Learning To Learn and my first real blog post!
This has been a month that has REALLY pushed me outside of my comfort zone. I always have had the opportunity to blame other people for pushing me to new levels, but this month represented a time where I chose to put myself on the line and try new things - and it's an amazing feeling. I do credit some of these other opportunities to others - I am so thankful to Martha and Dustin Jez at FairChanceLearning and Brian Aspinall for pushing me to do an Ignite presentation at Connect. I spoke about Educator Leadership and the fact that I truly believe in all of the educators and administrators that I work with and my belief in goal setting for ourselves. This was SO FAR outside of my comfort zone that I worried about it more than my other presentations that week. Please see the link below to watch a group of AMAZING educators from around our province talk about educational reform and concepts that are important in their life. (I am at 25 minutes left)
This return to blogging is apart of pushing outside of my comfort zone and setting goals for myself. My goal last school year was to start blogging with my class. So when I began this new path I quickly shrugged it off and decided not to put myself out there - it was too intimidating! This year I took it on as another goal - which I continued to put off. Now, due to a Double-Dog-Dare challenge issued to me on Twitter I am going to step up to the plate and put my voice out there. And this process of putting myself out there has really shown me so much about learning and the ability our students need to have to be able to Learn how to Learn - so that they can be successful in life.
I have been challenged by Brian Aspinall to do my own Car-Pool Karoke video and I have NO idea how to do it, nor do I want to sing in public - but I am not one to turn down a great dare. I am the least tech savvy technology person and don't have a cell phone holder in my car (although I am loving Annick Rauch's idea to use a hair tie and my rear-view mirror) and turned to the twitter community to figure it out. My girls have an Action-Cam and I thought I would use that - but have NO idea how to use it. Not only is the process of making a video daunting, I am now having to try to learn a new piece of technology and it is more intimidating. However, my 7 year old is super excited to learn how to use it.
This got me to thinking about our ability to learn and the way we have always approached trying something new in our household. We have always encouraged our girls to try new things and problem solve their way through situations when they arise - which is something that we should always be doing with our students. Looking at the key ideas in the new 21st Century Competencies document I can see so much of the Learning-To-Learn section coming out in this project and all I can think is - How are we doing this for our students? How are we teaching them to persevere in their learning and believe in their ability to learn and grow? I did do a Genius Hour project with my students a few years ago and I loved their ability to learn about something that they were passionate about, however, I want to be able to harness this inquiry into more areas than a one hour per week format. I want to promote the desire to learn more and be able to problem solve your way through new situations. I feel like too often we do not give our kids, or students credit, when we are teaching them something new. We feel like we need to break down tasks into small steps and not let them learn through trial and error. So much of learning how to learn comes with the struggle of learning something new and persevering through it - for us as teachers too.
You can see here:
My mini-me is working on how to use a Mac. She is already better than me - and because she is 7 she isn't intimidated by anything. She makes a mistake and automatically tries to fix it. How are we encouraging this in our classrooms? How are you modelling trying new things for your students? How are you showing them that you are always learning something new?
Next up - Learning how to use the Action-Cam and then working on my Carpool Karaoke video. Because there is always something new to learn.
This return to blogging is apart of pushing outside of my comfort zone and setting goals for myself. My goal last school year was to start blogging with my class. So when I began this new path I quickly shrugged it off and decided not to put myself out there - it was too intimidating! This year I took it on as another goal - which I continued to put off. Now, due to a Double-Dog-Dare challenge issued to me on Twitter I am going to step up to the plate and put my voice out there. And this process of putting myself out there has really shown me so much about learning and the ability our students need to have to be able to Learn how to Learn - so that they can be successful in life.
I have been challenged by Brian Aspinall to do my own Car-Pool Karoke video and I have NO idea how to do it, nor do I want to sing in public - but I am not one to turn down a great dare. I am the least tech savvy technology person and don't have a cell phone holder in my car (although I am loving Annick Rauch's idea to use a hair tie and my rear-view mirror) and turned to the twitter community to figure it out. My girls have an Action-Cam and I thought I would use that - but have NO idea how to use it. Not only is the process of making a video daunting, I am now having to try to learn a new piece of technology and it is more intimidating. However, my 7 year old is super excited to learn how to use it.
This got me to thinking about our ability to learn and the way we have always approached trying something new in our household. We have always encouraged our girls to try new things and problem solve their way through situations when they arise - which is something that we should always be doing with our students. Looking at the key ideas in the new 21st Century Competencies document I can see so much of the Learning-To-Learn section coming out in this project and all I can think is - How are we doing this for our students? How are we teaching them to persevere in their learning and believe in their ability to learn and grow? I did do a Genius Hour project with my students a few years ago and I loved their ability to learn about something that they were passionate about, however, I want to be able to harness this inquiry into more areas than a one hour per week format. I want to promote the desire to learn more and be able to problem solve your way through new situations. I feel like too often we do not give our kids, or students credit, when we are teaching them something new. We feel like we need to break down tasks into small steps and not let them learn through trial and error. So much of learning how to learn comes with the struggle of learning something new and persevering through it - for us as teachers too.
You can see here:
My mini-me is working on how to use a Mac. She is already better than me - and because she is 7 she isn't intimidated by anything. She makes a mistake and automatically tries to fix it. How are we encouraging this in our classrooms? How are you modelling trying new things for your students? How are you showing them that you are always learning something new?
Next up - Learning how to use the Action-Cam and then working on my Carpool Karaoke video. Because there is always something new to learn.
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