Build capacity in my non-digital native grade partner

It's all in the WE.... not the ME!

As I ventured into the world of Year 1 this year I was fortunate enough to work with a very talented teacher who has been working on year 1 for many years. She has many gifts and talents, particularly in the areas of literacy. However she is nearing the end of her teaching years and technology, elearning, and contemporary models of pedagogy were not things she was particularly fussed with. She has been doing the same things for many years and her results have been great. So why change?

Sound familiar?

Many of us have teachers like this in our schools. The biggest thing I have learnt is that in order to build capacity we need to celebrate the talents that both or all parties bring to the table. We need to pick our battles and not try and change everything at once :) We need to be reflective and patient, change does not happen over night. We need to show teachers who are reluctant to change the benefits of the change. Show them that the input is worth the output. At the beginning of the year we did most things in isolation, as she had her way and I had mine. We all know this is not a productive or efficient way to work!! She didn't particularly want some know it all 20 something teacher telling her to do things differently as I didn’t want to change my philosophy of teaching just to suit her. We both stuck to our guns!!

Slowly we begun to talk about what we were doing and the ways in which we could do things. We identified our strengths and areas that we wanted to make changes to in the program. Together we begun to ask questions and make changes. We both feel valued (which is extremely important) and equal members of the team.

We now collaboratively program and trust each other to do so :)

We have embraced using the iPads and other digital media in both classes.

We have a class website that both classes use regularly to blog and learn.

We work together with all of Year 1 to do Expert Afternoons and Discovery Time. We support and help each other.

We are excited about what and how we can work with, challenge and inspore our students. We are inspired to help and learn from each other!!

As you can see we have gone from ME to WE! And it is AMAZING!

What experiences have you had?

xoxo

A