Archive for Professional Learning

greystone | April 13, 2013
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Professional Learning is a Priority in Parkland School Division

 

I just came back from two days spent with my colleagues – members of our School Division’s “Lead Team”. Our Lead Team includes Principals, Assistant Principals, Learning Services Facilitators, Directors from our Finance, Transportation, Learning Services, Transportation, Human Resources and Communication Departments along with members of our Senior Executive. Gathering such a large, diverse group of School Division leaders together is no small feat. It meant that every individual who attended needed to leave the busy schedules of their day to day work behind and for those of us in schools, it meant trusting that our schools’ teacher leaders would “hold down the fort” during our absence. On behalf of our Senior Executive of Superintendents, it demonstrated that in spite of challenging financial times in the world of education, the importance they place on the value of our team’s professional growth and collaboration so that we can lead our schools effectively for our students will not be sacrificed. A few of us said we felt almost guilty for taking time away from our schools to head west to the beautiful mountain community of Canmore where we gathered for our learning.

Now that I am back home and have time to reflect on the experience – I can honestly say that I am grateful that our Senior Executive made the decision to provide all of us with this uninterrupted time together – away from the demands of our professional and personal lives back home. The Lead Team Retreat gave us an opportunity to learn from and with each other both formally during our scheduled meetings and presentations, but also informally as we shared best practices with each other, discussed some of our challenges, offered suggestions to each other and had long conversations on the road as we were encouraged to car pool with our colleagues. I have found that some of the best learning can come from the conversations that just happen when we spend time together talking about our students and our schools.

A few of the highlights for me were:

Mental Health Presentation

We were reminded of how significant an issue mental health is in the workplace. Research tells us that 1 in 5 Canadians between the ages of 18 – 65 will experience mental illness and that this will have an impact on their work. It was shared that of the people who face mental illness challenges, very few will be diagnosed and even fewer will receive successful treatment. We learned about the symptoms of mental illness and what to look for among our employees. We learned about what we can do to support those who are experiencing mental illness so that they can be successful in getting the help they need to improve their health. What stood out for me was how important it is to remove the negative stigma associated with mental illness so that our staff members know they have our non-judgemental support in order to seek treatment.

“Speed Dating”

This is simply an organized, yet highly effective, way to ensure that we got the opportunity to listen to each other share some of the amazing things we all have going on in our schools. In small groups, we moved from table to table and heard all kinds of new ideas for things we may want to bring back to our own schools. What I will be bringing back to Greystone are some great suggestions around technology from a couple of schools. Muir Lake School shared experiences and insights around their one to one technology pilot project. Meridian Heights School shared how they “trained the troops” on the use of google docs by scheduling chunks of time for the students to be taught the process by the tech “expert” on staff.

The most important “take away” from this valuable time spent together with my colleagues was that I continue to feel non-stop support and the power of collaboration from our Lead Team. Knowing that we are in this together allows me to return to the challenges and opportunities that await back at the school with a huge boost of renewed energy. For me, this was time well spent and reminds me that our School Division really does put its people first!

 

Category: Collaboration, Community Building, Professional Learning, Reflections, Shared Leadership |
greystone | February 3, 2013
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A Target for Teachers

Our teachers at Greystone are becoming very skilled at helping our students understand the targets we set for their learning. We have been learning how to co-create criteria with our students so that they will understand what we are looking for when we assess their learning. We know that our students will be able to better meet the standards for high performance when the target is made clear to them and when we work with them throughout the learning process, to provide ongoing feedback and opportunities to improve their work, so that they can hit the targets we set.

The same thing is true for our teachers. When we talk about what kind of teaching needs to be going on in our classrooms so that we can make engaged learning come to life – we need to set some targets for ourselves as well. We have taken on this process of co-creating criteria for engaged student learning during our Professional Development Days this year. We are getting further along in developing our shared understanding of what we should expect to see in our classrooms when we are providing an engaging learning environment for our students. Here’s a snapshot of what our teachers have come up with so far:

Risk Taking - Learners are persevering to grow outside their boundaries.

