To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the importance of making connections to help you learn, this week's topic/question for the dinner table is: How can making connections with other people help you learn? Please see link to Google Form to share your responses: Making Connections (Week of 1/31/16) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
It is hard to believe that we are already at the midpoint of the year and February, 2016 is here! I hope that everyone was able to relax and take a breath this past weekend. After 'family night' Friday evening and what we have come to know as 'Sports Saturday' in our house, we enjoyed the kids' winter music recital Sunday afternoon.
This past Friday afternoon, after taking some to try and catch up on e-mail (as if I can ever really feel 'caught up!) and making some phone calls, I went for a run. At this time of year it can be difficult to find the time for exercise, so I am doing my best to commit to Friday afternoons as one of my set times. Beyond the physical benefits I gain it is also an uninterrupted time for me to reflect - not just about school, but about family, friends, and general thoughts. As thoughts were floating in and out of my head during the run, I began to think (and yes, over-think) about my 'to do' list and the week that lies ahead. This is an ongoing challenge for me and from conversations I have had with many members of our Blake community, I do not think I'm alone - trying to balance planning/preparation with feeling overwhelmed and struggling with time to just focus on the 'task at hand'. I thoroughly enjoy and believe in our work and that fulfillment, in turn, can often feed the desire to do more.
As I drove home from school, having finished the run and yes - checked e-mail one more time, I was able to help frame my thoughts to help find a center of focus as the weekend began. What helped me find that focus? It's hard to tell, but I know one thing that helped was the second half of my run. As I approached one of the turns halfway through, Erik Ormberg (many of you know Erik - a guidance counselor at MHS who used to work at Blake) was coming the other way. I ended up turning around and we finished our route together. In that brief time together, having not really talked since we returned from the holiday break, we caught up about work and family, shared a few stories, and laughed. The connection that I experienced from that brief interaction, although small, made a difference in my thinking and reminded me first-hand just how important relationships and connections are - and, we need to foster and nurture them.
This is a busy week at Blake - Term 2 Interim Reports, reviewing MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey results and planning next steps, ADL presentations/workshops for Grade 6 - and the list could go on. This is no different than any other week, as we would just need to fill in the details/specifics. The week culminates on Friday with our Digital Learning Day (#DLDMedfield) and, although the agenda is full, it is an opportunity for all of us to foster and nurture our relationships and connections with one another. Yes, the day is built around the principles of edtech, but we need to keep in mind that the important drivers of these workshops and experiences are student learning and growth. I am sharing four posts/reflections this week that speak to this mindset of naming the key drivers that should influence our work - a focus on learning, craftsmanship, and relationships...
What Does A Relevant, Connected Educator Look Like-Part 1 and Part 2
post by Steven Anderson (@web20classroom)
Anderson's posts provide a nice snapshot of the book he co-authored with Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby), The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning, outlining the eight tenets they believe embody relevant educators:
- Practices and Models Lifelong Learning
- Believes in Sharing and Collaboration
- Willing To Explore, Question, Elaborate and Advance Ideas Through Connections With Other Educators
- Views Failure As Part Of The Learning Process
- Uses Technology And Its Connections To Other Educators To Learn And Teach
- Uses The Tools Of Technology To Personalize Their Professional Development
- Comfortable With New Technology And Shows A Willingness To Explore
- May Put Creation Over Content And Relevance Over Doctrine.
"Being a Relevant, Connected Educator is something, we believe, should be embraced by all educators everywhere. Today, with so much access to information, the way that learning is done is drastically different than it was just a handful of years ago."
The Ability to be Taught
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
This brief reflection by Will Richardson reminds us that the goal is for students to be able to learn, rather than 'taught' - we need to remember this distinction and keep in mind at all times. He references the words of Seymour Papert as his focal point: The one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to learn.”
But we don’t focus on being able to learn that much in schools, do we? Instead we put most of our attention on making sure kids are able to be taught.
In the process, we basically ignore the skill of being able to learn. In fact, we may damage what learning skills and dispositions kids already bring to us when they start school. But the vast majority of kids end up right where we want them, being teachable.
It’s Good — Let’s Make It Great
by Jessica Lander (@jessica_lander) from Harvard Graduate School of Education
Lander identifies the idea of 'craftsmanship' as a way to think about the learning process for our students and ourselves. We need to be constantly open to feedback and continuous improvement. In this post she shares her reflections on the assignment of an op-ed that allowed her students to practice that skill.
We know that learning is powerful when made tangible and relevant to the lives and futures of our students. An increasing number of schools and programs are embracing this notion by promoting project-based learning and community-centered initiatives. But we don’t talk enough about the importance of craftsmanship.
In his writings, Berger outlines two important concepts for teaching the crafting process: the first is to show and discuss models of excellent work, which students can aim to emulate; the second is to build a classroom culture of peer critique (which I wrote about in a recent post).
Most surprising, and most exciting, was how seriously my students approached the task. They showed up before school, after school, during lunch, during advisory period. They came with questions, or ideas, or simple updates on their progress. In class, even my most stubborn troublemakers could be found intently typing away.
We need more schools to seriously teach (and reward) craftsmanship, to teach students how to develop the determination and confidence they’ll need to succeed at college and in careers.
The Incredible Legacy of Joe Bower
by John Spencer (@spencerideas)
I always enjoy John Spencer's blog posts for his reflective and thought-provoking posts. Here he reflects on the legacy of Alberta educator, Joe Bower, an advocate for progressive education and a student-centered learning environment.
Joe spoke with clarity and conviction and he was more concerned with the well-being of children than with the comfort of teachers.
Joe Bower wasn't afraid to speak the truth. He was a man of conviction and courage and sometimes that conviction would make me uncomfortable or even angry. But, over time, I realized that there was something else to him. Gentleness.
I never got the chance to meet Joe Bower in person. I was hoping I would run into him this spring when I'm up in Alberta. But if I did see him, I'd tell him thank you. Thank you for pushing my thinking and changing my practice. Thank you for advocating so boldly for children even when it made people angry or uncomfortable. Thank you for changing my mindset about teaching and fatherhood. I'm not sure if Joe ever knew how many lives he changed out of his relentless advocacy for a more student-centered approach to education.
Joe Bower's last tweet as shared by Spencer...
Want to collect data on how children are learning? Know them. Watch them. Listen to them. Talk with them. Sit with them. Be with them.
I hope we can continue to build the connections with one another so that we can embody, explore, and simply experiment in a thoughtful manner elements of each of these reflections. I am looking forward to the week ahead.
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Take care.
Nat Vaughn