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This year’s IALS (International Association of Laboratory Schools) conference was held this past April 26th-28th and hosted in Toronto by the Jackman Institute of Child Studies (JICS) in collaboration with several other Toronto area Lab Schools. Many different educators, researchers, and administrators from Lab Schools around the world were in attendance. This was Trafalgar’s first year attending, and we are the newest members of IALS.

We had two presentations at this conference. The first presentation was a workshop titled Designing Inquiry-Based Learning Experiences Through Cross-Curricular Collaboration in Middle School. Its purpose was to inform the audience about Trafalgar’s innovative inquiry projects that emphasize collaboration within departments and explain how educators can go about implementing similar work within their own classrooms and at their respective schools.


IALS Presentation: Designing Inquiry-Based Learning Experiences that Foster Collaboration in Middle School by Amy Allison, Christianne Loupelle, and Adriana Ruffini

Since 2017, Trafalgar School for Girls’ Secondary 1 science class and I have collaborated with Dr. Dawn Wiseman (Bishop’s University) and Dr. Limin Jao (McGill University) to explore and practice student-directed inquiry in STEAM. This educational research has sparked a range of questions from families, educators, and researchers alike. As Trafalgar works to develop the CoLab partnership with McGill University's Faculty of Education, I wanted to shed some light on what research in the classroom has looked like for me and my students so far.

We begin the inquiry project by asking students about their interests and how they might tie into the Secondary I science curriculum. Students then research these topics of interest, pitch their ideas to the class, and select one as the topic for the year. To date, the majority of our classes have chosen to pursue one topic as a larger group, with the themes varying widely:

Current talk in K-12 education involves much discussion of renewed expectations regarding what kinds of knowledge, skills, and dispositions students need for an unknown future that is characterized by change more than anything else. In addition to mastering traditional academic knowledge and skills, expectations for students today include critical and creative approaches to decision-making and problem solving that will enable them to not only live in a multi-faceted world but also actively engage and thrive in its citizenship. 

The partnership formed between Trafalgar School for Girls and McGill University’s Faculty of Education sets the stage for world class educational innovation and growth at a time when both are needed. While a strong relationship between these storied institutions has existed for more than a century, we are entering into a new collaborative partnership that we refer to as the CoLab. That naming intentionally plays on the duality of meaning of collaboration in both French and English, and also builds on a rich history of lab school partnerships between schools and universities. Our vision is the creation of a space and school where teachers and researchers are working together to innovate teaching and learning best practices in real time alongside students, with each party playing an active role in constructing meaningful learning.