Prompt #2What are you doing differently?
We all do things a little differently. Describe and discuss a practice that you are doing differently at your current school. Share your ideas on why you chose to do it this way and what the results of this have been.
It has been challenging getting this post completed this week - not only fighting to find time but also having to reflect on everything that we do at St Francis to choose what it is that we do differently and thinking about our why.
Things that I do differently now from how I have done things in the past - there are many. When we opened our new school at the beginning of 2016 we (our establishment Board and our senior leadership team) were to determined to make use of this amazing opportunity to rethink school for our community of learners.
"Change is an opportunity to do something amazing".
This quote, from The Innovators Mindset - a book written by George Couros, has been our mantra. Our community of learners has been encouraged to think differently as we have started to build the culture of our school.
Our Learning community has worked hard to create a vision statement to help us have a platform on which we can base our future decision making. After several bouts of consultation we have come up with an ethos rather than a vision statement. We feel like this statement supports our intent to rethink school and to deliver the curriculum with an innovative approach.
We are choosing to be an innovative Catholic learning environment that inspires and empowers all learners to succeed.
Curriculum Delivery has been one of our major focus areas - we want to deliver the curriculum in a way that inspires and empowers our learners. We have chosen to use a Project Based Learning approach.
This is a link to a great article that talks about definitions of what PBL actually is. What the heck is Project Based Learning?
Our teachers work together to craft driving questions that start our students on a learning journey and yes the learning is in the process not just in the product.
"Kids show what they learn as they journey through the unit, interact with its lessons, collaborate with each other, and assess themselves and each other. They don't just take a test or produce a product at the end to show their learning".
So how have we done things differently to get to this point?
- We have encouraged and supported our teachers to take risks and trial new ways of delivering the curriculum.
- We have shared our thinking about PBL with our community.
- We hosted the Movie - Most likely to succeed so that our community was able to see the big picture of PBL
- We have used Twitter to connect with other learning communities that are delivering the curriculum this way.
- We have run a book club (optional) for staff to work through Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning.
- The Senior Leadership team has committed to doing two online courses through PBL Global PBL in order to ensure we have a good knowledge base.
- We have connected with Thom Markham (CEO and Founder of PBL Global) via Twitter. We are excited to welcome him to our school in November this year to work with our staff in moving them forward with their practice of PBL. Thom will also mentor our teams throughout 2018 (this will be via Skype as Thom is based in California).
- Next year we will rethink the delivery of staff PD and all our staff will get the opportunity to complete the two online courses Introduction to PBL and Best Practices; and Build Your PBL Skill Set. This will mean less full staff PD sessions and that all staff are working through the content at their own pace - providing differentiation for our staff as we do for our students.
As I write this I am reflecting on how lucky we have been so far to have a Board that backs us in to be innovative and staff with growth mindsets - they are so willing to try new approaches, reflect, tweak and try again continually.
It is pretty exciting to see how far we have come - even though we know we have a long way to go. This is a constantly evolving process.
Thanks Jo! The article about project based learning is really helpful. We do this too, and you're right, to describe it in a few words is hard at times!!
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Thanks Jo, great post. I really liked the article about Project based learning. We do this too and to explain it as succinctly as that is hard to do. I'm going to share that article with the teachers!
ReplyDeleteA great post Jo. "Change is an opportunity to do something amazing". I admire that you are able to put this into practice and our school is a testament to this. I agree that we have come a long way and our journey is by no means finished. Twitter, blogs, book club and PBL to name just a few have become a real part of our school and it the value they add is so very beneficial.
ReplyDelete