The Power of Three (Part 1)

What a great first face to face session with #cohort21. The room was filled passionate teachers with one common goal; bettering the education world to help educate the youth of our future. I left the room filled with ideas and hope for a great school year ahead. But, with those ideas came the tough task ahead, which was what did I want my project to be?

For a while I struggled and I think the toughest part was coming up with the right questions to ask my students/colleagues. I knew I was going to try to interview at least 3 teachers and at least 3-5 students. I decided to start a brainstorming session one evening and wrote all the main ideas I was thinking of. I ended up having to finish my brainstorming session a bit early, but this was to be continued. Later in the week I ended up attending the Ontario Physical Literacy conference held at Hillfield Strathallan College in Hamilton. Listening to the keynote speaker it almost came to me like a “spark”. As he talked about physical literacy in our youth he discussed a book called “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John Ratey”. My brain started to think of all the possible ideas I could create out of this for my Cohort 21 project. I immediately went to the book store and bought a copy of the book. Although I am not a super quick reader I immediately started reading to come up with some ideas. A couple chapters in and I had another good base for a possible project.

I continued my brainstorming session and ended up adding in some of these ideas as possible projects. From there I was able to generate some big concepts and created questions surrounding these ideas. I have begun interviewing my students and colleagues and have been getting some interesting responses. As these responses and interviews continue my “wheels keep on turning”. I want the answers from my students to guide my project more so than the ideas I had going into this with.

TO BE CONTINUED…….

3 thoughts on “The Power of Three (Part 1)

  1. Cliffhanger!! This is such a wonderful documentation of your thinking process as you find a path to tackle this year. I look forward to reading more when you narrow down a project.

  2. Hey @awalker – love that you want your student responses to guide your planning and that you found John Ratey’s inspirational text. I saw Ratey present at a Learning and the Brain conference and his research helped me not only to advocate for DPA, but also to make the case to incorporate more movement into all classrooms. For example, we now have students working at standing desks, taking movement breaks when necessary and as a faculty, we celebrate active learning opportunities. Looking forward to seeing how your thinking develops at the next F2F!

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