Summer WOL Wondering
Prelude to Season 3 #1
Greetings Friends of WOL!
We are not quite ready to launch Season 3 of We Do This Everyday - just yet. Look for new episodes in the Fall. In the meantime, we will keep you up-to-date on our Summer work and learning. Be on the lookout for emails from Lauren McMinn and Pat Mulroy to make sure your students get scheduled!
At the WOL, we are all grateful for the opportunities to learn and grow as a team. As we prepare for our new season we are diving into some learning of our own as our team expands. Continuous learning and growth are a hallmark of our work at the WOL and this week was no exception. We had a fabulous discussion that describe the why of our 6E asynchronous learning model. (These are great articles to understand the research basis of how we build instruction in the WOL Virtual Model).
Here is what I asked the team to consider in our kick-off discussion of these 3 articles:
1. What is the most important concept in relation to what we do at the WOL?
2. What am I wondering about?
3. What can we do better - knowing what we know?
We all started by distilling our thoughts into one sentence from one of the articles. Here are some of our responses:
Set expectations for community behavior and give opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement throughout the course.
Help them bridge their own interests and lives with what they’re learning (make content relevant, and allow choices in assignment topics and format when possible).
Teachers will bring appropriate adaptations based on the unique circumstances of their students.
The ability of learners to project themselves socially and emotionally as well as their ability to perceive other learners as ‘real people’.
Students need time and opportunities to formulate or reconstruct concepts and abilities
Enthusiasm and communication to provide meaningful collaboration in all spaces of the course.
No omissions or rearrangements in the 5E, but additions can be made to enhance student learning.
Don’t assume they will automatically understand why they should care about the course - be explicit about how what they learn with you will be useful to them in the long run
Balancing depth with dialogue in discussion boards (aka, not too much, not to little)
Then we moved to a phrase about the content of the article:
Unique circumstances of students
Set Expectations
Students need time
To enhance student learning
Care about the course
Make sure prompts are robust enough for dialogue
Make discussions fun and engaging
Finally, we boiled thing down to one word:
Compassion
Students
Time
Meaningful
Care
Fun
It is hard to capture how rich the conversation was as each of us talked about why we chose a sentence, phrase, and word. The importance of the student experience was evident to everyone. Student certainly at the center.
Yet, there was much more nuance as we framed the value and need for high expectations, giving students time to construct and deconstruct their own meaning. Relevance and relationships as we considered why a student should care about what we offer, how it is meaningful and connected to their life and experience.
Compassion. Care. Time. Each of us comes to any space with all of ourselves. Some of it we reveal, some of it we keep hidden. Often we don’t get to know the ‘unique circumstances’ of the people we meet each day. What I found in our discussion was that our team values that it takes time to get to know a student, a colleague, a community member, a leader. Our team understands how important it is that we are more than just our course content and subject matter.
Working with such amazing people is hopeful. Sharing time collaborating opens my creative heart and curiosity. When I am closed to a new idea or down in the dumps, there is always someone to lift me up, and help me to remember my value.
Don’t we all want that in our educational spaces?
Have a great week,
Pat
PS - Next week we will be introducing our new team members!