Always growing

 Some rights reserved by hellojenuine.

I've been thinking a lot about how to continue to grow. As a digital literacy coach, I think it is my job to grow and continue to grow. Not just for the sake of growth, but always looking and wondering about how to change and enhance what's happening in the classroom.  

Sometimes I fear that I'm just growing and changing for the sake of growing and changing, other times I'm worried that I'm too stagnant and not growing enough. 

I have honestly felt that we learn the most and change the most when we are feeling uncomfortable. One of the things I try to do throughout the year is to put myself in uncomfortable situations in order to help me see my work from different perspectives. 

So I guess I'm wondering what my next growing opportunity is going to be.  I've tried things from a maker space perspective this year, and it's pretty interesting.  It's especially interesting to see the commonalities between design perspective and systems thinking in environmental education.  I also have loved the idea of critiquing the user experience model, so it's been a lot of fun. 

I'm looking for the next big shake up though so I can change how I'm learning.

Deep Learners

 Some rights reserved by atomly

Just got back from a Deep Learners Conference in Malaysia.  I went with some of my colleagues and presented on "Real Connections".  I posted my first draft up here a couple of weeks ago, but it turned out a lot different after last week.  It ended up like this...

A lot of it was the same, but I wanted to make mention of how I kind of wanted the future to look. 

One of the most interesting aspects of the conference for me was the focus on bad ideas. I like how we can change our thinking around, how we can look at a bad idea and eliminate the "bad" parts of it. 

We had a lot of time to work through our idea, and as a group, we laughed, grew and got to know each other a little better.  I think this focus on having a bad idea and honouring it, really helped us as a team. 

A couple of my colleagues presented which was nice to see us grow as a school. It was all around a great conference actually. I love the format where you can go and discover new ideas in the morning (no big commitment, only twenty minutes) and then do something in the afternoon.  

Check it out if you're keen Deep Learners

Wow?

 Some rights reserved by a loves dc

I don't often talk about feelings I guess, which is not great; but, this week was crazy.

Two of the things I firmly believed in (not just thought I believed in, but thought everyone believed in) were proven to be untrue this week.  

I believe(d) that people genuinely were starting to care more about our environment, our place, our world, just I guess everything that is involved in our living system.  I thought everyone in the world was moving towards a better (even if it was still far from perfect) world.  Wow, the election proved me wrong.  How can people still deny climate change? How does that honestly still happen?  I honestly couldn't believe it. 

Connected to this, I believe(d) that people are more connected to something in their community or globally now.  I thought that it was more global, but also believed we were just overall more connected to something around us.  Again, isolationism as a result of our election.  How can people seriously believe that we can operate on our own anymore? How can people think that imaginary lines drawn across land mean anything?  What benefits do we have from doing things on our own? 

I don't know.  

I think media failed me and many others, I didn't that this was possible. I understand the role I played, how I was compliant to listen to people who believed the same thing I do, but to not even think of this as a possibility is alarming.  As an educator I have to be more aware of how we actually search and what we intentionally make ourselves available to.  

I think we failed each other.  We haven't really been listening to each other and our problems, we don't know what our community is feeling especially in regard to what they are scared of.  

As an educator I think we have an exciting opportunity to work with students to make sure change is going to continue to happen. But it's been a disturbing week.

First Draft

I've been working on a brief fifteen minutes sense of place presentation for a conference in a couple of weeks.  Most of what I focus on is images, and after going over this a couple of times. I really notice that my font choice needs a lot of work (that will come in the next two weeks for sure).

Regardless it's allowed me to really think out what I believe and try to condense that down into fifteen minutes and I need to entertain other educators as well.  The process is really helpful and this is now my fourth presentation and I can feel my story becoming more focused and clear.

One of the benefits of me doing an image focused slide show is that it helps me tell a story, and the images work with the words to create some new neural pathways.  One of the detriments is that it doesn't make much sense without the story.  However, I'll embed it anyway.




Deep learners is one of my favourite conferences because after the two fifteen minute sessions people choose what they want to spend an hour on in the afternoon.  So the deep dive will be more hands-on based where we can try to sell our favourite places, and maybe dig into some conservation photography.

Rebranding

 Some rights reserved by flyingkiwigirl

This year we are changing some of how we do Professional Development.  What we are thinking of doing is offering drop in sessions during Recess and Lunch and making it more relatable to what the teachers need on demand.  We are always here to help, but this is a less intimidating way to work with larger groups of people.  

