Sunday, November 14, 2010

Learning

We recently took our foundation staff on a retreat to begin the induction process. It was a fabulous few days. The sense of team was apparent as we began to collectively make sense of the vision principles and define what learning is going to be like at Stonefields School. Jeremy Kedian would argue that Doctors, Dentists and many other professionals are clear at defining what that do. Gaining this clarity is as essential as activators of learning I believe. Jeremy Kedian has played a critical role in challenging our leadership team. He took the three of us through a process of defining our core business of learning. We each spent 15 minutes defining what learning is ... and then came together to analyse and synthesise a definition we were each happy with.
As learning is our core business we believed it was important to collectively define this as an essential piece of our educative purpose. We worked through a similar process with our entire staff to arrive on the third day with a definition we were all happy with.
The definition stands;
“Learning is a dynamic, fulfilling process of actively building on what we know; by questioning, thinking and connecting to make meaning, expand knowledge and deepen understandings.”

We look forward to reflecting on our definition in January where we continue our professional learning together and watch it evolve as we set forth on our exciting journey together.

2 comments:

room2student said...

Hi Sarah,
enjoyed reading your definition on learning. You guys have hit upon the most important things...Change and Building Knowledge.
Term 1 2011 is going to be spent developing our classroom definition of learning and how Web 2.0 can be incorporated.

room2student said...

Some other things to consider would be:

*PEDAGOGY v ANDRAGOGY striking a balance.
*Inquiry as Stance
*Deprivatisation of the Classroom

What do you think?