Site Coordinator Collaboration

Values become beliefs become actions.

Campus Calgary/Open Minds has 11 classrooms across Calgary.  Regularly, site coordinators meet to collaborate and share ideas between sites.

This week, coordinators met at Stampede School and discussions evolved into future actions from our previous discussions sharing values related to experiential learning and our dynamic programming.

A key highlight from our discussions was not just seeing the world, but noticing it.  As a team, we feel it is our responsibility to provide learners with the tools to truly notice the world, engaging all our senses, as we consider what makes each site--and our city--unique.

We also considered our attention and learner assessment as a coordinator and teacher team.  We used the first and final minutes of  Demo: The Movie to consider times when our learners' attention is where we intentionally plan it to be--perhaps a candle demonstration as in the film clip--so that our attention can be on them.

"Your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words.

Your words become your actions.

Your actions become your habits.

Your habits become your values.

Your values become your destiny" --Gandhi

Interesting to have this discussion as we embark on International Day of the Child on November 20th.  What do we value in terms of our children as learners?  How does this translate into belief?

And action?

We look forward to many more rich discussions as we continue to see Campus Calgary/Open Minds evolve and grow.

How do we know? An invitation to explore assessment

How do we know? On Tuesday, October 27^th a group of 50 Campus Calgary/Open Minds educators came together around this invitation to explore assessment.  Our quest?  To discuss, define and make visible how formative and summative assessment could be tied to a year with Campus Calgary/Open Minds.

We gathered around some challenging questions with student work to delve into assessment conversation. Who wants to grapple with questions we already know the answers to?  We began with some inspiration from a video clip.

Throughout the evening some themes emerged:

• assessment criteria can be flexible and changes as the students begin to take up the work

• student voice is key: how do we gather student voice? Conferencing around journals, class discussions, one-on-one dialogues, journals (written and visual representations), listening to the questions being asked

• authenticity – keeping tasks and learning authentic for students helps them feel a connection in order to understand the relevance

• time – good things take time

• flexibility – responsiveness and generative are characteristics of good design

• WHY – focus should be on “walking in or towards our purpose”

• Who decides? – do our targets align with our assumptions?

Thank you to the CC/OM site coordinators for their planning and effort.

We are grateful to the teachers who came to engage in this topic.  We look forward to continuing the conversation.

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