#ULearn15 – Ann Lieberman’s Keynote

I’m trying something new with my reflection structure, because I feel the need to get through these a little faster (and I need to go back and edit yesterday’s posts now that I’ve had time to digest what I’ve learned).

Ann Lieberman’s keynote took me by surprise, mostly because I expected it to go over my head and be aimed more at management level. Instead, it was really empowering.

The What

From Ann’s keynote, one message came through loud and clear – teachers must lead the change that the education system needs. It won’t come from government, it may not even come from senior management.

Much of Ann’s message reinforced Grant’s message from yesterday – we are stronger together. The more we share our successes, the more others can look at our successes and think about how those successes can be successful in their situations, which in turn will lead to a more successful sector overall. So much success!

I also really enjoyed the message of ‘lead from where you are’. I’m a second-year teacher, and there are still moments where I feel like I’m speaking out of turn when I share with my colleagues. At the end of the day if I have something to share, I should be sharing it.

Communities of learning was not an overly radical idea, but it was refreshing to see someone detail what an effective community of learning looks like. It reminded me of@rosmaceachern‘s recent post on critical friendships in the sense that you need to surround yourself with people who you trust enough to be able to be completely honest with about your teaching and learning. Feedback needs to go beyond the positives and look at where there is room for improvement (not from this session, but@GrantLichtman‘s “I like… I wonder… What if?” structure would work really well with this). Conflict – a.k.a. disagreements – is productive if handled correctly.

Schools where teachers visit each others' classrooms FREQUENTLY for open feedback on goals make for great innovation #ulearn15

— Grant Lichtman (@GrantLichtman) October 7, 2015

So What?

As I said, this clicked with me more than I thought it would. Firstly, it affirmed that I do have a right to share and I should be sharing. I think if I had to come away from #ULearn15 with only one goal, it would be to share more of my practice.

The second really hammered home something that I already felt that we need to work on as a school. At the moment, within my school, we don’t collaborate anywhere near enough.

Now What?

The collaboration issue is something that I’d really like to work on, but need to have a think about how to ‘lead from where I am’ with. I’m thinking that it may be something that the PLC I am a part of could have a go at changing.

#ULearn15 – @GrantLichtman’s Keynote

I did something very un-Hannah-like this morning. Normally I’m the queen of thorough notes that anyone can make sense of because they are far too detailed. But, during this morning’s keynote, I found myself tweeting rather than taking notes. This is the first chance I’ve really had to sit down and unpack it all.

Problem solvers/critical thinkers don’t just make themselves

Students develop problem solving/critical thinking capabilities when they find their own questions or problems that they want to solve. Without this investment, no deep thinking will happen.

The world we live in today is drastically different from the world our education system is designed to prepare students for

Evolution in technology has meant that the amount of knowledge that exists is growing rapidly. The old model of the teacher, as the fount of all knowledge, is no longer appropriate, as it is no longer possible for one person to know everything. We need to change how we think about teachers.

I really enjoyed Grant’s argument against the term ‘guide on the side’ – we’re caught up in the middle of the learning. I’m not sure I can see myself as a farmer, but I certainly see how he uses the metaphor to illustrate the nurturing approach.

The industrial model is no longer relevant. So many will say that we teach students that will go on to do jobs that don’t even exist right now, but it’s completely true; we need to make sure they are creative, adaptive… etc.

So what does an innovative classroom look like?

Dynamic	Creative	Adaptive
– messy, noisy, chaotic – tailored learning – risky	– student-owned – knowledge creators – embracing failure	– interdisciplinary – teacher collaboration – exciting new courses

My classroom is probably one of the loudest in the school, mostly because when my students are on form they tend to forget about inside voices. It was great to see this validated as being okay. Much of the rest of the lists didn’t surprise me, although I need to give serious thought as to how to go about making it happen (the area of embracing failure is something I really want to build into my classroom culture next year).

John Dewey was right about everything

Experience makes for great learning. It’s all about making sure that those experiences actually happen.

“Welcome to the cognisophere”

Today’s world is all about how we handle the vast amounts of knowledge available to us. It’s about about creating that knowledge, sharing it, and getting rid of what is no longer relevant (archiving is a very diplomatic term).

Change isn’t hard, merely uncomfortable

“Brushfires” of innovation is the term that Grant used – there are very few schools that consistently innovate across the board. He described what is holding us back as ‘anchors and silos’ – anchors that tie us to the old way of doing things, and silos that prevent us from collaborating and sharing so that we may move forward. Asking ‘what if’ has the power to identify the things really holding a school back. It’s just about taking the time to ask the question and hear the answers.

We have the hardware. We have the software. It’s the operating system that needs to be rebuild

This needs no explanation, but I loved the graphic that came with it.

Image retrieved from http://www.grantlichtman.com/the-two-critical-planes-of-school-innovation/ (because my photo wasn’t good enough quality!)

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I’ll be completely honest and say that I’m not brave enough to ask my students what their one word is; I’m on a journey and I’m certainly not there yet. But it’s certainly something I’ll be striving to do better next year. I am, however, very tempted to ask them to form their own ‘what if?’ questions about school, and see if they may give me insight into what, exactly, they would like to see change. Because if I have learned anything at all from the entirety of my first day at ULearn, it is that we can assume we know what the students want, but, really, sometimes we have no idea.

I have Grant’s book sitting at home, with a bookmark about 40 pages in. I look forward to reading the rest of it.