teachers reflecting

As I promised in yesterday's slice, here is more about the small group teacher reflections.


Walking, walking, walking, on the street by the Vltava river in Prague, heading at the direction of the Karlov Bridge, I was supposed to think of the a story for an workshop assignment. No stories. Blank moment. Only cold chill  trying to creep into my body, and freeze my brain. Even though the workshop assignment was due the next day, the question "What to do during the next team meeting?" demanded my attention. No matter how I tried to ignore, it kept popping bigger and bigger. If this is what needed my attention, let it be.
The meetings this year have been from essential agreements, thinking of inquiry, collaborative planning of units, looking at student work, reflecting on units and planners, more planning, seeing that the elements of the planner align, seeing that the assessments and learning engagements align with the central ideas and lines of inquiry. All useful. What might be valuable next?
A little plan started to form. I could see how my readings and workshops* from this year, the ideas of agency and self-directed learners, nurtured the plan.
When the plan had some shape, I let it rest, and returned to the assignment.
Later I wrote down both the assignment and the idea.
Few days later, back in Tallinn, I shared my plan with a colleague, and we played around with a little more.

Here is the letter I sent out to my team:

Dear All,

As the student-led-conferences are approaching, we will have an opportunity. to experience it in a smaller format this Thursday.

What? We will have small group teacher reflection/sharing sessions.

Why? We do this 

• to gain an understanding wha tit feels like for students to prepare for a conference.
• to reflect in order to grow
• to learn from each other
• to celebrate our learning

How?

We will be in groups of three sharing reflections and evidence of its impact on student learning.

Quick big group sharing

At the end of the session we will reflect on the experience.

To prepare for the meeting:

1. You can use most or all of the questions below, you can add your own reflection questions, and share with others. Think of the questions and prepare a reflection (paper, print or voice recording or video) You do't have to submit it but take it with you for the sharing session. When you have things written down, you will remember better. 

2. Choose what is some evidence you might share on how your learning has impacted a particular student and/or a group of students and/or the whole class.

The reflection questions:

What have you learned this year?

What is something that you do that you feel has been a success that you can share with others?

How have you grown?

What are you like as a learner?

What might be some areas you are curious to explore in more depth?

What might be some ways to improve student learning in your class?

I hope we will learn about ourselves and others and have fun along the way!

Warm regards,

Terje

Last afternoon, we had the meeting. In different rooms of the building, triads shared their reflections and showed what they wished to show.

When the groups eventually returned, I asked two more questions:

"What is something you learned about your colleague's learning?"

and

"How might this experience allow you to support your students in getting ready for the student-led conferences?"

Many of the answers pointed out the growth in becoming more aware and intentional with speech and actions, especially in stepping away and giving the learners more choice, time and ownership for their learning. Growing their agency. A lot was about us being the inquiry teachers. 

For me this is very important. The best way to improve learner agency in children is to have agency as adults, to be the role model, to have the learner mindset, to be the inquirer, the be the self-directed learner. 

You can understand now why the yesterday's weather did not bother me too much.

*Big thank you to Kath Murdoch and Ochan Kusuma-Powell for pushing my thinking and helping me to grow as an inquiry teacher and team leader.