Blog Refresh

Its been too long since I blogged.

This post is acknowledging that I need to start afresh and begin reflecting through blogging again. Recording my ideas and my thinking is a good way for me to document my reflection and also a way to look back on what I've done.

I also start my Masters of Educational Technology and Design in the fall (Hoefully - I'm still waiting on final confirmation) and this will be a good way to reflect about my professional learning.

As I move into my 2nd year as a specialist (I have completed a year in a temporary role and now I begin the first year of my 3 yr contract) I'm finding I have many opportunities to reflect and share my thinking. I don't expect anything back but rather, want to share what I learn as well as use this space to think about my own thinking.

I will start my first post right way...

Back to our beliefs

Wow, here it is...

It's been 7 or 8 months since I reflected on anything using my blog. Something has been speaking to me lately that it is time to start up again. This is the first of a new burst of posts. As I warm up to the idea of doing my masters, I think I need to dust of the keyboard and get back into writing. There is so much to think about, reflect about and write about. Sometimes I hope to draw, sometimes write. Maybe even find other ways to reflect.

In my new job, as a specialist, I get to work with amazing people. Both the team I collaborate with, and also the teachers I get to learn with too. Visiting over 35 schools in the short 5 months I have worked in this role, has already opened my eyes to many new things.

One of the biggest things I have come to realize in all the work I have done lately, is how we need to continually remind ourselves of the core reason we are in this work. To learn. In our work to help support school in design think, maker education, learning commons, educational technology, learning resources, and whatever else we do in our team, we stumbled across a reminder shared by our #CBEliteracy team about the importance of focusing on our beliefs about learning first. It is important to consider what we know about learning, before we start planning our lesssons/projects, and also choosing our resources. Routman (2014) says our "practices are our beliefs in action" (p.85). He talks about how we often start with resources, then look at our practice and the finally, think about beliefs. He also suggests that we need to do a hard flip of way we do things.

What often happens...

What needs to happen...

I think this is always a good grounding for us as teachers. What kinds of things do we remember as learners. What learning experiences stuck out to us? As Will Richardson suggests in his Ted Talk, we'll all come up with a very similar list.

The following image is one I created a while back, as I reflected on some of the work I had done overthe previous year.  After sharing that image on twitter, it was retweeted a lot. It has turned into the most retweeted tweet I have ever shared. Such a simple idea but something that has resonataed with many!

This is something I am going to continually keep asking and reminding myself.

References:

Routman, R. (2014). Read, write, lead: breakthrough strategies for schoolwide literacy success. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.​​