Well term started and the last week just flew by. I wasn’t able to catch the #IMMOOC live stream or twitter chat but one of the great things about this style of course is that I can catch up later.
This week’s featured guest/presenter was Alice Keeler and it was a really cool, super motivating chat with lots of energy. Just what I needed to keep motivated on the first week back. Have a watch here:
Some of the things I am currently interested in and doing are:
- Teaching digital technology, data and spreadsheet skills. My students are currently collecting data about waste management in our school but I am also teaching them the spreadsheet skills they will use. What was nice this week is that I wasn’t really teaching them skills but rather encouraging them to race to discover new skills and email example to me as quickly as they could. It was fun, I never new 11 year olds could get so excited about excel.
- Thinking about better ways to do “homework” and I really like the term of independent practice. I think it is really important to recognise the homework is inequitable.
- I really like the idea of managing our time as teachers and strongly agree that initiating communication with parents is essential. I do this through Class Dojo and email which are both my school’s preferred methods. The feedback I get from parents about my communication is excellent. Many of my parents work and can’t drop by the classroom and they comment that the communication make life easier. I even feel that I have less emails and messages to answer then some of my colleagues.
“Parents want to support their kids” - Alice Keeler
“Calling parents is not a waste of time” - Alice Keeler
Q: How can you create opportunities for innovation in your leadership? In your teaching? In your learning?
A: This question actually challenged me quite a bit. I am always very happy to innovate in my teaching, I will try new things, apply ideas I have seen elsewhere or look at what my colleagues and doing and apply that to my work. I also feel I am innovating in my learning; for example participating in something like #IMMOOC and blogging.
However the opportunities for innovation in leadership is a bit more challenging. I still sometimes “forget” I have a leadership role in my team and while I work my hardest to do a good job I haven’t directly thought about innovation in this role. While I often innovate in my teaching with video lessons, self guided online maths lessons, hands on activities, student lead teaching and effective communication I don’t apply this same strategies to leadership. Our team meetings are very traditional, we follow the template set out by the school and I doubt anyone truly loves the experience. If it was my classroom I would be constantly looking for better ways to run meetings and make the experience more effective. Instead I stick with the tried and tested and do the same old same old. I even end up leaving out some of the more positive parts of the team meetings.
In the Innovators Mindset George Couros says “We rarely create something different until we experience something different”. (pp.89)
From quote this I plan to reflect upon the idea that if I start to innovate with my leadership maybe this will provide a better space for people around me to create the type of innovation and change they want to see.
