Guided tour of our online learning materials

Are you interested in developing new resources or adapting our existing resources to support online learning in your school or district?

Here is how we can help:

• Create new resources for online learning: TC² would embrace the opportunity to partner with you to create new resources that you identify as necessary for your online learning strategy.
• Adapt our existing resources: If you have a request for lessons that you’d like to see converted to direct-to-student, ready-to-post materials, please let us know! Our existing collections include: Tools For Thought, Critical Challenges, History Docs, Picture Sets, print publications, or other parts of our website.
• French language support is available for the development of learning resources.

Please contact Usha James or Andy Nesbitt to let us know how we can support you.

Ready-to-post student materials

We know you’ve come to rely on us for high quality materials that take a thinking approach to teaching and learning. You can be confident that in the transition to online learning we will never sacrifice your goals of nurturing student thinking and building important competencies. Everything you find here is true to our mission of supporting you in your efforts to create thinking learning environments and opportunities.

In each ZIP file below, you’ll find everything you need for a rich online learning experience for your students including:

• PDF or fully editable powerpoint lessons that students can independently work through
• background briefing sheets to support their learning
• activity sheets in Word format that students can write or type in and send back to you to demonstrate their thinking
• notes that you can cut and paste into your online platform with instructions (from you to your students) about each lesson

We will be adding to this collection regularly so please check back and if you are interested in having us develop particular new resources or adapt existing ones, please contact us (see information above).

To be notified when we add new resources, join our mailing list! Click here to create a free account. Be sure to check the box at the bottom of the form to sign up for our mailing list. Use your work email address when signing up to ensure you receive additional Partner privileges if your organization is a TC² partner.

Contents

English | Language Arts | English Language Arts

Listening and learning from Elders

This activity is designed to support inquiry and learning from Elders and other keepers of knowledge. Students learn about the importance of learning by listening to stories told by Elders. Students reflect on the nuances of learning from oral storytelling and recognize why learning by listening to stories can be both easier and more challenging than other methods of learning. They learn to use a strategy to prepare for listening, focus while listening, and to reflect on what was heard. They can then use the same strategies in this lesson to learn from other online sources (listening to important oral accounts, such as residential school survivor testimonies; watching a video or listening to a podcast of oral storytelling).

Listening and learning from Elders

What is my story?

Grade level: Most suitable for grades 7-10

This set of 12 lessons covers all strands of the English curriculum. Each lesson can be posted individually, in any order, or utilized as a series. Created in collaboration with First Nations Communities and funded by the Matawa Learning Centre in Thunder Bay, each lesson profiles Indigenous content for reading, viewing or listening. A visual illustrating how the lessons are connected to each other is included in the ZIP file.

What is the most effective way to communicate my message?

Select the best format for a message
Create an effective tone

What stories do I need to tell?

Find the main idea
Suggest what stories need to be heard

How can I listen to understand?

Listen to and learn from oral stories
Ask great questions

How can I speak so my voice is heard?

Identify the techniques used by effective speakers
Rework a spoken message for an intended audience or purpose

How can I write so that my voice is heard?

Write for an intended audience or purpose
Use feedback to improve your writing

What is the best way to tell my story?

Identify the qualities of a great story
Retell a story using a different format or storytelling practice

Back to Top ^

Mathematics

Describing Trends in Data: Which data set should be considered linear in the trends it presents?
Grade level: Most suitable for grades 8-10

In this math lesson, students learn how to use lines (curves) of best fit to help them effectively describe mathematical trends in data. Students initially describe their conjecture on the possible relationship between an average person’s height and age between the ages of 0 to 80 graphically and in words. After learning how to effectively use appropriate descriptors and lines (or curves) of best fit, students reflect on the accuracy of their initial conjecture.

Describing trends in data

Back to Top ^

Science

What can you do to make your home more energy-efficient? Propose action to improve the energy efficiency of your house.
Grade level: Most suitable for grades 4-8

What can you do to make your home more energy-efficient?

How effectively do electric vehicles solve the problem of gas-powered vehicles? Use a “dashboard” to rate the effectiveness of electric vehicles as a solution to the problems created by vehicles with internal combustion engines.
Grade level: Most suitable for grades 11-12

How effectively do electric vehicles solve the problem of gas-powered vehicles?

