Today’s society requires citizens who can demonstrate competencies in creativity, innovation, risk-taking, commitment, persistence, curiosity, imagination, collaboration, leadership, sense of responsibility, resourcefulness, and determination.

All these competencies define the entrepreneurial mindset. The following habits define the entrepreneurial mindset:

• see problems as opportunities; solve problems with creativity and the assistance of technolog
• take risks and ownership: setbacks are reframed as necessary and important steps on the path to success, while successes require constant testing, reflection, and revision. 
• empathize: communicate and collaborate effectively
• persevere: no matter the setbacks, learn when and how to pivot.

The teaching of an entrepreneurial mindset must be integrated into practice.

Learning activities (e.g., makerspaces and other hands-on learning opportunities) engage the students to problem-solve, collaborate, learn from their failures, and identify resources in and out of the community. In a personalized, inquiry-based learning environment which recognizes and promotes experiential learning, students work on projects linked to real-life problems. In the process, they will master competencies that will help them develop their entrepreneurial mindset.

This approach will prepare Nova Scotia students for a rapidly changing world, and help them excel in it. 

Experiential learning means learning by experience.

The experiential learning environment works to create an interdisciplinary learning experience that mirrors real-world learning. Such an experience can occur in the classroom, within the community, or within the workplace.

Experiential learning requires the student not only to engage in the experience activity, but also to reflect upon their learning and how the competencies they developed through their academic studies can be applied to real-life experiences. Experiential learning is important, as it:

• makes learning relevant for students. It builds on the competencies they have mastered in the classroom by providing opportunities to make connections between new concepts and existing ones.
• encourages the development of competencies. Students engage in critical thinking and problem solving and develop communication and citizenship competencies as they engage with real-life problems.
• increases student motivation and engagement

Community-based learning programs encourage the expansion of learning opportunities by bringing the community into the school and by placing students in the community.

Through these experiences, students of all grade levels (primary to grade 12) gain opportunities to apply and enhance, in real-life contexts, the competencies acquired through their work in school. Community-based learning enhances students’ personal development, their sense of belonging to their community, and their understanding of community roles and responsibilities.
 
Exposure to varied community-based learning experiences will highlight the linkages between the curriculum, their own lives, and their communities. Students need to view the competencies developed through the curriculum as practical and valuable preparation for specific post-secondary destinations, for meaningful participation in the community and the workplace, and for the complex demands of adult life.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) refers to the tools used to create, store, retrieve, and disseminate information: data and information systems; networks; interactive telecommunications systems; curriculum software and apps; and some forms of assistive technology.

ICT also includes tools such as calculators and mobile devices, as well as audio and video recordings and broadcasts, still images, and projections.
 
ICT is integrated within inclusive classrooms, where a wide variety of learning experiences ensures that all learners have equitable opportunities to reach their potential.

Students learn to use technology to be productive, problem-solve, carry out research, inquire, innovate, create, inform, and communicate. While there is no substitute for good teaching, technology engages students and helps them acquire skills not afforded by more traditional paper-and-pencil methods. For some students, technology is their gateway to understanding; for others, it can extend their learning beyond the classroom walls. For all students, technology is involved in how they interact with the world around them.

In designing ICT-integrated learning experiences for all students, teachers consider the students’ learning needs, preferences, and strengths, as well as their experiences, interests, and the values they bring to the classroom.

Teachers promote social, cultural, racial, and gender equity when they encourage students to critically examine the texts, contexts, and environments they encounter in the classroom, in the community, and in the media. The integration of ICT within the learning program supports this approach. All users of technology in our schools have the responsibility to use technology in ethical and appropriate ways, as outlined in the Provincial School Network Access and Use Policy.

The integration of ICT within the learning program helps students acquire the skills that are needed in a highly technological knowledge-based economy.

This integration happens across the curriculum. By helping students use technology in ethical, productive, and meaningful ways teachers assist them to develop appropriate competencies. ICT best improves learning when it is accessible, flexible, responsive, participatory, and integrated thoroughly. Effective technology integration has the power to transform teaching and learning and assist all students to be successful learners.

Personalized learning is tailoring learning for each student’s strengths, needs, and interests—including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when, and where they learn—to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible. (Norford and Marzano, Personalized Competency-Based Education, p. 1)
 
Personalized learning places students at the centre of the learning process and provides an environment, pedagogy, and curriculum that meets the individual needs of students. This approach recognizes that no two students learn the same way or at the same pace. It also recognizes that, for students to succeed, they must be engaged and invested in their learning.
 
In a personalized learning environment, learning is focused on the needs, strengths, and aspirations of each individual student.

The students play an increasingly active role in designing their own educational path, while increasingly being held accountable for their own learning success. As active participants of their learning, they work with teachers to understand learning outcomes, to create questions from these learning outcomes, to clarify what will be measured and how it will be measured, and to develop a learning plan that will allow them to achieve the desired result.
 
Inquiry-based learning is an approach that promotes inquiry, the creation of ideas, and observation. The process typically involves open investigations aimed at answering a big question or solving a problem. These investigations require that students learn how to develop questions, to go looking for information, and to identify possible solutions.
 
Personalized inquiry-based learning is an approach that encourages students to engage in deeper thinking and to build the competencies needed to succeed.

