Educational Research | Pedagogical Advancement
School Partnerships
Extraordinary Education through Research & Action
Headwaters develops curriculum-linked, for-credit experiential courses that deliver the Ontario Secondary School curriculum while going beyond the textbook: a canoe trip down the Missinaibi River to earn a grade 11 geography credit; an immersive conservation training program in Temagami as the culminating assessment of an environmental science credit. This is real, high-calibre academic education delivered in an extraordinary way, pushing the boundaries of what learning can – and should – look like.
Viewing research and practice as linked, we partner with schools to develop unique programs, facilitate those programs, and then learn from the results to continually improve and iterate, remaining responsive to today yet forward looking to tomorrow.
As a boutique organization with an intentionally small team, everything we do is thoughtful, purposeful, and highly personalized to the needs of our partners. Schools get to know us, and we get to know them.
School Partnership Details
The Need for an Integrated, Transdisciplinary Education – The Headwaters Approach
Education is in desperate need of a re-think. The separation of academic learning from the "world out there" is inadequate to address the very real challenges our students and our planet are facing. Outdoor education in the form of 'outdoor gym class', 'week-at-camp experiences', and 'hot chocolate making in the woods', while providing unique, engaging, and often memorable experiences, lacks the capacity to integrate with academic learning in a meaningful way.
Headwaters is different. We start with the premise of re-imagining the classroom: not only taking students outside, but integrating academic lessons into the world around us: taking the place we are in and intentionally building a course that will draw the curriculum components out of the natural and cultural landscape.
Headwaters and School Partnerships
We partner with schools in developing their integrated academic and nature-based educational competencies. Working in the realms of both action research and program implementation, we use a cyclical model of Development, Delivery, and Dissemination, enabling schools and their teachers to be at the forefront of educational theory and practice.
Our Expertise
Headwaters has expertise in two main areas:
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1) Developing curriculum-linked, for-credit experiential courses that deliver the Ontario Secondary School curriculum while going beyond the textbook. These range from single day workshops which compliment a school's existing credit course to month-long canoe trips which deliver an entire credit. By taking rigorous, academic learning out into the world, we go beyond "outdoor gym class" to push the boundaries of what extraordinary educational programing can look like.
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2) Conducting and disseminating research in the fields of educational philosophy and pedagogy, particularly in regard to environmental, outdoor, experiential, and nature-based education. All of the programs that we run are based on the existing literature as well as research we have conducted ourselves. We provide opportunities for teacher- and student-conducted research during all of our programs, working to move forward the field of education through participatory action research in an ongoing, reflective, and cyclical way.
A Complete Partnership
Forming meaningful relationships is, we believe, the most important work for any individual or organization involved in the field of education. After all, nothing can be done alone. Headwaters is always looking to form mutually beneficial relationships with the schools we partner with.
We are able to partner on either program development and facilitation, or on research and dissemination/professional development. However, our most holistic partnerships come when we tie the two together into our three-pillar model of Development, Delivery, and Dissemination. Under this framework, we work with schools to:
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Develop and integrate programs which are unique to their needs and to their school, melding academic and nature-based education.
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Put our development into practice through the organization, facilitation, and Delivery of the programs, in partnership with the school and its teachers.
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And Disseminate any findings, research results, philosophies, and pedagogies which were discovered in the delivery of the program, with the goal of helping to improve the educational work and expertise of the partner school, building their internal capacity and educational excellence.
This Development, Delivery, Dissemination model is cyclical, with the results of Dissemination always informing the Development and Delivery of future programs.