Breakfast Webinar Series 2016
Fast approaching Webinar Series for 2016. Get your coffee & virtually plug in to gain practical tips and ideas for shifting your pedagogy to increase learners level of engagement, progress and agency. This is a great chance to collaborate first thing in the morning, throughout the year.
Building Learning Capacity with Tony Ryan at Waipuna 29 January
Thanks to all of those that
attended Friday’s uplifting, mind provoking conference at Waipuna hosted by the
awesome Tony Ryan. Being a newbie to the Learning Network NZ
team, this was my first event to participate in and what a pleasure it
was. Not only hearing Tony talk with
such passion but seeing everyone in attendance engaged and inspired.
Listening to Tony, commanded engagement and
interactivity amongst your peers, whereby I could see all those attending becoming
more and more inspired and animated as the day transpired.
Tony raised questions to
shift our thinking. How can we embrace
technology and identify “what is worthwhile”?
What technology can assist with minimising the impact on our time and
maximise a holistic shift within the school environment whereby you as a
teacher can successfully embrace pedagogy (*child based learning) and andragogy
(*adult based learning) continuously, resulting in injecting enthusiasm,
participation and the art of GREAT learning
within your school.
Tony reviewed ways in which
you can audit current demands being placed on you, resulting in creating more learning time by simply de-cluttering and
simplifying what you need to do from
what you could do “if only you had
more time”?
The energy within the breaks stimulated
me to review what influenced some Principals to bring their entire team to
this teacher’s only day and if any of their prior perceptions of what to expect
were met/exceeded?
This is some of the feedback
collated about this day from new teachers embarking on their teacher journey,
through to experienced teachers and some Principals. Inspired learning springs to
mind!
Key insights/reminders gained from a new teachers point of view embarking on a new career included:-
Came along to the day with no expectations and was
blown away with how helpful attending the teacher’s only day was due to:-
· Gaining tools to assist
her with not getting overwhelmed when in the classroom environment
- Gaining useful mapping tools to enable prioritising
- Reiteration of why you became a teacher in the first place
- Inspiring creativity to the way in which you approach your classroom
Principals perspectives included:
Bringing the entire teaching
team along to the teacher’s only day was a twofold
gain.
One because it is a GREAT
approach to a new year, collectively the teaching team can bond by starting the
New Year inspired and become focussed for the year ahead on their role as connected, confidant continuous lifelong learners
also.
“As life gets
busy it becomes easy in teacher mode to forget about YOUR role as a learner!”
 |
| As recommended by Tony, we can now take your orders. |
“Tony engages
teachers as adult learners”
The second year running they
have brought their entire teaching team to kick start the new teaching year
with mindfulness around focusing on
you as a teacher’s adult learning as
much as the children in your class learning and looking after each other as a
team.
Other teacher’s feedback/out takes:
“Awesome way to start a year, gained above and beyond
what was expected by Tony’s inspiration and teachings. Gives staff the opportunity to re-invent how
they approach their environment and spark innovation within the classroom. Huge plus to attending is gaining some gratefulness
tools to share with the kids.”
“We came last
year and are still talking about and quoting outtakes.”
“Expectation
of high quality course has not been disappointing”. I have had an excited buzz all day.
"We have
gained inspiration for the year and had a great time as a team bonding!"
"Tony made you
think & question beyond what you are doing and celebrating that everyone is
doing a good job too!"
Tony is back in July as part of a two day Conference exploring tools to sustain innovative thinking within your classroom environment. Try to come along to hear Tony, along with other successful key presenters on a range of topics that will support engaging learners.
Developing School Culture
Creating an environment of Joy & Performance
– thoughts
from 2 days with Brendan Spillane
After spending 2 days listening to the
messages of Brendan Spillane I was reminded of why I regard myself as a
passionate educator. I am an idealist, a dreamer, a deep believer in people.
Brendan says, “Love makes us bigger” I believe that. If you
love what you do, you will be ‘BIG’ at it. At LNNZ we are ‘BIG’ at what we do.
We have to be. We are the sum of four and want to exist with a strong why. A
why is deeply personal, however the development of a shared why can be
reaffirming and truly expose the differences within that make us strong. There’s a need for it to be complexly simple,
a deep and powerful reason to exist, but framed in a simple enough format that
it can be represented in 140 characters. Brendan challenged teams to construct
their vision as a tweet.
MY ‘Why we exist’ TWEET:
“We exist because we
believe education should be more. We provide opportunities for educators to be
the best they can be, to grow great kids!”
The complexity of our working environment, of the world
today means we HAVE to be leaders when embracing the new paradigms of learning
& teaching. We HAVE to work above ‘the magic line’.
When our thinking is “Above the Line” then Ownership,
Acceptance, Responsibility are embraced. Below: Blame, Excuses & Denial
prevail. How do we build a culture where enough Trust, Respect & Joy exist
so those inside it are free to work above the line?
Leaders need to tell the people working ‘above the line’ they
model a great attitude. Have you told the people you work with they live ‘above
the line’? Have you asked yourself why others work ‘below the line’? Have you
tried to find their joy? Have they? What could the behaviour be masking? All
key questions I’ve pondered this week, writing this blog. Easy to
ask, difficult to answer, even harder to live by some days.
Without Joy in the role 'above the line' thinking will not
manifest.
What gives us Joy is easy. Generally it comes as an inherent
gift, manifested early in life. Sometimes it is blinkered but others recognise
it in you. Brendan encourages you to identify yours as a team – play a game of warm
fuzzies. But know what each team member brings that gives or replenishes joy. I
remember doing this with one team when a teacher who thought she was nothing
special had the rest of the team telling her that without her compassion they
would be a very different team. She was always caring for the ones in real need.
