RESEARCH REPORTS

The Crescent Centre for Boys’ Education: Discovering How Boys Learn Best

CHARACTER

Crescent School participated in the University Health Network initiative, Give a Shift, supporting hospital workers and their efforts throughout the pandemic. The CCBE viewed this as an opportunity to capture this experience from the boy. Student reflections from their Give a Shift experience were recorded, and this summary shares insights from the boys. Crescent School pledged to raise $5000; we did that and more! We raised $8,330.00 over one weekend. This was truly a moment to celebrate the Boys of Promise.

WELLBEING

Optimizing Recess to Promote Student Wellbeing

Caitlin Tino embarked on an action research project throughout the winter term based on her intuition that recess had the potential to be used in a more intentional way for the boys to recharge and build a greater sense of wellbeing. The results of the research can be found here

Grade 5 Impact of Technology on Social-Emotional Wellbeing

Gord Wotherspoon: As we continued to build our student research culture with peer schools Christopher’s School in Virginia, Scots College in Sydney and Fairfield Country Day School in Connecticut, our Grade 5 students embarked on a study to determine the impact of technology on boys’ social-emotional wellbeing and friendships. The group of schools, collaborating during a series of Zoom calls, created a standard questionnaire. Data was collected and analyzed by each school, and the results were shared amongst the four. The interest in finding commonalities was prevalent. The study affirmed that technology has benefits for creating connections, but there is still an overwhelming preference for in-person contact with friends.

PEDAGOGIES

Grade 9 Portfolio Pilot Project

Trish Cislak and Rob Messenger teamed up to develop a Grade 9 Study Skills program using digital portfolios. The portfolios tracked each student’s approach to learning and helped them understand the benefits of reflective practice and metacognition skills. This routine also taught them self-efficacy, awareness, regulation and determination. A pilot project of tracking these skills over the spring of 2021 has inspired a full Grade 9 portfolio project for the fall of 2021 supported by the Grade 9 geography teachers. We anticipate that portfolios will help develop futureready skills that will support the boys well beyond their time at Crescent.

IBSC Relational Teaching Special Interest Group

Dr. Sandra Boyes is co-leading a Special Interest Group (SIG) in Relational Teaching with 30 colleague schools from the IBSC. The SIG is comprised of boys’ schools committed to developing and sharing expertise in relational teaching and organizational practices that promote it. Collaboration with like-minded schools can leverage programs and best-of-class practices that are less likely to be sustained in isolation. The SIG aims to develop and test research-based instruments that build expertise in relational teaching at the professional and organizational levels. They also share approaches to professional self-reflection, learning and growth through the career cycle of teachers and identify and work with school organizations and universities to promote research-based approaches to relational teaching. Dr. Boyes has been integral in creating connections and sharing her expertise in relational learning with colleagues. This work will continue throughout the 2021-2022 school year.

Grade 12 AP Statistics Student Research

Inspired by the Big Data High School Challenge, the students of Mike Stephen’s Grade 12 AP Statistics class honed their data analysis skills and science communication to empower their understanding of research and its impact on society. Ryan Rakusin, Adam Omarali, Tarik Irshad, Jack Wallace and Christopher Law decided to tackle the impact of Crescent’s COVID-19 protocols and the number of cases in our school. The team learned many valuable lessons and has created an exciting precedent for future research amongst our STEM courses. Their report shows research practices and will be an important part of Crescent history.

DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AND BELONGING

DIB Staff Book Club

Inspired by the NAIS People of Color Conference in the fall of 2020, Leah Di Vincenzo and Lisa Weldon promoted the idea of a staff book club to explore, appreciate and share insights regarding diversity, own voices and inclusion. Ninety staff members joined the clubs in 2021. Necessary, sometimes awkward, but always fulfilling conversations were had as new perspectives were developed. These kinds of conversations will fuel Crescent’s commitment to embracing and celebrating diversity.

Student Participatory Action Research Collaborative (SPARC)

The CCBE supported 11 Grade 10 students throughout the eight-month process. Crescent was the only Canadian school involved in a network of independent schools conducting collaborative research with students. It was truly an honour to connect with so many impressive schools in the U.S. There were many powerful learning opportunities, and we had dedicated students to lead the way in creating positive change at Crescent. We used a Youth Participatory Action Research approach to investigate belonging and inclusion experiences.

The purpose was to develop a research question about “life at Crescent” that needed the student voice and perspective to drive positive change within the overall community. The boys learned how to do a literature review, design data collection tools, conduct interviews and administer surveys. They then analyzed data to create practical and measurable results that can be implemented into life at Crescent. Next year, we hope to track the impact of the recommendations made by the student researchers. The experience was all about empowering the agency in the boys. Their voices matter. Their perspectives matter.

Crescent students explored two issues, created research posters and put forward the following recommendations:

Belonging in the House System - Create more leadership opportunities for boys to further engage their House brothers in House activities; create a more diverse set of House activities; allow for communication to come from student leaders on platforms more conducive to connecting with fellow students.

Impact of Unconscious Bias - Allow more student agency and engagement when creating assemblies and events that inform and celebrate different cultures; continue to build safe forums and protocols for important conversations about unconscious bias within affinity groups or Mentor groups.