Encouraging Teacher Conversations
Quick bites of practical insights and exercises for building collaborative expertise in schools through constructive conversations.
and selected Educators who will share their experiences with us!
Grab the summary ,listen to the professional conversation on our podcast and ‘blab’ and start a discourse with your colleagues or staff.
One way to apply the reverse thinking strategy
Get teachers talking about contemporary research frameworks, school contexts and their own beliefs and practices. This is a walk through of one way to apply the reverse thinking strategy using expert teacher mind frames.
Creating Learning Environments -Working from the known to the new.
Validate teacher judgement. Relieve the impression that we are continually responding to ‘new successful ideas’. Look at what we already know through evidence and what we currently do – as the context for building teacher judgement.
This conversation starter tackles critical ways by which to examine new evidence through explicit association, assimilation and contesting of ideas in collaborative models.
Marzano and Pickering: 4 Essential Questions About Engagement.
A teacher conversation and classroom ready strategy for understanding the questions:
How do I feel? Am I interested? Is it important? Can I do It?
Behaviour reflects needs.
A practical co-operative conversation and simple action research for all teachers working with cohort of students. This can also become a catalyst for longer team collaborations into student engagement and teacher judgement.
Drop in for 5.
Collaborative feedback for teachers.
Fun and relatively non-threatening 5-minute observations model conducted between pairs or small groups. Develops shared understanding and defines constructive feedback as a collaborative practice.
Take The Autobahn
We know that the emotional brain has the power to open or close access to learning and memory. How do we use the affective route to teach the intellect? How do we put the ‘hook’ into learning culture? Great staff conversation with practical applications for student engagement.
Student engagement and ‘no hands up’ in practice.
How does it work? What do I need to do to scaffold? A practical conversation in experiential (beta) mode. How does it feel for the learner? How might you start or experiment?
Scaling up success and facilitating innovation.
A practical introduction to the ‘beta’ mode concept of school teams. Transfers directly to classroom use. Powerful way to encourage innovation, action and reflection.
Collaborative conversations for PD planning
Teacher’s value professional conversations that build their expertise and enhance their students’ learning. Focus the conversation by looking at your student data. Question-storming generates short and long term ideas for exploration and beats a PMI hands down for creativity
What are we doing to celebrate our work?
End of term problem-based project. Validate teacher judgement and build collaborative expertise whilst solving a genuine school need. This is an authentic task for school staff professional learning and fun for the end of the year or the end of the term. Great piece of super-modelling of engagement, collaborative expertise, fun, teamwork and difference.