Great Idea from Multiple Teachers on the Same Day

What I Learned In School Today: I love when teachers plan carefully and implement new ideas.

This morning I had a meeting with my school’s librarian. She is incorporating makerspace learning opportunities into her library classroom and is exploring the implementation of genius hour with her students. She sees kids once a week for 30 minutes and we are a K-2 school, so introducing genius hour to students will have to come after careful planning and preparation, but her enthusiasm and willingness to innovate was so exciting. We spent the time sharing ideas of what could be done to make this successful and I left feeling invigorated.

Later on in the day, I had a data meeting with a second grade teacher and the special education teacher who supports students in that class. We were reviewing student reading and math data gathered at the end of the first trimester in order to monitor student progress and identify needs. During the conversation, the teachers shared that they were starting genius hour with their class and working on it for a stretch of time.

I was so excited by both of these conversations today. Coming up with new strategies and innovative ideas is the easy part. Putting in the effort and preparing carefully is where the true work comes in and determines whether or not the idea is good for kids and not. To hear several teachers are looking for new ideas, learning about new strategies, and figuring out how to implement them in our school is a great sign of things to come. As they experiment, learn, and share with one another, our whole school will continue to grow. I can’t wait to support them and see it all in action!