Providing Evidence – Learners are an active part of the assessment and feedback process.

Learning Authentically – Learners are emotionally and intellectually invested in their work.

Questioning – Learners’ natural curiosity is leading them to explore deeper learning.

Collaborating – Learners are open-minded to different perspectives.

Creating – Learners are thinking, acting and engaging with ideas.

We are now developing specific actions that would be taking place in our classrooms to demonstrate each of these key areas for engaged learning. Once we have developed our action plan, we will be able to use this document as a tool to assess ourselves and provide feedback to each other as we continue our professional growth.

This is taking a long time, but the process is definitely providing us with lots of excellent opportunities for dialogue about best practices for our classrooms. I am confident that once we are finished, the criteria we have established together will be a valuable tool in helping us hit our target of getting it right for today’s learners.

 

 

 

Category: Assessment and Reporting, Collaboration, Professional Learning, Student Learning |
greystone | January 27, 2013
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Just Dance – Changing Role of the Teacher

 

 

I love to dance! I’m not a great dancer…in fact, I’m not even a good dancer. I really don’t care, though, I just dance or, as the saying goes, I “dance like no one is watching“. So, when I attended a learning session this past week where the presenter shared that teaching was like being a choreographer, I was intrigued.

The presenter was Garfield Gini-Newman from The Critical Thinking Consortium. The topic was about using technology to transform teaching practice. Gini-Newman reminded us all that technology

has the potential to be a curiosity amplifier and can transform teaching and learning but only if harnessed in powerful pedagogy.

We reviewed Critical Inquiry and how creating an engaged, curious classroom community can serve the needs of today’s learners. What really got me reflecting this week was when Gini-Newman identified what the teacher’s role in this learning environment needs to be.

For me, I always felt the role of the teacher included a balance of the following:

Teacher as Expert ~ the teacher needs to have some depth and breadth of knowledge about the subject discipline – preferrably not just to dispense information to students but to know where to guide students as they uncover curriculum together in order to assist students in making connections, both to prior learning and to the real world where the subject discipline lives.

Teacher as Facilitator ~ the teacher needs to bring out the past experiences, new understandings and individual perspectives from students – often watching and observing as the learning unfolds while giving students voice and choice, when possible, in exploring, in more depth,topics of interest.

Teacher as Coach ~ the teacher needs to continuously assess the developing understandings and skills in order to support next steps in learning – asking questions and helping students find answers within themselves while developing confidence and perseverance through ongoing feedback and opportunities to learn from mistakes.

This week, Gini-Newman provided me with a new way to consider the role of the teacher – which caused me to do a lot of thinking. I wasn’t sure, initially, if I agreed with his analogy.

Teacher as Choreographer? ~ I am in awe of talented dancers – the movement, the skill, the grace and strength. Quite frankly, even though I took several years of dance in my youth (and was really very bad!) I have little to no understanding of what is involved as a choreographer. What my limited understanding tells me is that choreographers plan a dance routine and get the dancers to follow their plan. So, how is this any different from the traditional role of a teacher? Plan a lesson and have the students follow your plan (Teacher as “Sage on the Stage”). Then I did a little research. I watched this TEDTalks video to help me understand more about the role of a choreographer.

What I discovered is that in the kind of choreography shown here, the choreographer exposes the dancers to an idea or gives them a challenge, creates a mental picture, and provides them with choices for what to do for themselves. As they explore the creative process, the choreographer observes how the dancers are interacting with the movements and ideas and then makes decisions, in that moment, about how to collaborate with them to change, adjust and connect to the central idea. The process is fluid, based on taking risks, expressing voice and communicating ideas.

The skilled classroom teacher, as choreographer, follows this same creative, collaborative process. The process is never fixed, always fluid, dynamic, responsive to individuals and allows for individuals to interact with new ideas and understandings in a way that is meaningful to them. The teacher continuously assists students to connect the smaller pieces to the big, overarching idea in order to bring coherence and meaning to the process.

Teacher as choreographer – it is a lot more complicated than to just dance!

