Learning From Each Other

This week at the SWELL division meeting, Greta Rakow share an article entitled “Open Your Door: Why We Need to See Each Other Teach.” With my new position as Teaching & Learning Facilitator this year, I’ve been in more classrooms than I ever have before...and I am learning so much. I feel so privileged that my colleagues allow me to watch them teach because every time I go into a class, I learn new things like…

...being in Matt Rice's class made me think about what I'm doing to facilitate relationships between my students and how I could work to build rapport and collegiality amongst them.

...being in Christina Varey's class made me think about what I'm doing to create a calm, mindful environment for my students in order to help them learn peacefully.

...being in Elliott Olson's class made me think about what I'm doing to help students learn how to use evidence to back up what they say with real information and not just opinions.

Admittedly, when thinking about having someone come into my class, on the outside I’m all “Of course! I’d love to have you in my class” when on the inside I’m sweating thinking about all the things that could go wrong and what that person would think….and yet when I go into classes, I never think about what I see from a judgmental place. I look to see the good and I see so much of it. Watching and listening to my colleagues have been some of the most impactful professional learning that I’ve done this year. 

What do you think? I’d love to talk about what that could look like for us on a micro or macro level (or anything in between and obviously all completely voluntary!!). Talk with your people, stop by B107, email me - let’s talk and see what we can create!