This summer, I had the privilege of attending the Building Learning Conference in Boston with four of my colleagues from the OJCS. We spent three days together attending different workshops, making connections, sharing what we learned, and spending meaningful time together.
It was apparent on the first day that our school in Ottawa is well on its way to being the best school. The messages we heard at the conference of letting students be the problem finders, the problem designers, take risks and learn from failure and most importantly own their learning, were part of conversations already taking place at the OJCS.
I came away from this experience feeling inspired and so excited for the upcoming school year. I plan to put much of what I learned at the conference into my teaching practice this year. Digital citizenship will be embedded in the curriculum naturally by making global connections. The students and I will be documenting our learning and making our thinking visible through the blogging process. Learner driven inquiry will hopefully be the norm in Grade 4 this year.
I made some excellent connections with the presenters of workshops. One presenter Dr. Marialice Curran, created the first course on digital citizenship at a university. I was lucky to connect with this professor at the workshop. She gave me her book and has offered to help me this Fall as I start to connect globally. Another presenter Alisha Collins has promised to send me her Science curriculum for some teachers to try out this year. Our school will also be part of the World Peace Song Project with schools all over the world. We will be the first Canadian school to join this project. This opportunity came about as I chatted with a teacher in another workshop. Silvia Tolisano gave an amazing workshop about documenting learning and student portfolios. She urged us to start our own professional blogs before we start them with our students.
The most meaningful part of the experience was spending time with my colleagues. We all went to different workshops and shared what we had learned. We got to know each other on a different level and appreciate one another. It was nice to discuss our craft and brainstorm ideas. It is upon reflecting on the whole experience that we come away feeling inspired to design authentic learning experiences, encourages students to take risks, to ask rich questions, to fail to learn, to collaborate, to think critically, and to learn along with your students. We have made new connections and learned new things. We are excited to share with our colleagues and start collaborating on new projects/prototypes.
It is worthwhile to send a team to this conference every year. The team will bond, learn new things, make connections, get inspired, and more importantly come back to share and inject their enthusiasm into the school culture. Each teacher and administrator deserves such an enriching learning opportunity.