Toronto Catholic District School Board
About Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB)
The Toronto Catholic District School Board is part of the fabric of publicly-funded Catholic education in the Province of Ontario. They serve more than 93,000 students in their 201 Catholic schools, and represent close to 475,000 Catholic school supporters in this city.
The SMART Table Project
As soon as the SMART Table was launched into the Canadian market, TCDSB made plans to use it in their schools, as an education tool to strengthen pre literacy, numeracy, and social skills for children aged 3 to 6 years. This approach would mean students could arrive at school better prepared to participate in cooperative learning activities.
TCDSB invited Advanced Education to work with their consultants to show them how to use the SMART Table, with an aim of determining which activities would be best for their non readers. Our Education Consultants edited a few sets of SMART Table activities for these children.
A half day training session was organized for several preschool and kindergarten teachers and support staff. Our EC’s started the training session with an introduction to the SMART Table and a video showing students using the table. The participants were split into groups in which they tested various math and reading activities for the SMART Table, so they could determine how these linked to their curriculum. There was overwhelming excitement as our Education Consultants listened to the participants using the SMART Table.
Each group made a presentation that showed all the participants the activities and how they could be used by the students. Much creativity was shown by the teachers during this portion of the morning.
Advanced Education has been proudly assisting TCDSB in implementing the SMART Tables across the board. According to their consultants, this product is exposing children to problem solving, divergent and convergent thinking and early academics.
