Carolyn Matthews: Guiding inquiring Indigenous minds who want to know

Year: 2020 — Province: Northwest Territories
Certificate of Achievement Recipient

Paul William Kaeser High School
Core French, French immersion, science, math, French language arts, grades 7 to 9
Fort Smith, Northwest Territories

Carolyn recognizes that it's never a specific tool or a specific program … but that technology in general is a great way to engage students, make connections to real life, and prepare them for the future.

nominator

Carolyn Matthews spent an undergraduate year studying in France. Before earning her bachelor of education, she taught English in South Korea. And, since moving to the largely Indigenous community of Fort Smith, she has become a champion of Indigenous and French-Canadian cultures and languages. Now, she often leads world issues discussions and social responsibility activities at her school.

Teaching approach

Carolyn uses an inquiry approach to learning to engage students. For example, she might show students math equations that reflect a specific rule, and then ask them to determine what that rule is. She is also attuned to students' moods and personal challenges, and adapts instruction accordingly.

In the classroom

  • Runs with students' ideas, helping students, for example, when they wanted to create a Wikipedia page for an author whose novel they were reading.
  • Teaches effective approach to problem-solving, revealing problems in chunks; students discuss their thoughts about each chunk before she reveals the next; students show their thinking on a smartboard, validating different ways to solve a problem.
  • Draws students in with gaming: uses game-based tools such as Kahoot and Socrative to gather formative assessment data; creates escape room-style math and social studies lessons with Breakout EDU.
  • Brings concepts alive through creative activities: students invest "money" in stocks and compete to earn the most; they design effective 3D packages for a given volume of candy; participate in bilingual mock elections; learn about decimals by doing mental math while shopping for groceries.

Outstanding achievements

  • Integrates modern skills education and Indigenous traditions: for example, relates local drum-making techniques to the concept of pi; promotes the Dene Laws to reinforce positive behaviours; inspired students to take post-secondary education by running field trip to Indigenous conference in Calgary.
  • Partnered with local college to bring 3D printer to classroom: used it to help students visualize cartesian plane exercises from math class; taught them to use Tinkercad to design items such as Christmas ornaments and a puzzle cube.
  • Created a colour-coded spreadsheet to monitor student outcomes: green means "met," yellow "approaching" and red "not yet met"; lets teachers easily determine which outcomes need reinforcement or small-group differentiated instruction; spreadsheet has been adopted across the region.
  • Mentors other teachers: helps colleagues use new technologies and teaching methodologies; as an instructional coach, provided job-embedded professional development to staff.

Get in touch!

Paul William Kaeser High School
97 Conibear Crescent, P.O. Box 480
Fort Smith NT  X0E 0P0

867-872-4795
akarasiuk@ssdec.nt.ca
https://www.ssdec.net/paul-w-kaeser-high-school
Facebook: @pwkhighschool