 

Category: Personalized Learning, Professional Learning, Reflections, Student Learning |
greystone | December 21, 2012
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Christmas Came Early for Me

I felt like a kid on Christmas morning today as I entered the gym on the final day of my school’s first ever Innovation Week. Rows of tables had been set up, by students, to display the results of their week long exploration into self-directed, creative innovation. What I saw absolutely BLEW ME AWAY!

I had been in and out of learning spaces all week long, checking in with students to see how they were doing with their projects; however, I had no idea what the final results of the efforts of 260 students would be. In fact, I had convinced myself that the end product wasn’t what mattered, it was the process that was the most important part of this week. I said that, in large part, because I had absolutely no idea how this would all turn out.

Well, not only has the process proven to be successful in that students demonstrated perseverence, problem-solving skills, independence and interdependence – but the final products they displayed today showed that they have the ability to be CREATIVE!!! They came up with original videos, comics, music, games, new inventions that I had no idea they could produce. We are onto something truly remarkable here – and I can’t wait to take the lessons learned from this extraordinary week of learning back to our classrooms. How can we inject a little “Innovation Week” into every week of learning in our school?

Thank you Greystone Innovation Week Students for my early Christmas gift – you are an inspiration!

 

 

Category: Personalized Learning, Professional Learning, Reflections, Student Learning |
greystone | December 18, 2012
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Don’t Want to Miss a Thing

 

Tomorrow is Day #3 of our school’s first Innovation Week and I really wish I could be there to see the day unfold. I will be away at our monthly Leadership Meeting with the rest of our School Division’s Administrators but I don’t want to miss a thing that happens back at the school during what is proving to be a most interesting, unpredictable and inspiring time at Greystone. There are so many stories that need to be told about the things that are happening in and around the school these past two days - from new baking creations to sculpting, dressmaking, songwriting, music-making, novel writing, cartooning, rebuilding engines and even designing a hovercraft – to name just a few of the projects our students are exploring. I wish I was recording every incredible moment that I happen across as I spend time in and out of each learning space that has been set up to accommodate more than 250 students who are engaging in learning projects of their choice this week.

For me, the real highlight, so far, has been watching the process of putting together this amazing experience for our students and then seeing our students come to life with enthusiasm and dedication. The other part that gets me fired up is the unpredictablity of the whole thing – from day to day, we really have no idea how things will work out, if they will work out and what the day will look like. It’s energizing, really – coming to work for the past two days and just being completely open and present for whatever the day brings. I don’t want to share too much in this post about all the learning that is happening (for both adults and students!)or about the projects that are coming together as I know the students will be doing a lot of sharing in a few days when we celebrate their efforts from the week. However, for me, it’s all about the process and so far, the process has been about kids passionately pursuing their interests while learning how to create, invent, design, explore and persevere. I hope Day #3 goes well tomorrow, Greystone – I really don’t want to miss a thing!

Category: Personalized Learning, Professional Learning, Reflections, Student Learning |
greystone | December 8, 2012
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Blown Away!

I often find myself getting frustrated with the timing of what I feel are extremely important learning days in a school – our Professional Development (Learning) Days where our lead learners (teachers) come together to reflect, discuss, collaborate, share best practices and learn together in order to create engaging learning for our students at Greystone. These very important learning days are usually scheduled on a Friday – not always the most productive day of the week. Our most recent PD Day fell at the end of a week when we were pretty exhausted from endless hours spent on getting Report Cards and Individualized Program Plans completed, reviewed with students and sent home. I went into the PD Day last Friday thinking it was going to be incredibly tough, due to bad timing, to get our teachers to do some very thoughtful reflecting and sharing around creating criteria together for what we believe learner engagement should look like in our classrooms. I really wasn’t sure what to expect…

First, we started the day looking at this inspiring video to get us thinking (and re-thinking) about the possibilities for our learners. It was included as part of the day at TEDxEdmonton last October.

