Are Learning Spaces in Schools Conducive Environments for the Learning of Today's Learners?

Happy New Year! As we enter into a New Year, it is important to take a step back and examine the perspectives we have in our daily lives. Dewitt Jones, who I have mentioned earlier has a great video on Creativity. As a photographer he talks about looking at daily life through different lens and that most things have more than one right answer.
So what about the learning spaces in our schools? As we look at school reform for today's learners, are there things that we should look at changing to enhance the opportunities we create for the best learning situation for students? We want our spaces to be active, collaborative, places to create and challenge our students to maximize their learning potential.
We were discussing this as a group this week and reflected on learning spaces of 20-25 years ago with open space classrooms. Some people in the conversation had taught in these classrooms, some had been students in these classrooms, but the general consensus was the same - traditional classroom teaching styles had still been in place without walls. This was the only difference.
As we worked through an activity this week, creating the ideal learning spaces for our students, there were many common themes - more space, many spaces for multiple intelligences to be developed, natural light, places to collaborate, and technology. Realistically, we know we cannot do all that we would like to create these learning spaces, but how about one or two things? The key to this is to also reflect on our pedagogy through a different lens and reach today's learners.
What innovative ideas have you implemented or thought about to create learning spaces for today's learners?

Encourage the Blossoming Flower

“Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower” (Shigenori Kameoka)
Jim Knight recently wrote about hope and the powerful combination: high expectations + effective instruction in the classroom. Educators are passionate about their teaching and want the best for their students. As we open our classrooms for more collaboration and learning opportunities such as Learning Rounds, as teachers we learn and build capacity within each other and strengthen our instruction to be more effective. This combined with our high expectations for our students and belief in each of their unique talents allows each student to blossom into the flower that they are.
What stories do you have about how high expectations and effective instruction have allowed your students to blossom?

Appreciative Inquiry to Peak Performance

As we work through the coaching journey, I realize how important it is to make connections with people. As the coach /coachee makes connections they are able to work through a process together that can help to reach their goals at a deeper level. As you develop those relationships as a coach, you learn about strengths that the coachee has and are able to build upon the strengths to support them to get to their peak performance.

Dewitt Jones, a brilliant photographer with National Geographic made a film called “Celebrate What is Right with the World”. Through this video, he had the ability to use perspective to show the strength within an image. This can transfer to coaching as well when you build on the strengths of professionals you work with and give them the capacity for continued growth. (Soar to Your Potential, 2010)

This weekend I was fortunate to have made many connections with a great group of people. As we worked through situations, both as being the coach and coachee this quote resonated with the whole weekend “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them to become what they are capable of being.” (Goethe)

In what ways have you been impacted by someone who believed you were capable of more then you ever dreamed possible?

Get Your iPod Touch Groove On - Assistive Technology in the Classroom

Get you i pod touch groove on1

View more presentations from Kim Wedman.

What a great professional development day we had last week! I was fortunate to get the opportunity to work with two lovely Speech Pathologists to present about the use of iPod touches in the classroom to meet the needs of specific students. We had a very diverse group both in areas of teaching expertise and in technology experience.
As presenters our goal was to make the presentation as engaging and interactive as possible while meeting the needs of each person in attendance. Just as our students require differentiation so do the talented people that work with them.
The feedback given was terrific. Meaningful and purposeful questions were asked throughout and at the end. Many in attendance were asking for more regarding how they could help their students in more ways to become as successful as they possibly could.
Thank you to all who attended and how lucky I feel to work in such dedicated professionals that are trying to meet the needs of all students in the best way that they can!

Differentiated Instruction vs Differentiated Coaching

Recently I was at a conference where we looked at the similarities and differences between differentiated instruction and differentiated coaching. I found this to be an interesting conversation as I have felt that coaching must be differentiated for every client we work with to be successful. As we got deeper into the conversation it became quite apparent that the similarities were ample but the differences were harder to find. We sifted through the similarities - focus on strengths/needs of the client, individual planning for each client, client is the centre, engage client through learning style, provide choice for the client, support and facilitate learning to allow for inquiry and insight for the client but we continued to struggle finding the differences.
Then the light shone down on us...with differentiated instruction the teacher has an essential understanding that students will be working toward. They provide a learning environment for students to explore learning. With differentiated coaching, the client-coachee has the purpose or outcome for which they would like to have coaching support. The coach "drives the bus" to facilitate and assist the coachee in reflection to move forward in their plan of action and grow in their learning.
What is your view of differentiated coaching?

Roller Coaster of Learning

Kelly Tenkely has been a wealth of information to me as my PLN grows to new heights. She posted the following charts and comments on her blog recently.
"....Seth Godin called, How Big is Your Red Zone? In the post he shares three graphs (I have created my own with a similar feel below). The first graph shows how our joy grows over time as we learn how to do something new. At first our joy over learning it may not be huge, it is sometimes difficult and frustrating to learn something new. But, over time as we get better at the task, our joy in interacting with it grows. There may be some dips of boredom with our newly acquired learning but overall the trend is upward.

The second graph shows the hassle of the same activity. At first the hassle is large because as I mentioned before, it can be difficult and frustrating to learn something new. Eventually over time the hassle is less as our expertise and experience with the learning grows.

The last graph shows the two overlaid. There is a gap between the initial hassle and the initial joy of the learning. Seth’s contention is “that the only reason we ever get through that gap is that someone on the other side (the little green circle) is rooting us on, or telling stories of how great it is on the other side.”

-Kelly Tenkely, 2010 "Dreams of Education"


This concept really spoke to me in terms of the role of an instructional coach. Teachers want to learn and improve on ideas in their craft of teaching. Staff are at different points in their learning and as a coach, we must be sensitive to differentiation of professional development for each staff member. As learners, new concepts can be frustrating and time consuming but as a coach you are the green dot encouraging and supporting people to get past the point of "hassle" and to the point of feeling good about their accomplishments for students. As teachers continue along this journey, the instructional coach support lessens and becomes a reflective role to increase that sense of joy to the highest point. Celebrating accomplishments and the joy of learning with your colleagues makes that journey worthwhile as you watch students and teachers succeeding on new levels.
As a teacher, it also made me take a second look at how students feel as they are learning and aquiring new information. Are we being the "green dot" for students to get them through frustration and differentiating for their needs to get them to the place of "joy"? How can we ensure we are supporting each student to decrease their hassle and increase their joy?

Personal Learning Networks and You

Copy of Personal Learning Networks and You on Prezi