Submitted on April 8, 2013.

The above shows how I submitted my goal; the design and images are important to me.  The hyperlinks are not active in the document above, so I’ve included all text below.

When asked what I do, I either say that I serve as connective tissue or that I am an idea girl.  I am intentional about serving as a bridge.  I am also committed to modeling what we want to see in our school.  Actions speak so much louder than words. I think (and hope) that I succeed more than I fail.  To that end, I have set out to model using our learning spaces to engage faculty in learning experiences that are active, hands-on, and use technology in adaptive and transformative ways. I work to model seeking feedback, sharing feedback, and using feedback to learn and grow.   Serving as connective tissue gives me great joy.  If our schools believe communication and collaboration are important, how are we modeling this for our community? Being an idea girl soothes and feeds me as a teacher-learner.   I want to risk, struggle, learn, and belong.  As evidence of this bridge work, connective work, and idea work, please see the following stories and reflections of my learning.

Connecting within Trinity:

• Communication and Collaboration:  Celebrate and Grow…Protocol for offering and receiving feedback – Implemented
• Learning Spaces (physical and digital):  The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia – Movie and popcorn – #DoDifferent PD
• Co-teaching and Co-learning:  Continued Co-Teaching World Languages with @j_kuipers3 – #TrinityLearns
• Project-based Learning and Design Thinking:  I’m not smarter than these 6th graders…Posh Problem Posse in action – Part 2
• Personal Learning and Growth:  Charlotte’s Web Book Club – Chpts 4-5 – Jill’s Notes

Connecting outside Trinity:

• Using Social Media: Learn and Share…A reason to tweet – #TrinityLearns
• Learning Forward: Leading Learners to Level Up – #LevelUpMath #LearnFwd12 – the details
• Teachers Teaching with Technology International Conference: Art of Questioning reflection – #NspiredatT3
• Discussing Grading Philosophy and How we Report Progress: Report Card Summit Part 2 (#RCSatl) March, 2013

Modeling feedback loops:

• Learner Choice and Voice: PD experiment: I want to learn… & I can teach… (5 of 4)
• Vertical Coordination of Curriculum:  Vertical Coordination PD: Divide and conquer – as a team: Feedback and Reflection

My Goal:

To purposefully act to forward Trinity School’s mission, faculty-learners and student-learners will grow significantly in their use of reflection and the formative, diagnostic, and self-assessment knowledge that come from such an approach to learning.

Strategic: Publishing a minimum of one reflection per week will model and practice reflective teaching practices that mirror the reflective learning practices we expect from My Learning student portfolios.

Measurable: Success will be measured in several ways.  Will we publish meaningful reflections every week? Will we enhance others learning by commenting on reflections and/or by sharing the reflections with others? Will faculty-learners embrace the My Learning philosophy and model reflective practices for student-learners?

Attainable: Every journey begins with a first step.  Reflection on practices occurs every day.  Publishing a reflections every week is the target.  If  a stumble occurs (a missed week), there is always the next week to recover and try again. It is an iterative process.

Results-oriented: Portfolios support a growth mindset by allowing learners to track their learning and growth over time and offer opportunities to modeling networked learning and develop community partners.

Time-bound:  We expect our student-learners to reflection on their learning periodically throughout the entire school year; therefore, the goal is to publish at least one reflection every week during the 2014-2015 academic year.

Action Steps:

• Intentionally reflect and question to grow and learn. Publicly publish my reflections at Experiments in Learning by Doing using the tag #MyLearning. Connect with others by broadcasting each post via Twitter.
• Reflect on learning by keeping a running record in an e-portfolio. Encourage and provide opportunities and support for others to develop professional portfolios that document learning, growth and reflections.
• Support reflection, questioning, and growth of learners by designing and engaging in professional development opportunities for teacher-learners to learn by doing. Examples:
  • PLuGIn: SynergyEDU 1.0 for teacher-learners to experience collaborative problem-finding and problem-solving.
  • MyLearningEDU 1.5 for teacher-learners to model and experience My Learning from the student perspective.

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To see the development of this goal, see my previous blog post.