Brendan told us about a teacher with a similar response whose colleagues said
she was great at listening without judging. It can be an uplifting and
revealing task.
Know what gives you joy.
Find it.
Know what gives you joy.
Find it.
Or keep looking...
because...
Brendan goes on to share
the belief that: “Everything depends on how physically well you are!”
Seriously! If you are physically unwell nothing functions at
its optimum. And day-in, day-out mental torture to the point of exhaustion in
order to manage your way through work life is not generally conducive to great
physical well-being. Add that to the mental exhaustion already manifested in a
school leaders’ role and the recipe can be difficult to manage. Leadership in
schools is mentally demanding. The experts agree the only escape from a
mentally demanding job (this means the only way to find necessary Joy and
ensure resilience!) is to have a complete brain break from anything
educational. Anything 'work-related. How many principals or school leaders do you know who do that?
Those that do stand out, they build strength from the right drivers. They
ensure others find their joy and by association – success.
So what’s important? And how do we determine those things
for the institution within which we work? The why is important! The determiners
are the what, driven by the why! I share strong conversations around the WHY
with colleagues. And why the WHY is all important to get right. Not so much
right as truly identified with honesty and humility. The why is your Vision.
It’s why you exist. It’s shared. Brendan says, “a vision that isn't shared is a
hallucination!” Hallucinations can often mask as beautiful day dreams, however
the concept remains the same. Neither are real and can only be brought to life
if shared, actioned and open.
The first thing any intelligent leader today can do in order
to bring vision to life is:
Increase the QUANTITY of power. Our times require the ‘genius of the group’.
Increase the QUANTITY of power. Our times require the ‘genius of the group’.
‘Open hand’ leadership as opposed to leadership that is a closed
fist makes a difference. An open hand signifies support and an, ‘I've let go,
so you can fly on your own but I'm still here to help if you need me.’ It
allows risk-taking and leading not only from the middle but across all roles,
leadership that is more about the best fit for the skills needed to get a job
done.
Outcomes are the result of establishing an understanding of
why we do what we do. Top down mandated change and closed fist leadership, by
definition, means lack of ownership, higher staff turnover, more ‘below the
line’ behaviour. This results in less sustainability and/or continuity of
implemented change.
What’s your leadership default setting?
To increase the quantity of power in the work place
Brendan suggests the ‘round the campfire’ metaphor:
In order to create an environment of
Joy & Performance:
·
Build narrative intelligence – tell your stories
·
Do this with purpose, “Sit around the campfire”
Adapted from Lencioni, 2012
·
Ask the 6 questions of organisational Clarity
Once a shared understanding of why the things that are
important are important, successful design and implementation becomes the
foundation of school strategic direction and gives life to the annual
operational goals staff identify. Visible success determined by how well the
team engages in a cycle of action learning.
Brendan’s messages are simple, though not to easy to put into practice and he is highly engaging. I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the learning over the two days as did everyone who attended. He made us think a lot. I have been made aware through feedback that this post could be 3 and maybe I'll work on unpacking the three big ideas I took away from the time with Brendan in more depth.
Throughout, Brendan reiterates:
“Be KIND!”
“Be KIND!”
“Be
true to your season. Stand in front of people with heart and offer things of
worth. Work with humility, mindful of the wisdom of others.”
“Be honest!” If you say it – Mean it! If you mean it – prove it!
If it’s important, how do we/others see it?
I end with some of the humorous images Brendan used to
prove this point.
How we see and perceive ourselves and the messages we send
need to be viewed from many levels.
How do your people see you?:
DO YOU HAVE
AN OPEN DOOR POLICY...
But inside
others see a raging bull?
DO YOU THINK YOU’RE HUMBLE … YET ..
others feel they need to tell you how incredible you are
with frequency.
DO YOU LOVE
WORKING WITH PEOPLE .... BUT ...
they don’t
feel they can ever find you
DO YOU SAY YOU SUPPORT THOSE WHO
TAKE RISKS .... YET ...
the last
person seen to take a risk round here ended up in your jaws....
|
Teaching for Intelligent Mindsets
.jpg)
Teaching for Intelligent Mindsets
A dissemination and resource bank of "Mindsets" gems!
SLIDESHOW
The above slide show was put together following this educators experience when Carol Dweck 'Chicken'ed to NZ. It has without a doubt been the highlight of the year and many amazing memories - life-changing and otherwise resonate from her visit. One big question I would like to explore further is "are we failing students?" Knowing what we now know about learning, brain development and best practice are we still readying students for the world lacking resilience and real life skills?
Big messages from the symposium:
1. You never see an unmotivated baby!
2. Want turns students into non-learners? A non-learner mindset: If I do nothing I can't make a mistake.
3. Carol's research evidences how we give praise makes a big difference.
4. Praise: The struggle, the strategies and choices, learning from previous attempts, the problem solving, the improvement in learning.
5. Don't Praise: outcome - you're so smart you did that quickly and easily sends the message "unless I do well I'm not good enough".
6. A growth mindset builds resilience.
7. They haven't learned it YET! Watch Carol's TEDTalk
8. We have no idea what ANY of our students are capable of!!!!!!
@kiwiallana – http://t.co/wUlQg9T8rN
@GeoMouldey - https://eodysseyblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/a-chance-to-explore-my-own-growth-mindset/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)