non-sequential, self-paced and voluntary learning “that is guided by a person’s needs and interests.”
  
  
  
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  Creating the Learners Society NeedsThe workplace of the 21st century requires certain skills that employers find are in short supply. Recent research suggests that a learning strategy called knowledge building can help students acquire and develop these skills.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Why girls don’t like science: exploring gender differences in career choicesGrowing numbers of Canadian women are successfully pursuing post-secondary studies, but there still exists a large gender gap in science-related occupations and a gender-based wage gap. This article explores factors that turn girls and women away from science and engineering, as well as a number of programs that have been developed to foster interest in science among girls.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  Composite Learning Index: Helping communities improve their quality of lifeThe Composite Learning Index is a practical measurement tool that can help Canadians identify their community’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to fostering the best possible environment for lifelong learning. The CLI results offer community leaders and decision-makers a unique and valuable opportunity to help shape how their community can achieve the economic and social benefits that come from lifelong learning.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning,published in both English and French)
  
  
  
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  No Time for Complacency: 2007 Annual Report on the State of Learning in CanadaThis report by the Canadian Council on Learning examines many of the factors that contribute to successful lifelong learning—from early childhood, through the school years and into adulthood. It also takes a special look at the link between health and learning, and at the learning challenges faced by Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.
  (NB: published in both English and French)
  
  
  
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  Redefining How Success is Measured in First Nations, Inuit and Métis LearningIncreasingly, Aboriginal communities are administering educational programs and services formerly delivered by non-Aboriginal governments. They are developing culturally relevant curricula and community-based language and culture programs, and creating their own educational institutions. As Aboriginal people work to improve community wellbeing through lifelong learning, they recognize the need to identify appropriate measurement tools that will help them assess what is working and what is not.
  (Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
  
  
  
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  2007 Survey of Canadian Attitudes Towards LearningThe annual Survey of Canadian Attitudes toward Learning (SCAL) provides a unique opportunity to gauge the opinions, perceptions, and beliefs of Canadians about various aspects of learning in Canada. Now in its second year, the survey was designed by the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) in consultation with Statistics Canada, which administered the survey on behalf of CCL.
  
  
  
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