Saturday, August 1, 2015

Day #6 (slightly belated)

Essential Question: What does student success look like?
We began this week discussing the definition of an essential question. Words and phrases like "objective", "complex", "discovery", "no wrong answer", and "core" were tossed about the circle was we tried to negotiate the meaning of this unexpectedly complicated request. Now, at the end of the week, we returned to it once again with a deeper understand of both the question and the possible answers: 
   "Loving to come to class and hungry to learn a second language."
                    "A sense of entitlement.
"The confidence to communicate even when they don't have the words."
   "Living without limits and constraints."
                                               "Full self-expression
            "Developing a love for the language through meaningful communication."
                                   "Wanting to create something in L2."
            "Happy, confident, inspired." 
                                         "Realizing their own growth and ability.
I am confident that the teachers who attended the bootcamp this year will experience this and more in their classrooms come September because what I saw on Friday was teacher successI wish I could go back to elementary, middle, or high school to be a student in their classes! Our schedule on Friday was a rotating block schedule that allowed us to focus our energy on concrete tasks that we could take back to school in a few weeks. Groups practiced leading the circle, created lesson plans, shared more activities, learned about Ashley's amazing portfolios, and helped each other solve common struggles during consultancy protocols. The work I saw was so filled with love, spirit, and a desire to change for the betterment of the students. Each and every attendee brought a passion for teaching that I can only hope to one day emulate. Watching teachers, both new and old to OWL, have the confidence step up and lead circles in Spanish, French, German, Hebrew, and even ASL showed just how much we have all learned this past week. I hope we can continue to stay connected on the OWL Collaborative and on the forums because I can't wait to see what everyone does in their classrooms!  
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Darcy, Annie, Caleb, Ashley, and Ricardo: Thank you for showing us, rather than telling us, how OWL can create a community, spark authenticity in the classroom, and inspire individuals to continue to learn. Even after a week of eight-hour days I think we all flew home hungry for more. 

Teachers: Thank you for letting me tag along and attempt to capture the bootcamp magic with my noisy camera. Thank you for making sure I ate breakfast, packed a sweater, and felt included. Your words of wisdom and support mean more to me than I can say. I am proud to one day follow in your footsteps - just have to graduate college first :)
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Major take-away: "There is so much research on teaching the whole child. OWL allows us to be whole teachers." ~ Participant


1 comment:

  1. Thank you for doing this! It's amazing to be able to read about all that we experienced. I just wrote down some thoughts on community, too. https://deskfree.wordpress.com/

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