Are Grades in our Way?

Many participants were grateful to see Starr Sackstein at our Building Learning Communities Conference (#BLC16) thanks to Alan November with November Learning. Starr facilitated our session on "Empowering Learning Through Mastery".

As is Starr's style, she welcomed us to move our seats from traditional rows to a collaborative circle where each participant had equal voice and representation. Our circle continued to expand to include more and more conference participants who found our session. Everyone felt they had a voice and was welcomed to share our challenges, questions and concerns with moving learning to the front and grades to the back.

Starr began by sharing her journey of how grades can stifle learning and some options for shifting the paradigm to focus on growth through feedback to empower more creativity and engagement in the learning. She shared her visionary journey in her district and how well her learners have responded and respected her entrepreneurial spirit. She mentioned how she conferences with her Learners to collaboratively reflect on their growth, gain and progress. Starr has seen incredible growth in herself and in her Learners. She and they continue to make their writing visible globally and challenged us to empower our Learners to not merely submit work to their teachers, but instead to share the learning globally!

Check out Starr's Ted Talk!

Global Collaboration

Craig Vroom and I have been connected via Twitter for several years now and we finally had the opportunity to meet in person as he presented a session at Alan November's Building Learning Communities (#BLC16) in Boston on "Global Collaboration for Local Impact". Craig's charisma and genuine presence created an ambiance when attendees immediately became participants. Even though many of us had not yet met, the exchange we experienced quickly became collaborative and the sharing flourished.

Craig started with The Power of Twitter. We discussed how Twitter can enable us to engage in useful Professional Development (PD), more reflective exchanges (through chats), effective communication with educators worldwide and through becoming and maintaining being a connected educator. Twitter has been the medium that Craig and I have used to encourage, support and challenge each other. After Twitter, we shared how to Find Your Tribe and the Power of Blogging. We shared how blogging is an individually reflective endeavor that is key to making sense of our learning, while also connecting to each other as we often share a similar purpose.  Next, we discussed the importance of the First 3 Days. The first 3 days is a time for building relationships, fostering a safe and trusting environment and building an interdependence that is crucial to retained and collaborative learning. Hundreds of educators will be sharing with #1st5Days on Twitter. Finally, we ended with Being a Lead Learner. We shared how one can be a Lead Learner as the facilitator of a district, a school or a classroom. In all cases, play, humor, listening, empathy and perseverance are key aspects of learning that lasts! Thank you Craig!

Humor Facilitates Learning

I've just experienced much rich learning and sharing at Alan November's Building Learning Communities (#BLC16) in Boston. After chatting with Lena Marie Rockwood this morning, I've decided to write a number of brief posts to share the learning. Here it goes...

Charles Cooper facilitated a session on how humor can be a significant component to fostering an environment in which learning, sharing, collaborating and asking questions end up being natural by-products. When I arrived to the session, there was a YouTube video on showing very young children laughing silly with their parents. The participants in the session naturally broke out in laughter. We started laughing silly, connecting with those around us and had not yet bothered to introduce ourselves. It was almost like a basic need of connecting was already established due to the silly laughter. The laughter has facilitated our connections,

Imagine if natural connections through laughter could be one of the ways our learners connect in a classroom environment! Laughter can dispel fear, anxiety and reluctance. As long as the laughter is not at the expense of anyone in the room, a more relaxed and connected environment seems to be immediately created. Whether a humorous video is showing as learners enter our environment or whether we show a silly video prior to an assessment where learners might be a bit on edge, humor can help to calm us and help to facilitate an environment where learning and connecting is more natural.

Check out this link: Contagious Laughter