A different kind of dialogue began to occur among the faculty and between the faculty and students. The principal modeled her own learning and experimentation in lessons she taught for the student advisory program and in professional development sessions she led. Collecting data was an important part of the process. The school set up a monitoring team to track the impact of the professional development. They used questionnaires of staff and tracked student achievement over time on standardized assessments, building longitudinal data over time.
Results are encouraging.
At the end of last year, the school's second year as a school focused on brain-based research, the principalship changed. The new principal, Bev Sawyer, has continued to support the faculty in their own learning and experimenting, and a strong core of teachers are helping to carry on the work of learning about learning and applying those learnings to improved practices. After two and a half years, Ewasko cannot imagine teaching any other way.