Emerging Leaders Conference

It was wonderful to be able to attend the Emerging Leaders Conferences organised and held at Albany Senior High on Thursday and Friday last week. There were many highlights, I have reflected a little further on the format of the two days.
The structure and dialogue techniques used throughout the 2 days were incredibly engaging, far more than the many conferences I have attended that present at you. I found I left the two days sincerely knowing participants at a deeper level and now feel more inclined to continue the contact and networking due to the nature of the conversations that were encouraged. There were unconference sessions (opportunities to share and dialogue on topics on shared interest, pecha kucha technique, and what Albany Senior High terms 'Speed dating' (a way of talking one on one about the challenges, thoughts and reflections individuals had following the pecha kucha presentations. I also lost time dialoguing with many interesting and knowledgeable people from different sectors during the 'World cafe' session on effective leadership. I can see many uses for the 'World cafe' and are keen to try it out with our staff and students.
Why is it that so many conferences seem to talk at participants yet we know the brain learns best when being active participants.

Just wanted to say thanks to all the people at Albany senior for making it happen.

Future Learning Spaces - The benefits

We have been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting throughout the term to surface what are some of the added bonuses of having more open, fluid and social learning spaces. There have been many positives, however one that was not necessarily realised as being so powerful was the incidental professional learning that occurs within the space that two or three teachers reside in. The daily ongoing professional learning is becoming more apparent as the learning is so visible throughout the space. One teacher might be a support teacher in a learning session and one taking more of a lead role the bouncing off one another is wonderful to watch. Teachers are openly learning from one another as they for example watch how a shared book is introduced or observe their peers questioning. It is a powerful learning environment for not only the students but the teachers themselves.
Another positive bubbling up from working within more open and agile spaces is this notion of 'they've got my back'. Teachers say they feel more supported in the space as there is always another adult if needed. Be it an individual who needs that little extra one on one learning time or an individual you can't quite get to the bottom of a learning need, there is a community approach to inquiring into what the individuals next steps might be.
Pooling teacher strengths and talents is another positive - in a space students get the best of both worlds as they are taught be any of the two or three teachers in the learning hub in a given day.
There are some key structures and scaffolds that sit behind the design of the learning hubs to ensure their success. More about that next time.

Think Big, Be Brave!

I have been reflecting about what stops us from being brave? As a leadership team one mantra that was at the fore front to aid much of the thinking and planning of Stonefields School was 'Think Big and Be Brave". An example of where this came into play was the process we went through to select and decide on the furnishings for the learning hubs. It would have been quite straight forward and easy to order 5 tables and 28 chairs for each teaching space. Instead we began to read, reflect and think about the furniture that would ensure learners were comfortable, that the furniture was fit for the given learning (fit for purpose), agile, allowed for individual quiet space, collaborative spaces and large spaces to dialogue and ensuring that the environment as the third teacher was maximised.

We were influenced by an incredibly timely trip to Melbourne where we saw 3 Schools that were challenging the industrialist, single cell model of Schooling. These visits indeed added to our bravery, particularly the time we spent at Silverton Primary. Mary Featherston a friend of Julia Atkin helped us to understand the complexity of ensuring space is partitioned appropriately, caters for the various learning scenarios and has sound flow in and between spaces. We left appreciating that less can be more. We have observed many over furnished learning spaces in our travels.

Our investigations resulted in cafe height tables, taller tables, knealers, tables that could be pulled apart for smaller groups, beanbags, stools that wiggle, high stools for the learners who like to survey, ottomans and soft furnishes to add comfort to the learning environment.

Now we have our learners we are enjoying seeing where individuals gravitate for certain learning. The teachers are experimenting with their learners about what furnishings are fit to best serve the learning being undertaken. I am looking forward to gathering more student voice this week.

I am pleased we were brave, although it's early days I can already see it's paying dividends. Learners appear engaged.

Dialogue or Discussion - What's fit for purpose?

It feels refreshing to post my first blog for 2011 on a strategy that has certainly helped our staff make some important decisions in the last few days. I hope I acknowledge the source correctly - Joan Dalton talks about being clear about flagging the type of conversation you intent to have. A dialogue is used when surfacing everyones ideas and are wanting to have an open conversation around a topic,problem or decision to be made. A discussion is about arriving at a decision.
An example of how we have flagged whether we were entering into a dialogue or discussion last week was when we attempted to collectively agree on what the dispositions would be under the School vision principle of 'Building Learning Capacity'. We began by using open ended questions to surface individuals ideas around what makes a good learner? We started the conversation by saying that this was a dialogue and that it would continue over the next few days before making a decision on the dispositions for Stonefields School. Today we flagged that the conversation had transformed into a discussion as it was decision time.
A helpful strategy as we continue to move forward in ensuring the conversations we need to have, have the airtime they require and deserve.
I think this could be used just as well with our students.

More food for thought! Sir Ken

Great food for thought! Go Sir Ken

Mobile Technology - So easy! Testing pix from phone

Progress continues on site. We are set to open 3 February, 2011

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.

How story telling has changed

21st Century Story Telling. Interesting change through the years. Worth a look.

Haven't Things Changed

I enjoyed seeing this clip again at John's session on 21st Century Learning Spaces. Haven't times changed!