Ecosystems and their value

Grade level: 9-12

These lessons are designed to guide inquiry into how the goods and services provided by ecosystems might be identified, described, and valued. After identifying the defining attributes of ecosystems, students examine how the concepts of goods and services might be applied to ecosystems. Students then learn about the different categories of ecosystem goods and services, and use the categories to explore monetary and non-monetary measures for describing and valuing ecosystem goods and services. Suitable for students in grades 9 through 12, these lessons can be used to explore concepts from science, social studies, geography, and economics courses.

Is this an ecosystem?
How can the non-monetary value of the goods and services of this ecosystem be measured?
What goods and services does this ecosystem provide?

Back to Top ^

Social Sciences | Social Studies (e.g., History, Geography, Economics, Politics, etc.)

Assessing historical commemorations

In this lesson, students learn how to judge the appropriateness of historical commemorations. They can then use the same strategy to explore other commemorations of historical events or people found in a community (for example, airports named after famous politicians, statues of military leaders) to propose ideas for a new commemoration or to suggest how an existing commemoration of a historically significant event or person might be made more appropriate.

Assessing historical commemorations

Judging continuities and changes

In this lesson, students learn how to judge continuities and change in the history of a community. They learn about the concepts of continuity and change and how they can be used in the study of community histories. They can then use the same strategies in this lesson to examine photographs of people, places, or things from two different time periods; to identify important turning points in the history of a community; to sequence important documents or images found in an online community archive or virtual museum exposition; and to assess the desirability or importance of continuities and changes that occurred in the history of a community.

Judging continuities and changes

Listening and learning from Elders

This activity is designed to support inquiry and learning from Elders and other keepers of knowledge. Students learn about the importance of learning by listening to stories told by Elders. Students reflect on the nuances of learning from oral storytelling and recognize why learning by listening to stories can be both easier and more challenging than other methods of learning. They learn to use a strategy to prepare for listening, focus while listening, and to reflect on what was heard. They can then use the same strategies in this lesson to learn from other online sources (listening to important oral accounts, such as residential school survivor testimonies; watching a video or listening to a podcast of oral storytelling).

Listening and learning from Elders

Ecosystems and their value

Grade level: 9-12

These lessons are designed to guide inquiry into how the goods and services provided by ecosystems might be identified, described, and valued. After identifying the defining attributes of ecosystems, students examine how the concepts of goods and services might be applied to ecosystems. Students then learn about the different categories of ecosystem goods and services, and use the categories to explore monetary and non-monetary measures for describing and valuing ecosystem goods and services. Suitable for students in grades 9 through 12, these lessons can be used to explore concepts from science, social studies, geography, and economics courses.

Is this an ecosystem?
How can the non-monetary value of the goods and services of this ecosystem be measured?
What goods and services does this ecosystem provide?

Back to Top ^

Cross-disciplinary Research

Understanding critical thinking and its place in independent research projects

Grade level: 12

This set of 5 PowerPoint presentations will help you to teach the critical thinking abilities that are required in great independent inquiry projects and formal writing. Created in collaboration with the University of Toronto’s Academic Success Centre, each lesson takes the student through a series of steps to build understanding and competencies needed to complete thoughtful and well documented research.

Each PowerPoint can be posted individually, in any order (a brief review is embedded in each PowerPoint) or utilized as a series.

Introduction to critical thinking
Introduction to intellectual tools
Evaluating sources
Developing research questions
Integrating sources

Back to Top ^

Supports for Effective Online Assessment

Grade level: 4-12 unless otherwise indicated

This set of materials provides teachers with a range of tools and strategies that help to integrate powerful assessment in a timely manner to support students engage in online learning. The materials included address both self and teacher assessment and can be used in self-directed, asynchronous or synchronous learning.

Guides to Student Success

Guides to Student Success offer a learner-centred alternative to traditional rubrics and support deep learning. Each guide nurtures reflective learning and persistence. (Read more about the power of Guides to Student Success to support learning.)

Guide to student success: Introduction and conclusion (Grades 6-10)
Guide to student success: Supported-opinion essay (Grades 8-12)
Guide to student success: Science lab (Grades 11-12)
Guide to student success: Persuasive advertisement

Tools for student self-reflection/self-assessment or teacher assessment

Assessing my understanding of the task

Assessing thinking during an online or in-class discussion

Assessing student use of criteria

Competency self-assessment (blank template)

Habit of mind assessment (blank template)

Habit of mind assessment: Multiple perspective taking (sample)

Self-assessment: Reasoned judgment

Self-assessment: Multiple perspectives