Collaborating with other COL's is cool!

Sometimes when we get into the reality of everyday life back at our schools, I forget we are part of a big picture.

At our COLs meeting recently, we got into groups to share where we were with our inquiries.  It was really awesome to hear where everyone was at and it was refreshing to know that we could share our challenges without fear.

Our group was led by Anne who said we had 3 minutes to share a brief reflection about our focussing inquiries and what strategies and tools we used to figure out what our students have already learned and what we needed to learn next (scanning).

We had varying schools and varying struggles and achievements that we have chosen to take on and at first it seemed hard to find and 'synthesis' a common ground that linked us all.  But as I continued to hear everyone's stories, a common thread filtered through - that we were all had a hunch, scanned our learners and have come to the point where we were ready to ask what could WE change in our practice.

We looked at different ways of finding out where our kids were in the classroom.  On reflection, what we have been doing up to this point was basically looking at the challenges we had chosen to take on and finding ways to approach them.  A key idea Anne wanted us to think about was what we could do to change ourselves and our practice. One of the key things that resonated with me was something that Graeme Aitken had said at our Leaders PLG the previous day.  He shared with us ways to 'take stock' of where we were at and how kids felt about their learning.  One question that had me thinking was asking kids to name two adults in our school setting who believed  that they would be a success in life.  I wondered if the kids in my classes felt I believed they would be a success and shared this wondering with my COL's group.  Together, we agreed that the change for my practice would be around better AWARENESS of what was happening in the classroom and to 'take stock' so that I could develop a better more accurate picture of my learners.  Now I want to figure out how to measure this.

I really enjoyed connecting with the other COL's in my group and I look forward to sharing my learnings and reflections with them again.