Topic 5 – Tour of the Pacific School of Innovation & Inquiry

Before visiting the Pacific School of Innovation & Inquiry (PSII), I was a little skeptical although excited to see what an inquiry-based school would be like. I think a reason for my skepticism is my belief that tests and other formal assessments are important, particularly for students who plan to pursue STEM pathways in post-secondary. In my experience, university-level math and physics are demanding, and without experience writing tests under pressure, I think the transition would have been even more difficult. In high school there is usually lots of support academically and personally, but in university, especially if moving away from family, all or most of that support drops off, and without practice being stressed and studying for tests I would have done very poorly in first year. From reading PSII’s website, I understood that the school is a Grade 9–12 independent school built around personalized, inquiry-based learning rather than traditional classes. My initial question going into the tour was whether a model like this could truly prepare students for the academic rigor and structure they will eventually face in post-secondary education.

When I got to the school I was surprised to see how similar the physical environment felt to an office building, there were individual rooms spread throughout but not like a traditional school with lots of straight hallways filled with lockers and classrooms. I felt like I would spend my first few weeks attending this school getting lost; although the layout and tools accessible to the students was cool to see.

During the presentation I learned that the way that this inquiry school is configured satisfies all of the BC learning requirements, and provides normal ‘classes’ that are optional for students to attend based off of their interest, or need to satisfy specific requirements. The students do take the numeracy and literacy exams and are taught specific classes on how to take notes, study, and even get to sit in on university lectures, giving them a head start (the opposite of my original thoughts) in university life. Victoria is very lucky to have a university in it’s back yard allowing students at schools like this to try out university, it also makes me wonder how other towns would adapt an inquiry based school. Perhaps my bias coming from a rural place is showing up here, maybe the public school kids have these opportunities as well, but it was a lingering question during my drive back home.

Another note I would like to write about was the topic of averaging grades being unethical. Coming from a math background I see averaging as efficient, and an accurate representation of a students average performance over a course. I guess one could choose to use median or mode instead of mean, and I wonder why these are not utilized as often? and what other options are there? Median would affectively reduce the best and worst scores to nothing, and take whichever was the ‘mid-point’ whereas mode would take only the most commonly repeated score. These seem more abstract, and have more downsides than using a mean, especially a weighted mean. On the other hand, I also think that in high school there is ample room for adjustments (resubmissions, retests, removing lowest grades, etc.), and a properly thought through grade book will help maximize the accuracy of the final grade. I would be interested in learning about the math behind grading, and not just whatever is common practice in BC or Canada, but around the world too.