Future Learning

We spent time reflecting individually, and sharing in groups, about what stood out for us in this video. We then moved on to a four corners activity where we discussed and debated our level of agreement with the following statements:

  • I believe I have to teach all the foundational skills before I can do inquiry work with my students.
  • I believe I need to know something really well before I can teach it to my students.

Teachers entered into dialogue around their individual experiences and beliefs. What we discovered was that there are so many different ways to interpret these statements, but fundamentally, most were on the same page about the importance they placed on creating learning opportunities for students that allowed for exploration, curiosity, providing meaningful context for learning skills and following student interests.

We then asked teachers to work in groups to revisit the components of learner engagement that they had established at our last Professional Learning Day. We asked them to create criteria on a google doc for what they would see students and teachers doing when there was a focus on these areas:

  • Creating
  • Questioning
  • Collaboration
  • Authenticity
  • Evidence of Learning
  • Risk Taking

I was absolutely blown away with the engagement and thoughtful contributions made by our teachers that day. What an excellent example they set for our students as the lead learners in our school!

I am looking forward to our next steps as we continue to develop our “This We Believe” document for Greystone this year.

 

 

 

Category: Collaboration, Learning Through Inquiry Projects, Professional Learning, Reflections, School Vision and Planning |
greystone | November 25, 2012
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We Don’t Remember the Days – We Remember the Moments

 

I had a moment this week that stuck with me – so decided I should capture it in a blog post.

I have not done a lot of reflecting and writing lately as I have been on the gerbil wheel, racing around frantically trying to complete the “to do” list of report card reading, teacher evaluations, finishing touches on the School’s Annual Report and hiring new staff. This, combined with my choice to spend the last four weekends traveling near and far to visit family, watch my son play hockey, take part in an annual run with friends and present at a conference with colleagues from Greystone – has left me feeling like there’s not enough time during the week to get everything done…time to slow down!

From experience, I know that I do my best thinking and reflecting when I make time to relax – ideas flow, I get inspired by what I read or things I hear. That’s what happened today – something I heard during a meeting popped back into my head – it was a moment from this past week that I want to remember.

I had an “aha moment” in teaching – about fifteen years ago. It was in that moment that I understood what it meant to be a teacher. I figured out that the most important thing I could do for my students was to create a love for learning. Not only did I understand that this was the reason for my existance as a teacher, I also learned how I could make it happen. I needed to get off my stage and take a back seat to the students. They were the ones who needed to question, think, explore, figure things out. They needed to do more talking than me. They needed to learn how to think for themselves. They needed to NOT NEED ME. When I figured this out, my job became even more complicated and complex – but far more rewarding! I realized that in order to move my students to a place where they were directing their learning, I had to be even more organized, more thoughtful about my planning, more knowledgeable about the need to knows versus the nice to knows in the curriculum, more flexible to let students take their learning in unexpected directions and most importantly, more responsive to them as individuals. I needed to remember that each learner brought different background experiences, prior knowledge and even possibly some misconceptions to the table and that each learner required something different to build their understanding around a topic. I needed to create the setting for students to explore, deeply, the landscape of a topic. My job was to coach their learning by asking the right questions, sharing the discoveries as they were made and supporting students to reflect and ask questions of each other. I needed to create curiosity and a sense of wonder in my classroom – then get out of the way and put the learning and thinking in the hands of the students. I remember, so clearly, the moment when this happened for me, as a teacher. I became an observer, listener,facilitator and coach for the students – I was no longer the “chick in charge” at the front of the class.

Fast forward fifteen years later – I am Principal of a school full of bright and talented teachers. One of the many things that inspires me about my work now is when I see the “aha moment” happen for teachers at my school. This took place for one of our teachers and she shared it during a meeting last week. She said something like this:

I realized that it isn’t my questions that are important or me telling them what they need to learn about. What needs to happen is that they ask the questions – they come up with what they want to learn more about. I need to figure out how to help them do this.

YESSSS!!!! The “aha moment” – shifting control of the learning from the teacher to the student. Creating a sense of wonder and curiosity among our students – this is the real art of teaching. As John Medina puts it in his book Brain Rules:

Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

We need to provide students with the opportunity to become curious about the world and then give them the freedom to explore and discover for themselves. This is how we help them create the memorable moments in their learning.

