Teaching With Heart: Highlights from the IntenSIG SPRING GIG 2025

Educators from across Quebec gathered at the CSSMI on Friday, May 23, 2025, for the IntenSIG Spring Gig 2025: Teaching with Heart. Hosted by the IntenSIG Team, this professional development day featured a dynamic “menu” of their favorite activities, shared to inspire and enrich teaching practices.

The day featured valuable presentations, starting with Life Skills for 6th Graders, designed to help students build essential skills for everyday life, enhance social skills, and foster autonomy.

Attendees also explored The Google AI Teacher Toolkit, learning how AI tools can streamline tasks, personalize learning, and free up time for meaningful connection with students.

SEL Activities, presented as a way of Making the Class a Better Place, were highlighted for their intention to naturally weave the 5 SEL competencies into teaching, promoting resilience and cooperation.

Collaboration was a central theme in Heartfelt Collaborating: Where IE and FLE Teachers Unite, a session focused on significantly contributing to students’ transfer of learning between their first and second languages and encouraging teachers to join forces to help students understand language as a system.

The day also included a short presentation on LEARN Resources for ESL, where interesting projects were highlighted from the LEARN website.

The Daily 5 My Way explored how the Daily 5 framework can be used to engage and motivate students in reading and writing in English. The presentation focused on fostering student autonomy by offering meaningful choices aligned with their interests, all within the structure of a common theme. Practical strategies and examples demonstrated how the approach can be adapted to support literacy development while maintaining high levels of student involvement and enthusiasm.

The day wrapped up with Five Wondering, Wandering, Wonderful Stations. Participants had the opportunity to visit each presenter, explore their resources, and ask questions in person. The event concluded on a high note with a lively Kahoot game, fun prizes, and warm farewells for all!

The IntenSIG Team 2025 extends a heartfelt thank you to Voula Plagakis for graciously inviting us to host the Spring GIG 2025 at her school service center. A special thank you also goes to Maria Corsetto of SPEAQ, whose behind-the-scenes support continues to be a steady foundation for our work.

And of course, thank you to all of you who attended the IntenSIG SPRING GIG 2025. Your enthusiasm and active participation truly brought our theme—Teaching with Heart—to life.

We hope you left the day feeling inspired and equipped with practical strategies to bring back to your classrooms. Thank you for being such an incredible part of this vibrant community.

We can’t wait to see you again next year!

The InteSIG Team 2025

Elizabeth Alloul, LEARN (Co-chair)
Shawna Cyr, CSSCS
Sheena Jack-Dubeau, CSSPI
Kellylee Bourget, CSSDA (Co-chair)
Gabriel Sperneac, CSSDL
Carolann Lapointe, CSSRDS
Christine Hosni, CSSMI
Claudia Crisan, CSSMI