NCTCA 2025

Have you noticed something changing between early middle school and later secondary school grades? After years of observing the shift in classroom dynamics, I took intentional action to support learners who struggle to ‘sit still and get to work’. Many students struggle with the behaviors academic streaming implies and seemingly requires, but it doesn’t have to be like this: teachers can implement practices that create dynamic engagement and rely on, instead of fight against, those creative, boisterous, and enthusiastic energies! In this session, I’ll share strategies and project exemplars that have changed the classroom dynamics of my 20 and 30 –1 classes by working to support, instead of struggle with, the need students have to move, speak, and learn in ways that are not strictly or silently textual. I’ll share approaches and plans that showcase the benefits of energetic, dynamic learners through interactive, experiential, situation, and multimodal process and product forms. Walk away from this session with new ways to support learners who struggle with static coursework by prioritizing conversational, hands-on learning. Your students will begin to see their capabilities and learning superpowers: no longer ‘villains’ who just can’t sit still, but rather heroes of and in their own learning.

Connecting with Indigenous Ways of Knowing and offering rich experiences in support of TQS 5 can be intimidating, especially for non-Indigenous teachers. While we cannot have first-hand knowledge of the hardships and celebrations of our Indigenous peoples, we are privileged to have the opportunity to impact hearts and minds in the spirit of reconciliation and continue to pursue practical methods of reconcili-ACTION in our classrooms. I’ll share my experience of developing a research project and unit plan for my 30-1 students, and the widely applicable learning, growth, and gold that was generated through our practices of metissage, or collaborative storytelling and narrative weaving. Students can to learn to see themselves and one another in fresh, exciting, vulnerable, and deeply impactful ways as they share their own narrative strands and braid their stories with the stories of others while making choices for their own comfort and safety. The incredible transformation power I witnessed unfold with my class during my research has led me to continue practicing processes reflective of metissage, and has continued to support both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in remarkable and exciting ways. If you struggle with supporting kids as they seek out and navigate peer, friend, classmate, and community connections, implementing practices of metissage (from major to minor approaches) will allow you to hold space and support new depths of inter- and intra-personal understandings with your students and your classroom community as a whole through this beautiful narrative practice.

Taking up controversy can be so engaging but becomes so much work when things slide off the rails! In our pluralistic, conflict-driven society, teachers must often hold space in our classrooms for challenging topics and examining multiple views. In the face of increasing unrest in our globalizing world, how can teachers create safety in which students can risk voicing ideas and exploring difficult topics without creating conflict? If critical, argumentative dynamics and writing are the focus, how can we strike a balance and create an environment without ideological blow-outs? In this follow-up session to the DLA Theory, we shift from introductions, intangible framing, and boundary establishment to practical hands-on pedagogical planning. I’ll offer a series of practical ways teachers can begin to or further implement the safety/ risk taking paradox and provide time and support for planning something “dangerous” for your own students. Bring a challenging text to work from OR draw from ideas and texts I’ll share to build a learning process or product that fits YOUR students, and encourages them to grow into practiced evaluators, communications, and push their comfort boundaries when they feel safe to do so. Holding space for this important work while feeling supported and confident with current research instead of on edge or at sea will bring you new confidence in building safe foundations from which to teach dangerously and allow your students to take new risks in their communication.

Michael Ng reflects on the wonderful resources provided from Chem13 News of how to incorporate Indigenous knowledge about the Northern lands, peoples and ways of life through the scientific lens of the Inuit. By connecting it back to TQS #4 & 5 and LQS #5, a collective study will explore the Three Sisters Garden of the Iroquois; soy sauce; PFOs; chert and the Ulu; Inuit medicinal remedies; the Northern Lights; acid-base plant chemistry; and elements of the Periodic Table. Reflections will look at where it can be incorporated into the Alberta curriculum for Science 10 and Chemistry 20 / 30.

Popular from his last session on science wizardry, join Michael Ng once again as he shares more magic tricks but really science tricks into your science classes. Further incites on its illusions, misconceptions, and a bit of trickery to start your lectures and to get your children engaged in classrooms and remote learning.