 

 

Category: Learning Through Inquiry Projects, Personalized Learning, Professional Learning, Reflections, Student Learning |
greystone | November 13, 2012
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What Do F’s Stand for at Greystone?

Five Fabulous Females Facing Fears!
 
 
 
 
 
Our Greystone Team just finished sharing a presentation in Portland, Oregon at the Association for Middle Level Educators’ National Conference…and we are fired up! It’s amazing how energized you feel when you face fear head on and figure out that all the time, effort and energy you put into moving out of your comfort zone can pay off BIG TIME!We planned, prepared and practiced for the past several weeks so that we would make our school and our school division proud of the incredible learning journey we have been on at Greystone since we opened the doors of our middle school eight years ago. We wondered, would our story be worthy of sharing at a conference of this magnitude? With 400 breakout sessions, many big name presenters including experts on Middle Years Education (Rick Wormeli); Differentiation (Carol Ann Tomlinson); and Brain Research (John Medina) we were feeling a little out of our league. Seriously…who would be interested in hearing about our little school from Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada?We decided that the theme of our Greystone story would be our movement away from traditional practices – practices like grading student learning with F’s. At Greystone, the letter F refers to practices that better meet the needs of today’s learners. Our F’s stand for:
 
Familyof learners that are part of a school community where there is a high level of trust and strong, supportive relationships.

Flexibility in designing authentic, meaningful learning using an inquiry approach to engage learners.

Feedback for growth where students play a central role in co-creating criteria, assessing themselves and each other and understand what they need to do to improve in their learning.

Did we know in the beginning that the process of putting together this presentation would actually result in all of us facing our own fears and growing from the experience? As adult learners, we actually achieved the kind of learning that we strive for with our students. Our team of five from Greystone, Joan Papp, Claudia Scanga, Trish Spink and Lindsay Thornhill and I each took a giant step out of our comfort zone to face individual fears including the fear of flying, the fear of public speaking, and the fear of working with new technology. We challenged ourselves to learn through this experience. Was anyone interested in what we had to share about our little school from Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada? We think so…people stayed after we were finished to ask us more questions (and no one left the room during our presentation – another one of our fears!) We even heard one attendee tell us that our session was her favourite from the whole conference – wow!!! If others can get some ideas from what we have done at Greystone to share at their own schools – then all of this will have been worth it – and we are ready to share some more!
Category: Assessment and Reporting, Collaboration, Learning Through Inquiry Projects, Professional Learning, Shared Leadership |
greystone | October 6, 2012
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What’s the Main Thing?

 

 

Initiatives, programs, technology tools, resources, meetings, workshops, deadlines…all of this has been swimming around in my head these past few weeks and I have been trying to make some sense of it all – aligning all of the new opportunities with the work we are currently doing at Greystone while making sure we don’t go off course or become distracted by the next “bright shiny thing”. Something I am keeping at the front of my mind – I don’t want to overwhelm our teachers by adding too much to their already full plates. Specifically, I have been hashing out ideas with team members around how and what to share with teachers in order to keep the main thing the main thing.

As we started this new school year – our teachers were energized (and so was I) by the high levels of trust and collaboration taking place. Last year, as we were planning for our upcoming year, each grade level Learning Community asked that the main thing we continue to focus on was collaborative time for our teachers to work together – developing common assessments, continuing to develop their inquiry/critical thinking projects and assisting each other to develop skills with technology. This is the main thing that teachers wanted us to commit to – and we have. Every Learning Community has common “team time” this year to continue their learning together.

Next step…reminding teams that all of the work they are doing together needs to have an end in mind – what is it we are hoping to accomplish and how will we know we are getting there? What is it that we will keep in mind as the main thing when we collaborate and learn together? How will all of the programs, tools, resources, initiatives support us in keeping the main thing the main thing?

