John Hattie - Encouraging us to ask ...

Yesterday at an Auckland University leadership seminar day John Hattie advocated for leaders in schools to grow a disposition of asking. He posed the following questions.
A disposition to asking ...
How do I know this is working?
How can I compare this with that?
What is the magnitude of the effect?
Do I share a common conception of progress?
What evidence would convince you that you are wrong?
What is the merit and worth of this influence on learning?
Where have you seen this practice installed so that it produces effective results?

Learning, Learning, Learning

Everyone in education I am sure would agree, the question needing to be asking is do we have a collective understanding of what learning is?
I vividly remember a session with Jeremy Kedian. He gave each of the nine people present no more than 25 words to define learning. The definition was to start learning is...

When we shared our definitions what was incredibly interesting was the difference between them.
Here we were leaders of learning organizations with significantly varying ideas and mental models about learning. We repeated this activity with our staff to continue the learning conversation we had started.
I find it intriguing that we often assume so much.
If we should indeed spend time on what important, what are we going to let go of to make that time. We can’t keep adding on to teachers load and what’s expected of teachers. I most value step has been to stock take and question does this practice align with our belief? If not it’s OK to abandon such practices. It’s not until practices are critiqued and evaluated that decision to let go of some practices can occur. Once there is a freely of time and permission is given new approaches can be adopted and time made to talk about the IMPORTANT – in this case Learning.
Creating time for the rich and deep conversations to lead learning has been an important change influence.

Open Wings

I continue to be delighted every day as our vision concept of 'empowerment' begins to be realised.  The five year old who suggests that the corner school sign should say 'Have a happy weekend' suggests that it ok to put ideas forward.  I spoke to a parent this afternoon before the bell rang at 3.00pm,  she had great delight in telling me what her 7 year old daughter had to say about self talk.  'Mum today when my group was talking next to me I self talked to tell myself to keep focused on my learning and don't get distracted by them'.  How wonderful to think that students are being intentionally and explicitly taught strategies to encourage ownership in learning.  

As I walked on through to a year 6 class they proudly showed me the s-t-r-e-t-c-h poster they have been creating to help ensure the right kind of stretch is happening for the in their learning.  H = hard, S = simple and e in the middle = exactly right.  It continues to fascinate me just how 'on the button' kids are when we give them the opportunity.

Teaching learners explicitly about learning to learn strategies and constantly giving teacher permission to take time to have rich and deep learning conversations are key strategies in ensuring learning is our organizations CORE BUSINESS.

It is so refreshing to slow down and listen to the influential voices (students, teachers and parents).  Let the 'voice be heard from the floor'.  I was influences by a well respected colleague today he said 'change needs to happen from the floor'.  I tend to agree

Learning conversations - I'm Stuck!

An example of a learning conversation with some 10 year olds.  They have lots of great thought.  The challenge is for students to be challenged enough to experience being stuck to apply this thinking.