We are calling our sessions >Towards Wicked (based on the New Horizons Report). What we are looking to do (eventually) is address some of the truly wicked problems we as teachers face. So the name came from there. 

I've been spending more time outside with teachers as well. We are getting more buy in for the mix between environmental education and technology integration, so that is really exciting. We have many teachers out there using the iPads to uncover some of what they could be learning in the classroom. 

Happy days. 

Why Quantitative?

 Some rights reserved by Ken Whytock

This week I've been thinking a lot about how to actual see where we are in our learning journey.  I know that many schools have a focus on quantitative data.  We use standardised tests to make sure we are learning at the right time. We focus a lot on quantitative data because it is easier to show a big picture with lots of data at the same time (I think anyway). 

So, how can we present more personal qualitative data to parents.  Right now we are entering conference time, and we want to share the stories and make it personal, so I wonder how our teachers are doing that, and what the parents are thinking. 

I was reading this article about Modern Learning and wonder how we can use qualitative data more effectively.  We can use it to paint a bigger picture and a more complete story, but how do we use it to enhance our teaching practice.  How do we use it to drive inquiry? 

Way too many questions this week. 

Peer feedback and teaching

 Some rights reserved by Ken Whytock

Just came back from a google pd thing.  It was just okay, well just okay for me, I think some other people really enjoyed it.   Too often in PD we just lecture, and it's pretty boring for everyone (especially someone who spent all weekend sitting and listening).  How can we leverage real time feedback with our peers.

As I present more and more I think this question is going to be at the forefront of my mind.  How are people truly engaged in what I am saying? How do I gather evidence of this? How can adults learn in a more productive way through PD?

Launching our Enviroed

A group of us here have been working on reading this book for a book club.  We've started chapter one, and it talks about some of the barriers to growing, but also to the opportunity for success.  We need to make learning real, and meaningful for our students.  The authors suggest that one of the best ways to do this when making something is to actually release it to the public. 

As always I think back to how does that work for environmental education.  What does that mean for people who don't have a product? 

So I thought that instead of launching a thing, we launch our place.  We need to get our community involved in our place, and how we grow with it, and for it.  By bringing in parents, grandparents and people throughout the community we are sharing our learning and wondering in a more real way, something that transcends the classroom. 

I've been thinking a lot about intergenerational learning in an international school.  Can we show different gardens from around the world, have people walk through their gardens on skype or something and talk about them, why they grow what they grow, how they do it, what their soil is like, how to know when to harvest. 

Bringing people together is so important, with the Launch mindset we need to somehow launch our learning space, and our ideas, get feedback from the community and work on building our community, rather than building a product. 

Shaping our class

 Some rights reserved by Matt Stratton

I was just talking to one of my colleagues about this lately.  How can we shape our classroom, and our classroom culture differently.  

I was mentioning Lakoff, and how metaphors help shape our reality.  Today reading Creating Cultures of Thinking I came across the same idea.  Often we refer to school as work, especially for students.  How does this shape how they go about their day? 

I remember Sir Ken Robinson talking about teachers as gardeners. 

How powerful can we be if we start changing our metaphors? How do we start this? 

When we think about vision of a school and the places we want to go, we don't often address how we shape our school through language.   When we think about brands and story telling and the whole image of school, we as teachers need to start shaping it through our daily interactions, the metaphors we create and the language we use. 

I'm not sure gardening is the best metaphor (although it fits nicely with my environmental beliefs) but the idea that growth is always possible and that there are seasons of better growth really resonates with me (actually now I wonder if this is something we have to differentiate as well). 

Unity and standards: What are we aiming for?

        Some rights reserved by Chris Devers

Thanks again to the Place Being Resonance book I've been stuck in a world of wondering.  I apologize in advance. I know at times I am not clear in my writing, and this thought isn't fully formed, so it might not make the most sense. 

While reading it talked about what our destruction of the world looks like, and it looks like progress, parts look like sustainable development, parts look like social justice.  It looks like we are supposed to be doing the things we are doing because that's how people develop.  In order for humans to be unified (economically, socially, etc.) other things have to (and do) suffer.  So, when we are looking at unity, we are often just taking an anthropocentric view of what we need (and people would argue why wouldn't we think of humans first) and we forget about what our system (The Earth) needs. While we are going for unity, I'm not really sure we know who we are unifying with, and who (or what I suppose) we are excluding. 

It's really difficult for anyone to step back from themselves, deconstruct what they think, challenge the dominant culture and make a difference.  Where do those ideas even come from? So how can we expect people to actually protect our planet when we don't even know what we don't know. 