This past Professional Learning Day – we suggested that we keep the idea of Learner (student & adult) Engagement the main thing. We shared ideas around what this looks like, experiences we have had in the classroom when students were fully engaged, what fully engages us as adult learners, and we looked at exemplars from other schools who are working towards this. We connected the dots by reminding teachers that all of the work we do, the initiatives that are out there, all need to support our goal of increased Learner Engagement. We shared our overarching guiding question for our Adult Learner Inquiry this year:

What do we believe about Learner Engagement and what is the evidence that we are getting it right for our Learners?

Teachers built on each others’ experiences and ideas by capturing the themes around learner engagement: choice, purpose, risk-taking, beyond the walls, dialogue, investigation, questioning, connections are a few of the examples that emerged.

As we move forward this year – we will be focused on ways to develop Learner Engagement and what we will accept as evidence that we are finding success. Now that we have established the main thing- Learner Engagement - we can look at all the “bright shiny things” that are out there, the initiatives, resources, programs, with a critical eye and ask ourselves “how will this support our work in increasing Learner Engagement?” in order to decide which “bright shiny things” to take on.

Learner Engagement at Greystone…that’s our main thing.

 

Category: Collaboration, Learning Through Inquiry Projects, Professional Learning, Reflections, School Vision and Planning |
greystone | September 28, 2012
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Design Team: Building Our Dream Together

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

- Anatole France 

One of the cornerstones of our school community is our dedicated group of teachers – Design Team – who commit time, regularly, to keep building on the Greystone dream. Over the years, it has been these teacher leaders who have pushed our school’s vision of exemplary teaching and learning forward.  Teachers, representing all grade levels from our school, have come to the table to share successes, hopes, frustrations and challenges in our work of leading a school community with vision, passion and creativity. When this group comes to the table, the expectations are made clear:

  • we construct and de-construct our knowledge and understanding together
  • everyone’s voice is heard and respected
  • decisions are made collaboratively based on what’s best for our kids
  • the work is often messy, the conversations tough, but there is trust in the process and in each other
  • no idea is too crazy and this is a safe place to make mistakes and figure things out together

Our Design Team has been instrumental in pushing our school community to take on projects, pilot new initiatives and share our learning with others. Here are some examples of what we have accomplished:

- highly collaborative learning teams at every grade level that have adopted an inquiry approach to teaching and learning via the Galileo Educational Network

- assisted all staff develop a balanced assessment program that focuses on Assessment AS, FOR and OF Learning. This means our school practices align with best practices in assessment – no awards assemblies recognizing the accomplishments of a few; growth is the goal for each and every learner and is recognized and celebrated by all teachers, students and parents.

- continued development of excellent home/school communication and partnerships through classroom blogs, student-led conferences, development of student portfolios and sharing other evidence of student learning

- submitted a proposal and were awarded with a Community Project Grant to purchase additional technology for use in supporting a school-wide inquiry into our Spruce Grove Community

- job embedded Professional Development opportunities where we meet in subject discipline groups to generate authentic learning tasks that see students focus on the process skills of thinking like a Scientist, Mathemetician, Writer or Historian.

- planned yearly Staff Retreats to focus on collaboration and professional learning with colleagues

- piloted new outcomes based report card focused on performance assessments and process skills

- shared examples of exemplary teaching practice with school board and senior executive guests on several occasions

- developed open practice of feedback/feedforward loops, professional dialogue and looking at student work; shared this practice at an international conference in New Zealand

- regularly evaluated, designed, adjusted our school’s focus related to our School Education Plan – and continue to look for meaningful ways to  measure success

This past week we had our first meeting of our new school year and welcomed a number of new teachers to the table. It is inspiring to see so many individuals wanting to contribute to the growth of our school community as we continue to work towards bringing the best learning to our students. We have a number of school initiatives starting up this year along with lots of support and ideas coming from our School Division. Our first task was to make some sense of it all for our school community and continue our conversation (and ACTION) around engaging all learners at Greystone. We’re livin’ the dream, building on the dream and pushing forward…always!

 

Category: Collaboration, Community Building, Professional Learning, School Vision and Planning, Shared Leadership |
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