4. Supports and Resources

4.1 Career/Life Planning

Education and career/life planning helps students develop the knowledge and skills they need to make informed choices for their education, career and life outside school. Students get a chance to learn more about themselves and their opportunities, set goals and make plans to achieve them. This program helps students choose the courses and activities that support their goals and interests

 

Goals are to:

 

  1. Ensure that students develop the knowledge and skills they need to make informed education and career/life choices through the effective application of a four-step inquiry process;
  2. Provide opportunities for this learning both in and outside the classroom; 
  3. Engage parents and the broader community in the development, implementation, and evaluation of the program, to support students in their learning.

 

The guidance and career education program has three areas of learning – student development (i.e., the development of habits and skills necessary for learning), interpersonal development (i.e., the development of the knowledge and skills needed in getting along with others), and career development (i.e., the development of the knowledge and skills needed to set short-term and long-term goals in planning for the future). Student development and interpersonal development areas, are integrated within the learning skills and work habits upon all the courses in SIS

 

The program teaches SIS students how to understand themselves better and plan for the future. It does

this by helping students to develop answers to four key questions:

 

  1. Who am I?
  2. What are my opportunities?
  3. Who do I want to become?
  4. What is my plan for achieving my goals?

 

SIS students will develop knowledge and skills about education and career/life planning through classroom activities related to the curriculum and school-wide activities like career fairs and postsecondary presentations.

 

SIS students are responsible for building and updating their portfolios and Individual Pathways Plan (IPP). SIS will have a web based template to help students create their plan that will be reviewed at least twice a year. SIS students share the learning they record in their IPP with a teacher and/or guidance counsellor. They are also encouraged to share their learning with their parents or guardian.

 

Personal information collected by the teacher or counsellor is governed by freedom of information legislation

 

Beliefs about Student Success

 

  • All students can be successful;
  • Success comes in many forms;
  • There are many pathways to success

 

Competencies for life and career education program

 

The OECD report outlines the following three categories of competency: 

 

  1. Using Tools Interactively • The ability to use language, symbols, and text interactively • The ability to use knowledge and information interactively • The ability to use technology interactively 
  2. Interacting in Heterogeneous Groups • The ability to relate well to others • The ability to cooperate and work in teams • The ability to manage and resolve conflicts 
  3. Acting Autonomously • The ability to act within the bigger picture • The ability to form and conduct life plans and personal projects • The ability to defend and assert rights, interests, limits, and needs (OECD, pp. 10–16)

4.2 Course Selection Process

  1. Inform SIS students the requirements to obtain the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD)
  2. SIS students will acknowledge the course offer that SIS has available for its students.
  3. SIS students will analyze the Individualized Pathway Plan (IPP) semesterly and shortlist the courses of interest.
  4. Team up with SIS Counselors, students and parents, to decide which courses to take and when to take them 

 

Balance the school duties with other goals and activities. If necessary, team up with SIS Counselors to design a customized plan to take the courses required to obtain the OSSD. To know the requirements to obtain the OSSD is the cornerstone to decide which courses to take, how many simultaneously, the timespan that will take to complete and the projected graduation date. 

 

Check the courses that SIS offers and start the journey to Live Your Dreams. SIS students can enroll in a course at any time and will have 12 months to complete it. In this manner, there will be Autonomy to allocate time to school and other activities at the best convenience, which will enhance SIS student´s  Neatness and Passion to reach their goals.

 

SIS abides all the guidelines outlined by the Ontario Ministry of Education for the Creating Pathways to Success (2013)

4.3 Students at Risk of Not Graduating

SIS will establish a Student Success team and a Student Success teacher to work in collaboration with school staff to support students who are struggling with their secondary school program and are at risk of not graduating. The Student Success team will include, at a minimum, the Student Success teacher and representation from administration, guidance, and special education.

 

The responsibilities of the SIS Student Success team for students considered to be at risk in secondary school include:

 

  1. Monitoring and tracking individual students’ progress;
  2. Providing direct support for differentiated instruction to meet the learning needs of students and to improve their achievement, promote their retention, and support significant transitions;
  3. Ensuring that students have opportunities to engage meaningfully in their own learning;
  4. Supporting students in their education and career/life planning;
  5. Supporting school-wide efforts to improve outcomes for students struggling with their secondary school program;
  6. Re-engaging early school leavers;
  7. Working with parents and the community to support student success

4.4 English Language Learners

English as a Second Language (ESL) programs are for students whose first language is a language other than English, or is a variety of English significantly different from that used for instruction.  Appropriate adaptations include: 

 

  1. Modification of some or all of the subject expectations so that they are challenging but attainable for the learner at his or her present level of English proficiency, given the necessary support from the teacher; 
  2. Use of a variety of instructional strategies (e.g., extensive use of visual cues, graphic organizers, scaffolding; previewing of textbooks, pre-teaching of key vocabulary; peer tutoring; strategic use of students’ first languages); 
  3. Use of a variety of learning resources (e.g., visual material, simplified text, bilingual dictionaries, and materials that reflect cultural diversity); 
  4. Use of assessment accommodations (e.g., granting of extra time; use of oral interviews, demonstrations or visual representations, or tasks requiring completion of graphic organizers or cloze sentences instead of essay questions and other assessment tasks that depend heavily on proficiency in English). 

 

When learning expectations in any course are modified for an English language learner, this information must be clearly indicated on the student’s report card.

4.5 Computer Labs and Resource Centre/Library

For the nature of SIS being an online school, SIS student´s personal computer and the internet become the most valuable lab and resource. SIS teachers will guide students to reach pedagogic, scientific, academic and practical material on the internet. To follow the pedagogical approach of SIS, students will develop skills to find updated statistical data produced by reliable public and private institutions, as well as current investigations published by recognized institutions as research labs, universities or recognized scholars.

4.6 Community Resources

SIS will work together with students and parents to identify the community resources available in the area where the students usually carry on their academic and life activities.  SIS will incentivize parents to look for activities and institutions that can contribute to their education like sports, culture, music, museums, libraries or academic clubs.

4.7 Technology Requirements

Those are the suggested minimum requirements that the SIS Student should have to successfully complete the courses.

 

  • Laptop or desktop with 4 gb in RAM, 128 in Hard Drive, processor of 1.8 Mhz of speed or faster. Chromebooks, Tablets, iPads, Smartphones, and other mobile devices are supported. In general those are the minimum recommended specs for your device, however the most important criteria is that it must enable the student to develop and upload the assignments, attend the teacher´s lectures and reliably connect to the internet.
  • Regarding software, SIS platform supports Windows, IOS and Android. It is recommended to have the latest versions of web browsers. There are some specific software requirements depending on the subject, that will be communicated in the Course Syllabus. 
  • High-speed internet connection (Cable, DSL). Cellular phone hotspots might work to fulfill some tasks, however most of them will require a reliable connection. 
  • Text-based courses require a printer and scanner.
  • Webcam or camera-enabled smartphones are recommended for most of the courses and also to have meetings with the school staff.