District explored how its teachers are using Edsby to promote student learning
The North East School Division (NESD) is a public school district north of Regina, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The district manages 21 school communities in Treaty 4, 5 and 6 lands, areas covered by historical treaties between the Canadian government and Indigenous peoples. It is one of the newest districts in Saskatchewan to begin using the Edsby digital learning and data platform for K-12, which has organically grown to be the province’s de facto assessment and parent system, courtesy of its direct connection to the provincial student information system MySchoolSask (MSS), built on Aspen by Follett.
NESD has been using Edsby since 2020 for its 4,740 students, their parents and staff. It uses it to enhance learning, collect feedback from students and parents, connect with the community, monitor progress, gather statistics and ensure students success.
NESD Edsby “Innovation Sprint”
In the 2022-23 school year, five NESD teachers volunteered to be part of an exercise to focus on exploring ways Edsby could support and enhance student learning. They worked together for two cycles (November to April) as an “innovation sprint” and met weekly to discuss progress towards their goals and reflect on the impact Edsby had on their selected strategies. Core to their efforts were using Edsby as their primary way to collect, share and reflect on evidence of student learning.
“My goal was to increase student reflection and as well as parent engagement using Edsby as a tool. And it worked.”
– Kristin Lee, PAA teacher and career councillor, North East School Division
Stephanie Pipke-Painchaud, Coordinator of Learning at North East School Division, documented the team’s results in her “Curriculum Corner Live” video series.
Video 1: Grade 1 Documentation of Learning
First grade teacher Connie Parenteau reflected on how the Edsby Learning Story can help assess ELA learning goals and help students become more reflective in their work. Connie shared examples of students working with the Edsby learning story in Grade 1.
Video 2: Communicating Student Progress (Diversity Lens)
Carnie Carr, a diversity education teacher in NESD, spoke about how progress of students with IIPs could be authentically communicated with Edsby. Carnie shared how this process has engaged parents and helped clarify student progress.
Video 3: Reflective Digital Documentation in Arts Ed & Band
Rebecca Will, arts education and band teacher, discussed what documentation and active reflection looks like using Edsby to support student engagement.
Video 4: Documentation of Learning in PAA
Kristin Lee, PAA teacher and career councillor, spoke about how she is using the Edsby Learning Story & digital documentation to help students assess where they are at in their learning. She also dug into how to engage parents in this process.
Lee made it her primary goal to increase both her students’ reflection and their parents’ engagement using Edsby. By integrating Edsby’s Learning Story and Grade Book features, she crafted a comprehensive approach to digital documentation that not only involved students in their learning process but also actively engaged parents.
Video 5: Connecting with students and parents
Scott Sorestad, a previous NESD Google Classroom teacher, reflected on the ways he learned to use Edsby tools to engage and connect more with both students and parents beyond what he was able to with Classroom.
NESD explored Edsby’s integration with Google Classroom and Google Drive. It allowed students to seamlessly upload their work from Google Drive into Edsby, much like they could with Classroom, creating a smooth and intuitive workflow.
Features for teachers, documented
NESD has helped its educators on their journey to make use of Edsby’s features to better connect with both students and parents. Its videos are standing resources to help educators, present and future, best understand how to leverage the Edsby learning platform.
“In the Learning Story, we found parents can comment back and forth along with the students. In the Edsby Grade Book, the student can comment back, and the parent can see it. This can create a child-to-parent relationship even in the teaching environment.”
– Stephanie Pipke-Painchaud, Coordinator of Learning, North East School Division