Essential Questions:
Continue reading Teaching West African Dance: Authenticity Without Appropriation
Essential Questions:
Continue reading Do You See What I See? Do You See Me?: Exploring Identity in Second Grade
As I begin my eighth year at LREI, I realize that I’ve been thinking a lot the past few years about play. Last year, I came across Global School Play Day. Elena encouraged me to share this event with the Lower School and we had several classes participate. It was a lovely day for my class. The children engaged in decision-making, turn-taking, sharing, compromise, and practiced social skills such as initiating play and joining play all day long. I’m excited to participate in Global School Play Day again this year and hope many of my colleagues across all three divisions do as well. Continue reading The Role of Nature and Play in School
My focus for my self study will be to commit myself to a year long portfolio with my students. Sometimes they will choose work based on where they are in the process of their work. Sometimes it will be work that I have assigned them. There will be times where I challenge the students to think about specific ideas. (What was something challenging? Something I have improved in. Something I still need to work on.) Continue reading Portfolios as Windows and Mirror for Learning
The questions that I explored this year have been a part of conversations that I have had with teachers over the past few years. When discussing topics with Elena I explored several different possibilities, but when I mentioned that I had been thinking about changing brain development, the role of technology, and the resulting impact on teaching and learning, she strongly encouraged me to look into this further. I have been curious about whether other learning specialists have also observed changes, and if so, if they have made adjustments to their teaching, and how they have adapted their methods and materials.
Continue reading Opening a Door
At the start of the year, or even really, before the year began, the questions that framed my self study were fairly general. I have been thinking about how over the past few years, my students have accomplished less in the course of a year. I wondered about my teaching, my approach, my materials, and I wondered about my students learning. Are students coming in with the same ability to learn and are they learning in the same ways as they have in the past? Do I need to do more because they are coming in with less? Do I need to change what I do because they need something different and how people are learning has started to shift in ways that I do not yet fully understand? Continue reading Attempting Change Where Change Was Most Needed
I began this self-study with the hope of putting language to my experience building this team for the school. Partly, it was important to document the history of the program, to show how it quickly grew, and to take the time to plan for the future. The rewards I reaped from doing this inventory were what I expected: I’m proud of having performed this magic trick of creating something from nothing. It’s constant, sometimes gruelling, and largely private work. So it felt good to write it all down and acknowledge how much has happened in a relatively short span of time. Continue reading Putting Language to My Experience
We have completed our second season as a team, and my second as the head coach. I was able to better predict the schedule and I kept parents and administrators in the loop in my weekly emails. There was a much better showing at the end of the year’s NYS qualifier. In our first year, all but one of our athletes lost both of their matches and went home empty-handed. This year we had almost all of our athletes in the medal rounds, which was a remarkable improvement. Continue reading Continuing the Foundation Work
As we move towards the end of the year, I thought it might be useful to return to some of the work that our new faculty and staff engaged in at the start of the year during our orientation sessions. After brainstorming personal connections to our guiding principles, participants formed groups based on the guiding principles that most resonated for them. These groups then affinity maped the collection of responses that had been generated in the brainstorming exercise. Each group mapped these ideas into one of three overarching themes that they felt amplified the core guiding principles. New faculty and staff were then asked to think about how these themes might serve as a guidepost for their wayfinding and learning work throughout their first year at LREI.
With much work already behind us, perhaps useful for all of us at LREI to ask how these guiding principles and the related themes developed by our newest community members are guiding and supporting our work with learners and pushing each of us closer to our learning edge?
Continue reading Exploring Our Guiding Principles with New Faculty & Staff
Three years ago my first graders failed to make it through the entire sequence of first grade skills by June. At the time, I assumed that it was a one off–a particular group of children who needed more time than the school year offered us. The following year, I experienced the same thing and then again the year after that. With a trend of three years, it began to become clear that something else was going on. Continue reading What’s affecting how children learn?
The current LREI strategic plan states a s goal the need to:
Continue reading Service Learning Lab: Creating the Roadmap for a 14-Year Plan
It’s been an exciting start of the year for students, faculty and families at LREI. I’m privileged in my new role as Director of Learning & Innovation to be able to discover each day more about the rich learning experiences that weave their way through and between our lower, middle and high school and afterschool programs. Continue reading Exploring Our Progressive Purpose
Dear Colleagues,
Consider this as an open letter from our newest colleagues to those of us returning for the beginning of a new season of learning at LREI. In a short ideation session, new faculty identified essential elements of our progressive purpose, stated goals for “being” at LREI and uncovered some questions for which they will look to you for support and guidance.
For the past couple of weeks our third graders have been working on saving New York City. They have been tasked with creating a blueprint for Manhattan that will stop the decay and destruction that has been causing plant and animal life to die at alarming rates. This blueprint encompasses plans for future housing, transportation, food sources, education, religion, government, health, community life, and the natural environment. Continue reading Third Graders Save New York City: Is it Real or Not Real?
