Not being STUCK and having momentum is a really good thing! In Part 1 of my reflection of our professional learning, I chronicled our journey as a faculty from feeling stuck to moving forward as adult learners. Full disclaimer here....year 2 of our journey Hurricane Harvey hit Houston. We lost three weeks of our school year and in all honesty we dealt with so many obstacles that just "doing school" as we knew it was a challenge. BUT, we did move forward!
Year 2 of our journey took our staff from looking at the process of learning to examining how we approached content in our classrooms. Our faculty was once again challenged at the beginning of the school year by our principal, Michael McDonough, to continue their journey as learners and to look at what students were creating with the content in each of our classrooms. That led to our 2017 Learn shirts.
Year 2 of our journey took our staff from looking at the process of learning to examining how we approached content in our classrooms. Our faculty was once again challenged at the beginning of the school year by our principal, Michael McDonough, to continue their journey as learners and to look at what students were creating with the content in each of our classrooms. That led to our 2017 Learn shirts.
As a faculty we had shifted our mindset a bit moving into year 2 because of the Learn Project. Conversations began centered around what was happening in our classrooms with the content that students were learning? A simple jump to focus on Blooms Taxonomy would be the assumption....but it was more than that. We looked at once our students had processed content at high levels how were they then taking that content and constructing something new. And how could those "new" ideas be authored and shared outside our walls. This focus brought up learning that focused on collaboration and communication. Yep....21st century skills just naturally bubbling up in our path.
We continued learning walks and instructional conversations. Sharing out the pockets of innovation that we were seeing. We celebrated our teachers as we saw a shift in mindset creeping into our culture. Teachers began to share their learning with each other and a few more teachers also found the magic of a PLN.
In the Spring, we have all of our faculty members complete a professional learning survey to gather feedback and information from teachers. One of my favorite questions we ask is "When comparing May 2018 to May 2017, how does student learning look differently in your classroom?" The responses we got reflected growth in many areas. And looking forward, the survey also showed us that there were questions around how were we supporting the social and emotional needs of our students. What learning did we need to embark on to lift stigmas associated with mental health and learn as educators more about our students?
We learned to continue to encourage teachers:
- to get curious
- to dig into learning that had the potential to answer their questions
- to think about what impact a change might have in their instruction
- to then give it a go
- and then reflect
My own learning during this school year was impacted by George Couros's book "The Innovators Mindset." I participated in an #IMMOOC group study led by Couros and Katie Martin. That experience gave me access to a community of learners focused on innovation in our schools. The experience in the study and discussion that surrounded it, solidified my thoughts around the need to empower teachers. I shared some of my learning in a blog post, "When You Empower Teachers #IMMOOC"
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