ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What is the role of knowledge creation and sharing in a healthy educational organization?The first thing that stands out to me is that communication has to be open. We actually just had a community, student, teacher, and school board meeting. The topic was cell phones. Parents, teachers, and the school board all were focusing on getting rid of them or how to see them less. Every time a student spoke they were given a solution that involved leaving the phone at home. Eventually students stopped speaking and one student pointed out that they felt shut down. That was again negated. I think this is a perfect example of how we have to honor everyone's opinions to start with. This is a tricky line to walk as the leader who leads the discussion. How do you make everyone feel heard? I talked with one of my administrators after the meeting and we both felt that it was unproductive. We looked back and saw that the students were being shut down and at the time we didn't realize it. I keep thinking about what we could do differently and I like a suggestion from Anderson (2013) to "take it in." To do this you can use a strategy called LCS: state what you like about the idea, state concerns, and then add a suggestion to address the concern. We can learn so much from each other but to do that we have to all feel welcome and appreciated. Fullan (2001) says that "if people begin sharing ideas about issues they see as really important, the sharing itself creates a learning culture." I think in my example above it was too personal, so I do believe you have to be careful with the topic. This topic was given and that also makes it tough. When people can select their own topics they feel more in control. This is why I like the idea of an Edcamp and would like to experience one firsthand. "Each Edcamp is unique and based on the needs of the participants" (Swanson, 2013). You can get exactly what you want and it is designed in a way that fits with adult learning. "Ghe social, interactive, recursive nature of an Edcamp is directly aligned to adult learning theories" (Swanson, 2013). You can learn what others have done in their classrooms or schools and you have a way to share resources. You make connections with other teachers or school leaders and can share positives. This makes the whole process that much more engaging because you get to share the good things and not harp on all of the negatives, like so many staff meetings do. When you are in a new setting with new people you don't need to focus on what is wrong with your school. Another great example was from Fullan (2001) where "teachers often visit other classrooms in conjunction with consultants' visits, either to observe one of their peers teaching a lesson or a consultant teaching a demonstration lesson. And groups of teachers often visit another school, inside or outside the district, in preparation for the development of a new set of instructional practices". This allows time to pick up on new strategies that you may have not thought of or not known how to implement. We can learn so much from each other but we rarely take the time to do it on our own. Sources
Andersen, E. (2013, August 09). 5 Simple Things You Can Do To Get People To Speak Up In Meetings. Retrieved April 07, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2013/08/09/5-simple-things-you-can-do-to-get-people-to-speak-up-in-meetings/#19bcc08cbe85 Fullan, M. (2001). Chapter Five. Knowledge Building. In Leading in a culture of change. (pp. 77-106) Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf Swanson, K. (2013, April 23). Why Edcamp? Retrieved April 07, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-edcamp-kristen-swanson
2 Comments
larissa
4/9/2017 03:56:21 pm
Hi Sara,
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Jim
4/9/2017 05:30:05 pm
You're right, it's about making connections. I believe in the business world it's called networking. Regardless, without interacting with each other, we're not going to learn from each other, and we're not going to value each other.
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