TONY BIRKIN - TEACHING AS INQUIRY/COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

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Notes:
Open to learning conversations, socialising way of thinking - the way we talk to colleagues. Relationships over honesty - how do we balance this with different ways of knowing, can everyone cope with/take on board the honesty. How do we then show this to our children, we are bringing up children to be kind to others, how does this translate into honesty?
Appraisal 2015 - lack of red thinking/feelings, is this a fault of Self-Authoring? I know this is an area I need to work on.
How can we have open conversations to evaluate each other's teaching practice without feeling threatened?
What is a team?
Collaboration can be become
-Conblabberation
-Contrived Collegiality - people I am being asked to work with aren't people I would usually choose to work with, how do we work with this in schools?
- Congenial vs Collegial
Takes a lot of effort and sacrifice to create a real team. A group of people is not a team (noun) need to begin teaming. Need to have one set expectation of why the team is formed. Teams need an edge, if a team is too comfortable or easy they will underperform. Creative dissonance. Creating tension is the best way to innovate. When I new person joins a team the whole team is new, they don't need to try and fit in with the new team, the team has to be rebuilt to include them.
Groups of workers vs teams
Group of workersTeam
one strong leader
individual accountability
same purpose as broader organisation
runs efficient meetings
sharing information and perspectives
make decisions to help each person do their job better
reinforce individual standards and expectations, key messages and templates
shared leadership roles
individual and mutual accountability
specific purpose delivered by the team
facilitates focused open ended dialogue
common commitment to an outcome/purpose - think All Blacks
leads to higher level of trust - members are able and willing to hold each other accountable
Team culture is vital. Do we all have the right to hold each other to account? How does this work in a hierarchy? Need to act with passion and commitment to the great good, self authoring. Need to create a safe place where we can all hold each other and ourselves to account. Is this just in our PLG teams? What about syndicate teams? - different purpose?
Talk about my practice rather than student issues. More accountability.
What is an intensive learning team?
A community of practice.
Psychologically safe - talking openly and honestly. Framed for learning and continual improvement. Sole purpose is to learn about teaching practice.
Relationships and talking openly and honestly are the keys to becoming a great school.
Different types of trust, organic trust, contractual trust, relational trust (One's willingness to be vulnerable to another) need this in community of practice.
Respect - if someone is worthy of respect they are worthy of a second/another look. Re:again spect:to see. Giving your time to others. Respect comes before trust - if we don't give people our time then we can't build trust.
Mining your reality - adaptive process, teaching as inquiry
Trustworthiness is built on: Respect, Integrity - walk and talk match, competence, personal regard (I care about others)
End of week 3 complete section one of a self reflection. This forms the first set of teaching practice data to discuss at COP meeting. Repeat mid-term 2 and mid-term 4. After an initial reflection ask for feedback from others. The 40 criteria then become potential goals for inquiry. I am looking forward to this process as I think it will help create a teacher inquiry that is more practice focussed than achievement focussed. Although the inquiry will still be focussed around child achievement I hope by linking it to the 40 criteria and discussing in COP groups it will lift my overall practice. A query I have about COP groups is wether they will be formed around similar goals/ideas or mixed random groups. I can see the benefits of both and will be interested to hear how this is going to work.
As usual lots to think about after a day with Tony! I think I need some time to slow-brain all the information!

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