What if…faculty meetings were more like fashion shows? We could “runway” teaching and learning ideas and mesmerize our teams with the creations of colleagues. Exciting trends for the season could surface! And we could stop talking of “stealing” ideas from other teachers and change our verbs to co-laboring, exchanging, and inspiring! The fashion industry is one of the most innovative…
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it's about learning 
Love it: this year we’ve used the Ignite! model for two all-school PD meetings on tech integration in the classroom w/students, and in faculty communication w/families. Eleventy-seven benefits: teachers taking inspiration from each other; teachers who might not have self-selected as proficient users exciting those perhaps less confident still; teachers following up after the session to learn more from each other; exposure of individual experiments we wouldn’t have identified; nearly effortless to organize and manage from the admin pov. I also see real value in the EdCampIS model (both overall, and w/ref to the ‘Smackdown’ at the end: 2 minutes, unrehearsed and unprepared, to demonstrate a new, exciting, useful resource or idea)… The less visiting “lecturers-lecturing-against-lecturing,” and the more peer mentoring, local leadership, facilitated collaborative coaching, etc., the better! CT
Chris, thanks for the affirmation and encouragement. Thanks, too, for the concrete applications – Ignite and EdCamp Smackdown! In the Junior High, we use “campfire stories” to share practices and innovations, and we have been thinking about using Ignite and Encienda, too. I agree the benefits to school community are enormous!
Pingback: CHANGEd 60-60-60: FASHION « Toward Wide-Awakeness
I love this idea. I wonder if it could be connected to the Ignite-lite idea we are experimenting with in Synergy. Could we use an Ignite-lite delivery system as our runway with the teaching and learning ideas as our products. How often would we see “copies” of trends?
Jill, I thought of Ignite/Encienda, as well! I also thought of student and faculty “ethnography-design” teams coming to share their “fashions” along the runway of the faculty meetings. From 60-60-60 #1, I am clearly hoping for more sharing of practices, and I believe I was thinking of digital/online sharing for that post. For 60-60-60 #2, I was thinking of more face-to-face sharing. Plus, I think it would be fun to produce a faculty meeting that was more like New York or Paris fashion week. At NAIS, my sessions with Beaver Country Day School & NuVu AND with Berkeley Carroll School felt like the excitement and wonder of haute couture fashion that works!