Steve Revington

Year: 2016 – Province: Ontario

Certificate of Excellence Recipient

Steve Revington

Emily Carr Public School
44 Hawthorne Road
London, Ontario  N6G 2H5

Principal: Matthew Chevalier
School telephone: 519-452-8160
School email: emilycarr@tvdsb.on.ca
School website: http://www.tvdsb.ca/EmilyCarr.cfm

Subjects and grades taught: Grade 4, all subjects

Steve Revington's classroom extends far beyond the walls of the school to encompass the local community and the broader world, all through interactive and immersive learning experiences.

Teaching approach

Mr. Revington believes that teaching is about creating possibilities and not simply about transferring information. His Authentic Learning approach promotes learning by doing, in a genuine context and to a specific audience. He acts as a facilitator or project manager who nurtures, motivates, co-creates and consults with students as they engage in multi-sensory tasks.

Outstanding achievements

  • Conceived his authentic learning model in the mid-1980s to provide a rich and meaningful environment for students to engage in, featuring role-playing, integrated subjects and skill sets, and plenty of hands-on and problem-solving activities; the Great London Challenge, for example, was an Amazing Race-type event, in which students solved a series of clues, which led them to locations across the city, with high-quality learning tasks at each event station.
  • Created the Egg Drop Project, inspired by a similar activity he saw on television: students design and build a capsule to protect a raw egg when dropped from high heights, to learn about gravity and other concepts; the project, which is used by educators around the world, wrote and produced an educational documentary that received extensive media coverage.
  • Created a comprehensive website, Authentic Learning, that supports educators in adopting his authentic model. He has identified and shared 12 elements that are the foundations of this model of learning. His Dream Big website provides parents with support and concise communication.
  • Selected as one of 50 finalists for the inaugural Global Teacher Prize, out of more than 5,000 submissions from 127 countries.
  • Named a recipient of the 2014 Associate Teacher Award for Excellence from Western University's Althouse College Faculty of Education.

Rave reviews

"His warm and caring attitude permeates everything he does …. He is an innovative leader who challenges the status quo and seeks change that he knows will make a difference to kids."

Former principal

"I have never met a teacher who has been as intentional, effective or committed to meeting the learning and social-emotional needs of his students."

Head Board psychologist