While I was pondering this, I started thinking about school, and how we are trying to hit standards and go through curriculums, and just race through to show progress.  My mind kind of paused for a second, what and who are we progressing and for what end?  Place Being and Resonance wants us to challenge how we teach, why are we moving towards more data? What is growth? Who benefits from our current system of education, and who suffers? I think deep down we know the answers to these questions, but it is difficult to challenge a system that wants to engage and enlighten our learners.  When we have public school systems that want to bring up literacy are we focusing too much on a specific type of reading? So much was flying through my head. 

I'm not really sure where to take it from there.  I know I have to listen more (not just to humans, but I need to be aware of the voices not being heard or acknowledged).  I know I have to slow things down and encourage actual thinking, and actual listening in my students.  I know I have to encourage students to be aware of a multi-vocal, eco-centric (as in not just anthropocentric) view of our planet. 

I guess the real question is how can we see the system we are in and try to fight for that system, while being aware of the multi-faceted aspects of our world.  How we can honestly unify through diversity? 

Checking out the back end

 Some rights reserved by Umang Dutt

Orientation week is always interesting when you have been at the same school for awhile. You get a sense of what people will be stressed out about, you kind of understand what might help them, but for the most part you just are there to respond to specific stresses and develop and manage relationships. 

This week has been reconnecting with some team leaders and admin and has been really good. I've worked with some of my new teachers which has been great and I've been diving into the backend of our learning management system. 

So far it's alright, making some sites, working on my.cis and trying to get things sorted for the upcoming year. It's interesting to see how (well a limited how because I'm not into code or anything yet) something works.  It is great when working with teachers and having to break things down, it really reinforces some good teaching practice.  You have to respond to a knowledge gap, fill things in at their level and try to support them as they make sense of a new world.  Also it's interesting to work with some higher level people and say, well here is how I'd work through it.  I don't fully know your answer, but here's how I would find out.  I think I'm going to adapt this with more of my students this academic year. 

It's also interesting to see a lot of technostress, some teachers are so stressed out about not understanding.  Not knowing is such a huge part of my world, so it's strange why people would be stressed out about it.

Diving into a new year

 Some rights reserved by AdamCohn

I'm pretty excited about this new year.  A lot of things will be going on.  Some of my grade three teachers will be going one to one with ipads, really going to focus on cognitive coaching with (so far) six teachers (I'm hoping to build on that) and bringing a new fishbowl type model of PD to school. 

All of this goes towards a more personalized style of development.  At times I wonder about how beneficial or damaging personalized learning can be.  I guess it's important not to totally enable enable a learner to dictate everything, but rather create situations where as individuals they can succeed.  Specifically I'm thinking about teachers, and how we need to engage them where they need it most, without offering overly involved amounts of people. 

Hopefully our fishbowl model will address these issues, smaller groups focused on things they need to know (school directed) but build up relationships so we can work on what the teachers want to know and hopefully add in some cognitive coaching as well. 

I start seeing new teachers next week, looking forward to seeing the new teachers and reuniting with the old.  

How do we create wonder?

Pancho wondering

In part of Place * Being * Resonance it discusses the power of technology.  The worry presented is that when we use technology we attack a problem from one point of view, and using one solution in mind.  Regardless of the multitude of options technologically we are still thinking from a technological standpoint, and therefore think about an anthropocentric solution. 

How can we as teachers use technology to enhance education without limiting our options?  The more I think about it the more I wonder if this is what the Redefinition aspect of SAMR could be all about.  How can we really redefine our thinking regardless of the tools we use? 

Derby posits that we must always be open to other ways of thinking and listening to other ways of being without being focused solely on humans and how we interact with the world.  We need to listen to language that isn't always our own (maybe coding) and learn to create, and use metaphor to embody other living things. 

Anyway, I wonder about the power of ipads in situations like this, we can use them to create (always movies or books) that can use examples of this other-mindedness. One of my goals this year is to really try for this.  Capture images (although there is some argument that just looking at images negates the importance of actually being outdoors) create stories that bring about other points of view.  I want my students to really strive to be open-minded and other-minded, and I think using the iPad can help. 

The base of this (I think) is to wonder, actually wonder, critically wonder, Derby would say ironically wonder I think, but really question what we are thinking and why we are thinking it, and wonder about what other voices are being missed.  As always going outside and actually seeing other things is the first step. 

