One Minute Meetings – What could you possibly accomplish?

After stumbling upon an interesting post by The School Vlogger,  Dr. Mary Hemphill, I noticed she happened to be talking about engaging student voice at her school, and when she began to talk about changing culture and keeping students at the centre, I was really intrigued.  The idea being shared was one way that she was addressing the challenge of collecting data from the most important people in the school – the students!  We’ve all used surveys, and engaged in conversations and observations,  and of course google forms, but do we really hear from everyone that way? And how engaged in the process do they really feel? It was my experience as a school leader that despite the most intentional planning to know every student, there were some voices I heard more than others and some classrooms that I visited more frequently than others.  After watching the YouTube video below, and hearing this idea, I was excited about trying it and was missing being at my school in order to give it a go!

3 simple questions…just 1 minute out of class time, AND asked to every one of the students at the school…could that be done?

Who did I know who might value this, and want to give it a go?  I sent out a tweet to my first educational mentor, Kathy Gossling-Spears, who I was fortunate enough to meet in my first 3 years of teaching.  Our dream has always been to have a school of our own one day! 🙂

Just as I thought, Kathy dove in and gave it a try. Watch the video below that inspired us and check out the interview with Kathy about her observations about the first time trying it!

Give it a try and let us know what you find out and how it works for you!  Kathy is now on round two, so stay tuned for an update on what she has learned. 🙂

Kathy’s Interview after trying 1 minute meetings

Google Forms and Siri Unite For Recording Anecdotals

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I’m a big fan of using Siri on my iphone and have been ever since I began using speech to text software with students in about 2006.  Boy, has the technology improved since then!  I now use it to create … Continue reading →

YPALS – Youth Helping Youth at the YMCA

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Peter Skillen and I had the pleasure of attending a working group session at the YMCA of Greater Toronto led by Candy Chow (YPALS Coordinator – ‎YMCA of Greater Toronto) and Nina Arcon (YPALS Specialist at YMCA of Greater Toronto). … Continue reading →

Think Tank: Transforming the learning experience

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This week I had the honour to be invited to contribute to a panel of amazing people at the recent Think Tank session from CECCE, one of Ontario’s French School Boards, along with well known thinkers about transforming educational environments.  … Continue reading →

Educon 2.8: Learning about a missed opportunity

I attended Educon 2.8 once again this year, hosted at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia.  It was great to be in the building once again.  Chris Lehman and Zac Chase provide inspiring leadership and watching this school grow and … Continue reading →

Our Learning Commons gets a maker space addition!

In a few days, I’m taking on a new role with a secondment to the Ministry of Ontario in the 21st Century Learning Unit.  I’m feeling bittersweet about the new role; sad to be leaving my school and all of the wonderful students, teachers and parents I’ve come to know in my short time as a VP, but excited about a new challenge and ready to embrace a new adventure!

Luckily for me, I get to continue to support my school’s newly acquired grant from Future Shop, where we’ve received almost $20000 to enhance student learning with innovative technologies.

Our shopping is almost complete, and I’m planning on chronicling  our journey as we move forward, starting with a little piece of the grant proposal as follows, and sharing our plan of action over the next 8 weeks.

Our students want to become producers, not just consumers of media, and participate as 21st century learners in a world that is creative, collaborative and global. We want students to access tools that allow participation as global citizens, demonstrations of learning through the creation of shareable multimedia projects, and engaging in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programming through projects that are possible with robust technology tools.  Innovative practice with a STEM focus in elementary schools means that students see themselves as idea-makers, planners, designers and builders. We’ve found that our Chromebooks allow us easy ways to collaborate and share files, but this is not enough.  We need tools like laptops, programming software, peripherals for multimedia creation, and Ministry licensed digital resources in order to leverage more of the powerful applications that computers afford us.

Currently, our library is a traditional space holding books and 20 desktop computers in a lab setting.  Our teacher librarian has begun to turn our space into a creative Learning Commons that promotes flexible purposes for learning, and we need mobile devices available to all students, at all times, to be truly transformative for student learning.  Our Learning Commons has the infrastructure to manage this with our efficient wifi throughout the school and a small room attached to the larger space that is the perfect solution to a technology enhanced maker space and multimedia production studio.

STEM initiatives such as the one we are proposing provide an engaging way for students to connect to the curriculum in the areas of math, science, and technology, as well as support the Ontario Ministry’s focus on inquiry based learning and leveraging the power of intentional play to advance learning.  With this grant we can transform this space to include learning, invention, play, creation and innovation and we see it growing from the basic elements we’ve requested to a creative play and invention space that is responsive to the needs, interests and abilities of our students at different age levels.

We are so grateful that Future Shop saw our vision and chose us to be grant recipients so that we can make this happen!

The technology requested in this grant will allow students to develop:

• skills and experience in creation with multi-media tools (e.g., podcasting, websites, videos, presentations, music)
• skills and experience in using Logo programming languages (i.e., Scratch, Turtle Art (both free) and MicroWorlds which is included in the proposal, as well as ProBots and BeeBots)
• hands-on experience using programmable materials (i.e., Little Bits construction tools along with Arduino and Sphero Balls)
• an understanding of manufacturing and design elements using software that will transpose student designs into 3D artefacts using the 3D printer

Appreciative Leadership – Chapter 1

I’m an eternal optimist.  Was I born this way?  I don’t know… all I know is that I’ve always viewed the cup as half-full and have an easy time finding silver linings somehow.  This must be what draws me to the Appreciative Inquiry approach that I began to learn about in my time as a Community Leader with Powerful Learning Practice.  And I do mean ‘began to learn’ because I feel like I need a lot of years to develop skill in this area.

Imagine my delight to have attended my first Family of Schools meeting at my Board this fall and to be presented with an article to read about all different kinds of leaders.  As I often do, I flipped directly to the back of the article to check out the resources, and found a recommended resource called Appreciative Leadership by Appreciative Inquiry gurus Diana Whitney, Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Kae Rader!   I promptly bought the book and began to read about their definition of AL:

Appreciative Leadership is the relational capacity to mobilize creative potential and turn it into positive power — to set in motion positive ripples of confidence, energy, enthusiasm, and performance — to make a positive difference in the world (P. 3)

I love this positive worldview and the focus on what IS needed, what IS possible and what CAN be done.  Super stuff for an optimist like me!

In devouring the first part of the book, the authors outline the 5 core strategies of AL and I find that they resonate with me.  In fact, these are exactly the things upon which I am focusing as a school administrator:

1. Inquiry – Ask powerful questions
2. Illumination – Bring out the best of people and situations
3. Inclusions – Engage with people to coauthor the future
4. Inspiration – Awaken the creative spirit
5. Integrity – Make choices for the good of the whole

I want to get better at asking those powerful questions and as a beginning the authors suggest observing yourself to determine your ask-to-tell ratio.  They recommend that we ask questions about 3 times more than we tell information.  I have no clue what my ratio is, but I’m going to spend a week or two watching that more closely.

Do you know your ask-to-tell ratio?