First meeting for the ‘connect’ professional learning group
This afternoon was the first meeting of my PLG. It was great to see everyone and special thanks to those who told me ahead of time that they couldn’t make it. Our goal is:
Connecting learning through the key competencies: developing connections between subjects, EOTC, leadership, co-curricular activities; family and work.
People seem to be breaking this into 3 pieces:
- connecting learning through the key competencies
- developing connections between subjects
- using IT to make connections for co-curricula, EOTC, and leadership activities
Two points: the last piece is a mashup and reinterpretation of the last few words of the goal – conveniently leaving off ‘family and work.’ Are we ok with this?
I am. I think that breaking the goal into these pieces establishes very practical arenas for us to work in. The school is organised neatly into curricula and co-curricula.
My perspective on the key competencies is that they imply a marriage between these two arenas. This is very true in Music groups, where:
thinking
using language, symbols, and texts
managing self
relating to others
participating and contributing
-are so natural that it seems silly to make them explicit.
I know that many schools seem to be interpreting the key competencies quite differently. I have 4 children. The 2 primary aged ones came home the other day explaining that they had each been working on ‘managing self’ and were looking and ‘relating to others’ shortly.
One of the primary schools I heard from at the learning@school conference simply regarded ‘using language, symbols, and texts’ as languages and divided the rest of them into thinking skills, EQ (as opposed to IQ), and group dynamics -they combined the last two.
That’s all I have to say for now. It’s gonna be a long conversation 😉
steve
· Connecting learning through the key competencies: developing connections between subjects, EOTC, leadership, co-curricular activities; family and work
Steve, sorry I wasn’t at Monday’s PLG meeting. I am a part-time science teacher and don’t work Mondays. Also I am pretty backwards regarding using IT – twitter, blogs etc.So I think I will be one of your silent members if that is ok – probably make any meeting which has food or drink at it. My 8 year old daughter is also ‘managing self’ at primary school – she told me during her pupil led parent-teacher interview last week!
thanks, julie. you’re not backwards in coming forwards 😉
HI Steve
re the family and work part being deleted. the mian reason i chose this group was due to those statements. i wholeheartedly agree with the connectedness between subjects and curriculum and co-curricula and feel that both these lead to career education development for every student and that these skills are all transferable so wondered if you didnt mind leaving that part in so its not just inherent or a hidden agenda as we are currently working as a career lead team to make EGGS a best practice school by using a whole school approach to integrating careers throughout the curriculum and if we leave work out of this then we are not honouring the nag . Thanks 🙂
Hi Steve,
It was good to talk about different approaches to this goal this morning. Sophie and I were talking about working with anyone who is interested in some cross curricular groupings looking at overlaps in how we develop the KCs. Is it premature to look at piloting some student e-portfolio development, or are there other IT applications out there that we could potentially use to get the students reflecting on their progress around the KCs across the relevant curriculum areas?