Using questions to dig deeper

This is the second year I've done this particular "sharing the planet unit" with grade 1 students.  Last year the focus (their focus, not mine) was on butterflies, we had seen a lot.  This year, we are focusing a lot on millipedes.   Through questioning we are able to help the students use online resources to identify and figure out what these living things are about. 

I want to start changing (drastically at times) how my questioning skills can dig deep fast.  I've been working all year on structuring questions, my co-teachers think it's a natural skill of mine, but I've worked very hard on it.  However, I'm not yet where I want to be. 

I've been reading coaching books to help develop questions that will make my teachers more effective, and I'm hoping I can transfer these questions, or these questioning techniques to students.  How can we go deep fast though? Is it possible, recommended? 

These are the thoughts that are running through me right now.  How do I become the most effective questioner? 

Changing our language

 Some rights reserved by autumnal_hedge

Rarely do I think about poetry and it's opportunity to create relationships by making metaphors.  I've been slowly (but diligently and thoughtfully) reading this book.

you can buy it here

It continues to change the way I think, and how I want to grow as an educator.  The whole idea of slowing doing, and really creating those deep connections is so important.  This book calls for a change in approach to how we view aspects of environmental education.  Specifically I enjoy the opportunity to engage more in poetry (which is something very new for me). 

The argument is, in order to create connections we have to foster a feeling (which I have read so many other places and firmly believe).  Before we actually get to know something, we need to feel something about it, and this is where poetry and metaphor come into play.  Instead of learning about a plant scientifically first, we have to create that awe, and that connection.  Here is where we use poetry.  

For the past week and a half I've been talking the grade 1 teachers and students out to the garden. First we look at something and draw it, then we listen to the world around us, and then (we don't label) we write some poetry.  Try to fully describe our thing beautifully.  We don't have to know the correct names, we don't label the parts or explain what it is or does (this will all come later in the unit) we just write about it, how it looks, feels, smells, sounds and how it makes us feel.  

It's been a really interesting exercise so far.  Everyone enjoys being outside (even if it is a little hot from time to time). The focus on the change in language has made learning more accessible for the younger students. They aren't as worried about being right, they just need to talk about how they feel, so it's easy for them to start.  Once we've made some connections then we start the deeper understanding (which will be easier because we actually care). 

It's a great start so far.

Why so slow?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/befuddledsenses/

The end of the year is quickly approaching, and this is a time I find when teachers are definitely trying to speed things up.  We want to get all of the content in before the students go to their next great, before they try to get things presentable to parents, and before we rush off to our summer vacations.

At our school at least half of the grade levels I work with are finishing the year with sharing the planet, so I'm pushing for a go slow movement for the next six or seven weeks.  We need time to fully experience what it's like outside in order to actually make those connections (something I feel I talk about all the time).   I now have four classes I take outside every week.  It's a start (one class is trying to move to everyday next year), but we are moving forward which is great!

We are taking the time to wonder and think, something that is difficult for some teachers.  We have to talk about connections and thinking deeply about how things work together (which is the central idea for most of our units, but never really adressed this way).

All in all, in just one week I've seen more excitement about the unit. Students are actively engaged and posing good questions.  This week we are trying to "look closely" to see how things work and what things look like.

Going slow is great for us right now, hopefully I can convince some teachers to keep it up after these seven weeks.

Frustration then Faith

 Some rights reserved by sarahgb(theoriginal)

Wow, these last couple weeks have been really frustrating. Working with teachers and coaching one on one, a lot of them feel frustrated that they haven't met the particular outcomes they felt they needed to meet.  We've talked a lot about content vs concepts, and moving towards changing our thinking with our culture of thinking model. 

However, what struck me recently was how important documentation can be to bring faith back into the teachers.  Too often when we are in the classroom we are seeing the students as they are, not where they were.  At the beginning of the year, it required so much faith in our students in order to believe they could get as far as they did, now that they are here, we can't be frustrated, we need to know they can get to the next level. 

In teacher's college we talked about the importance of high expectations, and I think this is very similar.  We need to have faith that students will get there, they will understand, they'll be successful in our classes. If we are only looking at the things the students can not do, we foster that kind of thinking, we need to help the students believe that all things in learning are possible. 

Reports are coming up, working with some teachers on how to create more evidence for next year. It's been really exciting so far. I'm glad I've started coaching more than just being in an edtech role.  It has got me outside a lot more, had me more meaningfully involved in planning meetings, and teachers are now asking me a broader range of questions. 

Happy days.