Stories from the Field

Encouraging teachers to step back and let students explore, especially when they are "doing it wrong" can be a hard concept to instill in a teacher. When we started exploration events, teachers were highly frustrated that they didn't know what to do. Teachers struggled with ambiguity and exploration learning much more than students. In our first experience of Exploration Stations, teachers were taught to clasp their hands behind their backs, and they were limited in their discussions with students to saying only,

"hmmm, how are you going to do that?"

"wow, that's interesting"

"I don't know, what do you think" and

"how did you come up with that idea?"

If the first response is no, revise something and ask again.

When I pitched the first learning festival, I was very excited to share my brilliant idea, so rather than wait until the principal returned from a meeting, I pitched the idea to the assistant principal. He told me straight up that he appreciated my enthusiasm, but he felt it was not a good idea and he would not support it. However, he encouraged me to talk to the principal, saying it was ultimately his decision and if I believed in my idea, I should refine it and pitch it again.

I spent more time planning and thinking through objections, and when I went to see the principal, got a tentative agreement to run 1 week of a 2-week event, then poll the teaching staff to see if they agreed it was a worthwhile event.

It was the yes I wanted, but by adapting my approach, I got the chance I needed.

Introducing master classes changed our spring event. After successfully modeling strategies for facilitating exploration and inquiry-led learning through festival exploration, we introduced master classes to introduce higher order thinking and more challenging topics.

Through master classes we invited experts to co-teach workshops for a day on an agreed upon topic. The expert provided the advanced background knowledge and introduced career connections to our explorations while the co-teacher facilitated the class and supported with best practices and pedagogy.

Classroom teachers were required to join the master class with their students, often being drawn into the activity and experiencing the learning with the students. In nearly all cases, teachers returned to the activity in the classroom within a week to revisit the skills or build a connection for students between the master class and lesson objectives.

Festivals and events provide countless coachable moments. Teachers engaged in fun activities find themselves exploring, building, trying, failing, learning and laughing with their students. Barriers are broken down, a ha moments abound for big and little learners, and teachers often themselves in the midst of strategies or objectives they previously pushed back on or feared as too difficult.

Spring 2019 sudden and unexpectedly teaching and learning from home gave us permission to be creative in our approaches. Although it was challenging, those first few months of 'enrich and review' learn at home gave many of us the opportunity to find joy and view learning from perspectives that did not include state assessments. It also gave us a chance to reimagine treasured school milestones and adapt them to virtual experiences.

Scavenger hunts, photo collages and parades became a key part of virtual learning in Spring 2019.

Elements of competition led to our greatest involvement in school wide community events. Using GooseChase to incorporate mini video lessons, crazy challenges, design projects and silly ways to earn points sparked a competition among classrooms that had even our most jaded teachers involved and engaged.

There is something magical about awarding 2000 bonus points to the class for the student who used the robust word of the day correctly, and opening a lighting speed round to encourage everyone to stop, drop and code, then post a picture of their whole class coding, that was energizing and led to our highest particpation rates ever.