I've recently been engaged in an ongoing learning conversation with educational leaders from across Ontario, through OSSEMOOC. These leaders are offering up their opinions and thinking around the George Couros book, "The Innovator's Mindset". In addition to the book review, there has been a challenge issued for participants to blog hop each week around a specific question. This week's challenge is to write about our "What If?"s, based on the questions that are asked in Couros's book.
This post is my response to 3 of those questions:
"What if we believed that everything that we had to make great schools was already in our organization, and we just needed to develop and share it?"
This question is the foundation that supports our PLC work this year. In recent memory, my VP and I have run PLC's based on a deficit model. That is, we start by looking at what the school or staff are not doing particularly well and then we come up with a plan on how we can make it better. In the past couple of years we really wanted to create rich conversations (discourse) in our school, both with staff and students. It was forced, or at least it seemed forced. This year, after both of us read "The Innovator's Mindset", we met with our School Leadership Team and indicated that we wanted to start from an assets model. What a difference!!! The work that we are doing is invigorating, inspiring, innovative and has had impact, because our teachers are starting with what they currently do well. They've been asked to take a practice that they are comfortable and confident with and then attempt to 'innovate' it. The answer to all of our questions can be found in the room. We have first year teachers sharing their expertise with 26 year veterans and vice-versa. They are equal partners in the learning experience and I can honestly see the excitement in all of their eyes. At our staff meetings, we spend very little time talking about administrivia. Instead, we share our learning during the "App"etizer session. We deepen our thinking through the "Dis"Course and then celebrate each other and learning during "Dessert". This shift in thinking has lead to deep learning with our staff and we can now see this excitement filtering through to our students.
"What if everyone in our organization, not just our students, was encouraged to pursue his or her dreams?
In this most recent educational discourse, we are seeing a strong shift towards student voice and choice. Allowing students to pursue or direct their own learning is becoming more prevalent in schools. In the SCDSB, our Innovation Team has encouraged teachers to pursue their own PD interests. There was a Numbered Memo that was sent to all educators in the fall and teachers could go through the myriad of choices so that they could choose and direct their own learning. What an amazing transformation in teacher engagement and empowerment!! I've got a steady stream of teachers heading off to sessions that they are wanting to go to. I used to have to plead and strongly encourage people to go to workshops. Today, two of my teachers were at an NPDL session and they were sending out streams of inspired 'Tweets' as they were learning. This allowed me, as the principal, to share in their learning, even though I was miles away. Other colleagues were 'looking' in on their work throughout the day, despite being in their classrooms. Enough excitement was generated through that learning, that other teachers were asking to have these two colleagues present during the "Dis"course session of next week's staff meeting. We've likened our inquiries to student "Genius Hour" projects. So much fun!!
"What if we focused on connecting and learning , both globally and locally?
This has been my professional pursuit this year. I have made it my PD to engage in the learning that is taking place in my building and in the province. Being a part of the OSSEMOOC and the "Innovator's Mindset" book talk, has been eye-opening. Making my learning visible to other educational leaders is scary, but powerful. People from around my own board and around the province are challenging my thinking, supporting my initiatives, offering new insights and cheerleading as I take my school to places they've never been before. The power of technology to bring educators from all over the world into my office to share their thinking with me, is incredible.
As I said at the end of my last post...What a great time to be in education!!
Friday 4 March 2016
Tuesday 1 March 2016
The Literal and Figurative Renovation of Tay Shores PS
I've been writing and speaking a lot lately about "Innovation" and the amazing things that are happening at Tay Shores PS. As with most learning, our work is creating more questions than answers.
One of the frequent questions that I get asked about is centered on the term "innovation". What is innovation? Is innovation the creation of something brand new? Or, is it just the iteration of something already in place? Whether you read the work of George Couros, the author of "The Innovator's Mindset" or the work of Garfield Gini-Newman, the author of "Creating Thinking Classrooms", or if you follow the numerous "Twitter" conversations on this topic, you will find that the definition is hard to nail down and that innovation can really be what you want to make it.
Having said that, here at Tay Shores, we are trying to be very clear with each other about what "innovation" means to this school, both as teacher innovation and student innovation. In all that we do at this school, we remind each other that whatever we are 'innovating' must be in alignment with the foundations and pillars that our school is built on.
While we are literally renovating our school in Victoria Harbour, it is the perfect time to extend the renovation metaphor to our school motto of inquiry, innovation and impact. I came across this metaphor while reading "Creating Thinking Classrooms" and it really captures what we are talking about here at Tay Shores.
The construction workers who are renovating our school are creating some new, innovative spaces in the building. Most of our new rooms will truly be 'state-of-the-art' and they will lead to amazing learning opportunities for our students. What we need to keep in mind is that most of the work is being done on the original foundation - the basic floor plan that exists already. Some of the internal walls have been taken down and re-arranged into new spaces, but the load-bearing walls and the main sections will remain, because they hold the structure together. The extension or addition, has to be aligned with the original building. There are parts of the new building that are simple extensions of what already existed or are completely new rooms that 'fit' with the original design. These new rooms are seamlessly created so that one will hardly be able to tell where the new part began and the original had stopped.
