#IMMOOC Week 2 – Pushing Out

Before I start: there are no responses to blog prompts here (yet) – I need to write this post first!

I’ll start with my sketchnote of the important ideas I got from #IMMOOC episode 2 video and from reading Chapter 1 of ‘The Innovator’s Mindset‘. I know I’ve shared this on social media already, but I want to keep a record of it here, for me!

I’m itching to write. I love blogging and I love sharing. I have 4 blogs on the go at the moment – this one, a travel one, a health and fitness one, and a classroom one. I have two Twitter accounts – one for me (professionally) and one for my class. I’m also on Facebook (mainly for connecting to family and friends, but also on the #IMMOOC group!). Yes, I could probably do with some more balance in my life away from technology, but while I’m still learning I won’t stop.

I’m enjoying this MOOC immensely because it is making me THINK. It’s making me think more about the changes I want to make with, and for, the learners in my classroom. There are a fair few things that don’t sit right with me, but I can’t take them all on at once.

I wrote in a previous blog post that my book corner needed an overhaul (it’s dire). It seemed such a tiny change. Yet as I started involving my students in the brainstorming about what to do with this book corner, I’ve come to realise that it’s actually about something bigger that needs change. Reading.

And everything to do with reading. So now the snowball has suddenly got much, much bigger. What I don’t like now about what’s happening with reading:

1. levelled readers for home reading

2. guided reading times in the classroom

3. book corner – physically unattractive, cluttered, not user-friendly

4. some of my students to do not LIKE reading (that makes me sad)

5. pretty much everything else.

I’ve already asked my students for feedback, lots of it! Also, last week I asked them to reflect on their reading so far:

I got some interesting answers, which helped me to learn more about my students, but interestingly almost every one of them indicated that there is nothing about reading in the classroom that they would change! WHAT?!?

My personal favourites:

(arser = answer!)

‘Asking others’ is definitely something I am taking on board from the #IMMOOC Episode 2 video. In response to my question “Is there a secret to coming up with new, original, and creative ideas?” Katie Martin suggested talking to more people – colleagues, sharing on Twitter, asking other people and getting different perspectives. “We have to push out”. 

So that’s my plan for the next week – “push out” to as many people as I can. I’ve started a PNI reflection that I plan to share with the other teachers in my grade level, the team leader, and maybe even a Vice Principal (or two!). I will be very interested to hear what they think. If you are reading this, please feel free to comment below. Perhaps I might even experience some of the “creative serendipity” that George Couros alluded to! Hope so!

I also feel that I need more data from the students, so I have just created a Google form that I will present to them this week in an effort to give them more say in what happens in the classroom.

Watch this space!

#IMMOOC #Innovation