This approach therefore requires elaborate planning characterized by structures put in place to

• respond to the cognitive, social and emotional needs of each learner
• see the child as a whole and to reflect the child’s psychosocial development
• provide a learning environment that is learner-centred in which each student can learn to become responsible for their learning
• that offers necessary limits while remaining open to innovation and new ideas in which each student can reflect on their learning and develop competencies needed to transfer this learning into their daily lives

Using “big ideas” as a starting point, students learn through practical projects that require them to gain a thorough understanding of the subject so that they can apply what they’ve learned in the real world. This approach engages students in formulating questions, looking for answers, building new understandings, and communicating their learning to others, while developing skills in critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and reasoning, as well as synthesis skills and resilience.
 
Personalized inquiry-based learning engages students deeply, and, because this approach creates a culture in which failure is an integral part of the learning process, students learn to take appropriate risks.

Research suggests that this approach increases students’ creativity, autonomy, independence, and problem-solving ability, and that it develops innovation and imagination. Students become more engaged and responsible for their learning. Students learn to learn and become active members of a learning community that focuses on each other's strengths.

Play-based learning has proven to be beneficial for learning among children of all ages and indeed among adolescent and adult learners.

Play is a vehicle for learning because it “…nourishes every aspect of children’s development—it forms the foundation of intellectual, social, physical, and emotional skills necessary for success in school and in life. Play “paves the way for learning.” (Canadian Council on Learning, Let the Children Play: Nature’s Answer to Early Learning 2006, p. 2)
 
Play is an important way in which children learn. It supports, sustains, extends, enhances, and enriches the child’s learning.

Through play, children have valuable opportunities to interact with others in a variety of social settings and to use language meaningfully as they explore, plan, imagine, experiment, manipulate, dramatize, negotiate rules, and pose and solve problems. Play enables children to work out their ideas and theories and to use what they already know in order to deepen their understanding and further their learning. It allows them to actively construct, challenge, and expand their own understandings. At play, children of all ages are often highly motivated: they concentrate, persevere, and make decisions.
 
The benefits of play are recognized by the scientific community.

There is now evidence that neural pathways in children’s brains are influenced by and advanced in their development through exploration, thinking skills, problem solving, and language expression that occur during play. Research also demonstrates that play-based learning leads to greater social, emotional, and academic success....

In fact, play is considered to be so essential to healthy development that the United Nations has recognized it as a specific right for all children. (CMEC Statement, 2012) Play expands intelligence, stimulates the imagination, encourages creative problem solving, and helps develop confidence, self-esteem, and a positive attitude toward learning. (Dr. Fraser Mustard, CMEC Statement on Play-based Learning, p. 1)
 
As children mature, they grow in their ability to deal with abstract concepts, to generalize from their experiences, to learn from different media, and to work independently for longer periods of time. As always, play, the active engagement with events, ideas, materials, and other people, continues to provide important learning experiences.

Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, to set and achieve positive goals, to feel and show empathy for others, to establish and maintain positive relationships, and to make responsible decisions.
 
It is essential to create a welcoming, participatory, and caring climate to enable healthy and productive social and emotional learning.

The process requires a systemic approach that involves everyone, from the students to the teachers, to school leaders, family members, and community partners. To be effective, social and emotional learning must be part of daily life in the classroom, within the school and the community, where positive working relationships, student engagement, and constructive behaviours are fostered and modeled. Teachers, parents and community members are supportive, and students are inspired and engaged, care about one another, and work together to solve problems.
 
Students exposed to SEL do better on a number of indicators: positive social behaviours and attitudes, skills as varied as empathy and teamwork, and academics. They have fewer behaviour problems and less emotional distress. They show an increased ability to manage stress and depression, and have better attitudes about themselves, others, and school.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) describes individual trauma as resulting from "an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being."

Prolonged stress or trauma has a huge impact on children and young people.

Even after the stressful or traumatic situation has passed, children’s brains and bodies can continue to react as if the stress is continuing. The effects of trauma can be so encompassing that it can impact all aspect of children’s development. Trauma can prevent children from maturing emotionally, psychologically, and cognitively. The children can remain constantly in survival mode.

Consequently, traumatized and stressed children and young people have little space left for learning when their immediate sense of safety is not restored in the school setting. The effects of trauma can impact their ability to concentrate, pay attention, retain and recall new information. As a result of mistrust, fear and disrupted emotional regulation their behaviour can be challenging in the school environment. At other times, children and youth can appear withdrawn or emotionally absent.

Experiencing secure adult relationships that are characterized by calm empathetic responses is the key to healing for children and youth exposed to trauma.

Even when young people are acting in unexpected and confusing ways, adult responses that attune to the emotional state of the young person can “retrain” the part of the brain that may be anticipating harmful outcomes.  Adults within a school setting may also have a personal trauma history and could be at varying stages of healing which can impact upon the student – adult relationship. 

The trauma-informed approach creates a place of safety and mutual respect for students. In a learning environment, a trauma-informed approach means creating a school culture that

• understands trauma
• recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma
• realizes the widespread impact of trauma
• actively makes space for learning
• creates safe physical and psychological spaces for everyone
• builds and maintains trust through collaboration, peer support, and mutual self-help
• recognizes, builds on, and validates individual strengths
• encourages empowerment, voice, and choice
• connects a student’s social, cultural, family, or language background to what the student is learning; nurtures that cultural uniqueness; and responds by creating conditions in which the student’s learning is enhanced

With support, children and young people can, and do, recover from the harmful effects of trauma.

To do so, however, they need adults in their lives to be understanding of and responsive to their unique needs. They cannot easily adapt and change to their environment. Their environment and the people in it must adjust to help them. These children and young people need the space to learn to be created for them by those who care for and support them. (Making SPACE for Learning, p. 3)