I bring this up, because in a figurative way, that is what is happening at Tay Shores this year, with our PLC work around inquiry, innovation and impact. Our staff is trying to 'renovate' our teaching practices. Now, when we try to come up with an innovative practice, we have to keep in mind that it needs to align with our 'foundation'al beliefs. Some of these beliefs are that all students can succeed or students are inherently curious or learning requires active participation. We constantly need to remind ourselves that our innovations need to be built upon these foundations.
Secondly, we need to make sure that our innovations are 'built' using the 'pillars' or 'support beams' that hold our school together. Some of these principles are we build upon student voice and choice or our work needs to engage and/or empower students or we use authentic assessment tools to measure student achievement of curricular expectations or our assessment and instruction is differentiated for all students. If we aren't using these principles to 'frame' our work, then the whole structure collapses.
Finally, we need to make sure that all of our innovations are pushing student thinking, student achievement and student well-being to its highest point, so that we reach our school goals. When we look to the 'roof' or 'ceiling' of our innovations, we are asking ourselves if we've achieved our educational goals. These goals include students' ability with regards to the 6 Cs (collaboration, creation, communication, critical thinking, citizenship and character) or students' mindfulness or students' digital literacy. If what we are 'innovating' does not lead us towards these goals then we need to rethink our work.
As the principal at Tay Shores PS, I'm so excited to see the literal renovation taking place in Victoria Harbour. When I drive by the building, it's thrilling to think that we'll be working and learning there next September. I'm also thrilled to see the amazing figurative renovations that are taking place in our teaching practices this year. Just this week, two of our teachers will be presenting their 'innovative' practices at the first annual PUSH Conference.
What a great time to be in education!!!!
One of the frequent questions that I get asked about is centered on the term "innovation". What is innovation? Is innovation the creation of something brand new? Or, is it just the iteration of something already in place? Whether you read the work of George Couros, the author of "The Innovator's Mindset" or the work of Garfield Gini-Newman, the author of "Creating Thinking Classrooms", or if you follow the numerous "Twitter" conversations on this topic, you will find that the definition is hard to nail down and that innovation can really be what you want to make it.
Having said that, here at Tay Shores, we are trying to be very clear with each other about what "innovation" means to this school, both as teacher innovation and student innovation. In all that we do at this school, we remind each other that whatever we are 'innovating' must be in alignment with the foundations and pillars that our school is built on.
While we are literally renovating our school in Victoria Harbour, it is the perfect time to extend the renovation metaphor to our school motto of inquiry, innovation and impact. I came across this metaphor while reading "Creating Thinking Classrooms" and it really captures what we are talking about here at Tay Shores.
The construction workers who are renovating our school are creating some new, innovative spaces in the building. Most of our new rooms will truly be 'state-of-the-art' and they will lead to amazing learning opportunities for our students. What we need to keep in mind is that most of the work is being done on the original foundation - the basic floor plan that exists already. Some of the internal walls have been taken down and re-arranged into new spaces, but the load-bearing walls and the main sections will remain, because they hold the structure together. The extension or addition, has to be aligned with the original building. There are parts of the new building that are simple extensions of what already existed or are completely new rooms that 'fit' with the original design. These new rooms are seamlessly created so that one will hardly be able to tell where the new part began and the original had stopped.
I bring this up, because in a figurative way, that is what is happening at Tay Shores this year, with our PLC work around inquiry, innovation and impact. Our staff is trying to 'renovate' our teaching practices. Now, when we try to come up with an innovative practice, we have to keep in mind that it needs to align with our 'foundation'al beliefs. Some of these beliefs are that all students can succeed or students are inherently curious or learning requires active participation. We constantly need to remind ourselves that our innovations need to be built upon these foundations.
Secondly, we need to make sure that our innovations are 'built' using the 'pillars' or 'support beams' that hold our school together. Some of these principles are we build upon student voice and choice or our work needs to engage and/or empower students or we use authentic assessment tools to measure student achievement of curricular expectations or our assessment and instruction is differentiated for all students. If we aren't using these principles to 'frame' our work, then the whole structure collapses.
Finally, we need to make sure that all of our innovations are pushing student thinking, student achievement and student well-being to its highest point, so that we reach our school goals. When we look to the 'roof' or 'ceiling' of our innovations, we are asking ourselves if we've achieved our educational goals. These goals include students' ability with regards to the 6 Cs (collaboration, creation, communication, critical thinking, citizenship and character) or students' mindfulness or students' digital literacy. If what we are 'innovating' does not lead us towards these goals then we need to rethink our work.
As the principal at Tay Shores PS, I'm so excited to see the literal renovation taking place in Victoria Harbour. When I drive by the building, it's thrilling to think that we'll be working and learning there next September. I'm also thrilled to see the amazing figurative renovations that are taking place in our teaching practices this year. Just this week, two of our teachers will be presenting their 'innovative' practices at the first annual PUSH Conference.
What a great time to be in education!!!!
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