Learning - it's Our Business!

I looked at the emerging tag cloud on my blog this morning and realised something... I've had 6 months out of the classroom and to be honest I am feeling slightly detached from teaching and learning.  The time away from the classroom has been surreal. It has been filled with the most amazing personal learning and professional development including formal, informal and self-directed. I have learnt stuff about NZ schools and the curriculum that I had previously been oblivious to in my past roles. I have learnt about resourcing a school and have been challenged by the potential differences of resourcing a 'traditional' single cell model ass opposed to  resourcing the collaborative, shared learning environments that we are moving into. You can ask me about sizes of balls for age appropriateness, 3D printers and pricing for potential ratios of devices to learners over the 3 stages of opening.... It's been a huge learning curve but I am aware that "Teaching and Learning" does not feature in my tag cloud! 

It's time for me to re-read Michael Absolum’s Clarity in the Classroom.  and begin re-thinking learning conversations and the development of learning focused relationships in our new place. 

I am mindful of the transition into our school which includes new place, new relationships, new pedagogies, and most importantly, new learners! I am also very aware of the urgent and important. The puzzle is how to fit it all in without burn out in the team!  I guess, I need to ensure that I am focussed on the 'why'. 

I think there are some elements of my past teaching inquiries that I hope to infuse throughout our new school. But I need to remember that these are actually practices and for them to be a part of what we do, I need to be sure that the team understands the 'why'. It's never about the tool or the practice, so how do I share what I value?

• Learning conversations and learning paths: time to talk about learning and to celebrate progress is really important to me.
• Implementation of Google Apps: collaborative and ubiquitous planning and assessment
• Ubiquitous learning: children and their families can connect, view, share...
• Implementation of Google Apps: so that children can share their learning with their peers and expect useful feedback in return.
• Flipped learning: purposeful, planned and relevant.

It is so hard to put the handbrake on and go back to the beliefs before we all bring our principles and past practices into the mix....