This arvo the mighty B team got together. What a wonderful 2 hours of sharing. We each shared our project and the strategies we are attempting to improve student outcomes. Teachers shared ideas, frustrations, questions, breakthroughs with certain children, technology tips, resources and passion for making a difference. We filled the staff room with 'talk on learning', of our students and our own. It was a privilege to be with such professional and passionate educators!! Maybe we have rediscovered on how we can work smarter rather than harder with the help of our colleagues.
My role is to continue to challenge people to keep their eye on the 'main game' .... improving student outcomes and to show to ourselves and each other that we are making a difference to the HFS students. I go to bed tonight a contented principal zzzzzzz
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
It was great to hear what other people in the team have been achieving. It seems that most of us have a general focus for our projects and that is of course improving student outcomes. What about a more specific focus though?
Now this is where my confusion begins, I feel that one minute I have a specific focus and then when I think about it again my focus has changed or disappeared altogether. One moment I’m certain that my focus is engagement, the next hour it's relevance, the next minutes it's transferral of knowledge and I wont forget to mention that feeling a sense of control and ownership of learning is out there too. It's too difficult to do them all -or is it aren’t they all related and dependant upon each other?
I was a little surprised to hear today that we need to individually present our findings to other staff members relating to the focus of our projects. What if I still haven’t worked my focus out? I can’t create a moviemaker without knowing what the presentation is supposed to be demonstrating to others.
I showed some of you today what the children and I have been doing with our Blogs and Voicethread. What do you think my focus should be?
(Who votes we just go back to staff meetings the way they use to be - no pressure, not a lot of thinking, just sit back, relax and let someone else will do the work? )
Janine I believe your focus is engagement...what flows from this is relevance, control and ownership. Relevance + control + ownership are the building blocks! You have so many examples of these building blocks through your class & student blogs and your voice thread... Now the big question how do I know I have engaged students??? Ask them the end clients(students) who have experienced the blogs and voice threads...ask them to express this in their own words as they showcase their work! You have achieved the first level ( I want to learn) the next level is to improve the quality of their learning (challenge their thinking)
Humble ramblings from a Tom Jones impersonator
It WAS fantastic to hear about what everyone else has been working on with their class. Is it just me or does everyone seem to be a little more motivated at the moment? I have heard several teachers commenting that... "this experience has really made me think about what I can do to improve student outcomes" and.."Ï feel like I've got my groove back!"
Janine, you only need to focus on the like of ET and NC who were anti writing for so many years....I cannot get NC off his blog these days and I am so impressed with the volume of output from ET. There are your results in a nutshell. I am very pivilidged to work with such an inspiring and motivational person.
I agree baboon lady, I feel people are more motivated. It is great to see the group that is focused on Prayer readily discussing our topic. The focus group work is providing new levels of professional discussion, something I haven't seen in the other 3 schools I have worked at.
Post a Comment