What is PSII?

PSII stands for the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry located in Victoria, British Columbia, it was founded by Jeff Hopkins in September 2013. At PSII the curriculum is built on personal curiosity and is completed through inquiry based learning. What is this you may be asking? Inquiry based learning is personalizing the learning experience, students are allowed to choose a topic they are interested in and research the topic throughout the term. As they move throughout the term educators work with the students to set goals and track the accomplishment (or not) of these goals. The end product is quite stunning, students are engaged in the inquiry as they are researching about something they are intrigued by, not a prescribed curriculum.  To explain exactly what PSII is and what they do is not completely doable via the mode of blog, you can visit their website here to explore for yourself if you are interested.  Below is a TEDx talk Jeff Hopkins did on inquiry based learning:

Our Q&A with Jeff Hopkins

In this section I just wanted to discuss some discussions that occurred in my classes question and answer period with Jeff Hopkins, the founder of PSII. Jeff was asked about the assessment of students at PSII, I could only imagine how  concerned parents wanting their child to go to university would be about assessment. At PSII they work with the student for their assessment, the educators have assessment meetings with the students almost daily, they have a list of competencies from the B.C. curriculum that must be met. The educators work with the students to ensure they are meeting these competencies  by accomplishing their goals and tasks for the inquiry projects. The difficult part is to take their assessment process and match it up to the B.C. curriculum and marking, but they manage to do it, and they are often audited to ensure they are doing it properly. I found one of the most interesting points we discussed was “Who is PSII good for?” EVERYONE. This is how people learn, by inquiring for themselves and getting help when they need it, having outside resources when they are stuck, but actually inquiring and searching for yourself is where you learn. It is difficult to let go of the old system when it has been entrenched for so long and people have been told they have to do things in a certain way. If people gave it time it can work, it would be a complete culture shift but it is possible. I found the talk very interesting and it really opened up my pedagogical thinking to new ideas. Since that discussion I have been thinking of ways to implement inquiry based learning into my future classroom. It is really hard to do PSII any justice attempting to explain their process in a blog, so I do encourage you to visit their website and explore for yourself.