Skip to main content

Listen Curiously, the answer might be more mutually beneficial, collaboratively driven and cost effective

Today has been one of those really unusual days. I know that it is a school day but being unwell meant that I needed to sit back and listen to the world pass by. Covid will do this! Outside of the ready known symptoms it forces us to put life into pause.

One of the things I love to do when life is on pause for example on a holiday or on the weekend is to gain inspiration by reading, listening to podcasts or joining in a virtual conversation. Today, was not anything like a holiday but I was blessed to tune into a session presented by Kimberly Mitchell at the ToddleTIES virtual conference. She is an author and lecturer at the University of Washington College of Education and founder of Inquiry Partners. Her presentation was on leading inquiry learning school-wide. 

It was refreshing to hear some things that I have forgotten and some new ideas from an educator on the other side of the planet based in Seattle but desiring to see student learning impacted as much as me. Ideas such as:
  • Writing personal letters to your staff, while not new show how much you care and the words you write leave a powerful impact. 
  • Tooting others horns by intentionally encouraging and coming alongside them, again not new but the reminder was powerful.
  • Showcasing parent inquiries, this idea was new and opened up pandoras box, Kimberly indicated that it was something she was yet to try but I could see the potential of it. I imagine it like a session at the traditional science fair but instead of students sharing it would be parents sharing their interests and passions and allowing students to learn directly from them.
  • Another nudge she gave was showing up for others. She stated we can only do this if we get curious about our colleagues as people and learn about their third spaces. 
Kimberly stated, "great leaders are those who don't hide the vulnerability, it is that weakness that highlights the strength they have".

The biggest takeaway for me out of this session would have to be my new found love of appreciative inquiry. This line of inquiry is not designed to manipulate or lead, instead illuminate the issue so that a solution can be developed. As it comes from a posture of vulnerability and collaborative buy-in where people are more willing to collectively work together towards a strong mutually beneficial solution. Asking the right set of liberating questions and listening curiously to the answer is an example of how appreciative inquiry can be applied. 

As school leaders apply this, we naturally find answers that are more mutually beneficial, collaboratively driven and cost effective. I am keen to try to listen more curiously as I bring my team on this journey of inquiry.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How do we Build a Culture of Inquiry and Data Use?

School systems have a shared responsibility to improve student learning outcomes. Likewise, for staff there is an obligation to provide extended opportunities to build on what they already know. High quality recording methods that ascertain growth mapped over time can identify trends and highlight threats allowing organisations to predict implications of applying a learning initiative or intervention. This can become complex and messy due to competing agendas and a variety of interpretations. For this reason, organisations have an obligation to develop a fair, ethical and shared understanding how data will be used and interpreted (Stoll & Fink,1996). A strong and user-friendly data system when properly implemented, empowers teachers to discover value in functions that bring student data to their fingertips (Brunner, Fasca, Heinze, Honey, Light, Mandinach & Wexler , 2005). Therefore, teachers require adequate learning support if they are to use data to improve practice
Post a Comment
Read more

Managing the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the classroom

As educators, we all understand the importance of ensuring that students submit their own work and are not cheated of their success by others. However, with the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom, it can be difficult to ensure that students are not cheating on assignments. Fortunately, there are a number of measures that educators can take to minimise the possibility of cheating while still using AI to their advantage. Here are a few tips to help you manage the use of AI and minimise cheating by students on assignments. 1. Set Clear Guidelines The first step in preventing cheating is to set clear guidelines about the use of AI and make sure that students understand the expectations. Make sure students are aware that AI-generated work is not permitted and that any work submitted must be their own. 2. Monitor Student Activity Monitoring student activity through AI can help you identify any potential cheating. AI can be used to detect plagiarism and other sign
Post a Comment
Read more

What does a post-industrial class look like? Part 2

This post is the second part of a series that I have been working on to identify what  does a post-industrial class look like? In my previous post , I looked at using video, collaborative discussion, grouping and student-centred learning. Why a large display and one to one? The large electronic display is used as it offers many benefits to a given lesson; these include demonstration and modelling as the teacher could showcase the application or video from the board (Moss, et al, 2007). It is easy to show the important features of particular web-based activities and have students interact with the material on their own devices. The board can accommodate different learning styles (Herrington & Harrington, 2006). Interactive boards can help tactile learners by touching and marking the board. Audio learners can have the class discussion and auditory multimedia, visual learners can see what is taking place as it develops at the board and it offers multimodal learning which can b
Post a Comment
Read more