I have been dreaming of the blog post I would write to encapsulate and synergize the remarkably superb experience I enjoyed – and more importantly grew from – last weekend. Like pre-visualizing an athletic performance, I was imagining the words, the letters, the images, and videos. The text and subtext. The intro and the killer, kicker sentence that would cap it all. Then, I read @mmhoward’s post on the event and the learning…and I like hers better. I hope you’ll read it. It’s worth every nanosecond.
This weekend, I am participating in Re-Imagine Ed (RE:ED) – Next Chapter (on Twitter at #nxtchp2011). I am part of an integrated network of design teams working to imagine the K-12 libraries of the future. From the website:
An Active Process:
Instead of another traditional conference — speakers talking at passive audiences; vaguely connected sessions — you’ll join a dynamic 3-day design event focused on imagination and action.
Becoming Part of a Design Team
“Next Chapter” participants automatically become members of 7-8 person design teams.
This will allow passionate, creative, professionally-diverse attendees to collaborate actively with innovative peers and design facilitators in imagining new futures for the K12 library.
Over the course of the 3 days, teams will work closely with their experienced design facilitators to solve a variety of real world case studies in an effort to create new visions for K12 libraries:
Listen -> empathize, ask, seek
Imagine -> ideate, brainstorm, wonder
Make -> prototype, craft, test
During the first two days, I have made some short movies, just to capture some of the action. I will write more later.
On Saturday, September 17, Jill Gough and I were privileged to provide the keynote address for the 2011 Regional T³/MCTM Annual Conference. Conference Director Jennifer Wilson facilitated a wonderfully effective learning opportunity for teachers, administrators, pre-service teachers, college professors, and others.
From the beginning, the program cover-art fascinated Jill and me. The conference theme was “Completing the Square,” and the image pictured a puzzle with a missing piece in the center. To build our keynote address, Jill and I imagined what that missing puzzle piece might be that would truly complete the square. Additionally, we threaded our talk with the idea of Leading by Following.
Believing in the powerful nature of stories, Jill and I told four stories to illuminate some puzzling issues facing educators today:
Puzzle 1: Why do we talk so much of teaching when it’s about LEARNING? Or… “How could they not know this?” [Assessment for Learning]
Puzzle 2: How can we make learning experiences more meaningful? Or… “When are we gonna use this?” [Contextual Learning]
Puzzle 3: Why are teachers and admin “US and THEM” when we all want our students to learn? Or… “You are a fool!” [Learning Partners]
Puzzle 4: Why is teaching an “egg crate culture” when we know learning is social? Or… “WE are smarter than ME.” [Learning Communities]
What do you think the missing piece might be? What completes the square? The following slide deck will lead you on the path that we explored during the keynote. We loved being in this community of learners at Brandon Middle School. It is always a privilege and pleasure to spend time learning with committed and curious educators.
Yesterday, I observed the Algebra I team deliver the lesson “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” They invited me to observe – as principal, as well as a pseudo-member of their team (pseudo only because I do not formally teach the course known as Algebra I). This team has engaged in lesson study before.
When I entered the room, I made an instantaneous decision NOT to observe in the manner I usually do. Typically, I take narrative notes, as I was taught to do in graduate school for educational leadership and supervision. In the moment, I decided to take video notes. Using my Flip camera, I recorded short, approximately-fifteen-second clips of classroom action. After I had three or four clips, I uploaded the videos to my MacBook Pro, and moved the videos into a Keynote slide deck. I titled slides based on the “learning progression” stage of the lesson. Then, I repeated this multi-step process several times. At the end of the class, the Algebra I team had a twenty-three-slide deck of video-embedded resources that they could review for their lesson study concerning “Leaning on a Jet Plane.” The deck was readily available because we share a Dropbox as a team.
Below is a PDF version of the deck – so you will not be able to view the videos. However, this Scribd doc will give you a simplified visual of what we now possess to review as a team – full of video. Now, to continue the fabulous professional practice of Lesson Study!
Synergy 8 is an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized, non-graded, community-issues, problem-solving course for 8th graders at The Westminster Schools. Jill Gough and I co-created the course, and we co-facilitate it, as well. This morning, I posted a summary of our engagement in the “KP Challenge.” Today, we initiated the process of Game Planning – creating game plans to frame and scaffold just about any project work. Ms. Gough and I captured the beginnings of the game plans in a short, one-minute video:
Interestingly, we are using the same “Game Plan” framework with our adult teacher-leaders in our Junior High School PLCs (professional learning communities).[See an example here.]
The Synergy team is utilizing tools that are employed by the pedagogical leaders in our middle school. I find that parallelism so exciting!
it's about learning 