Welcome back from March break! We hope you are all rested and recharged as we settle into this home stretch of the academic year. We are putting the finishing touches on our upcoming final face to face session and are really looking forward to getting together to celebrate another awesome year of action and design thinking. We wanted to reach out one last time to equip you with everything you need to know so you can prepare for and enjoy Friday April 22nd.
We will start the morning promptly at 9:00am at Hillfield Strathallan College and will be joined by some special guests throughout the day. We will use this time to share our Action Plans, celebrate a great year of Design Thinking and look ahead to next year and beyond. We will also outline the opportunities for your possible involvement in Cohort 21 next year should you want to stay with us as a coach. As we are always looking for ways to grow the Cohort 21 community we will be also be announcing some new Cohort 21 alumni opportunities. Details to be announced on the 22nd 🙂
|
Friday April 22nd Logistics School Venue: Address: 299 Fennell Ave W, Hamilton, ON L9C 1G3 Phone Number: (905) 389-1367 Parking – Ample parking available on campus Meeting Location: Newly built learning commons. Specific directions to follow. Meals, Coffee, Refreshments – Taken care of and yummy Start time: 9:00am Finish: 4pm followed by a Wine/Beer/Cheese/Food Reception |
To Do Before Friday April 22nd
- Publish your final Action Plan post
The final face to face session is all about your Action Plans. We have created an engaging agenda that will give you time to explore each others AP’s and talk about them. Click HERE to watch this short video that will help you create yours if you have not yet done so. This post should be a reflection of the your last few months of thinking and iteration as you executed your action plan. It should also include a link to or and embedded copy of your final Action Plan Presentation (To do list item #2). See this as your “End of the beginning” post. Tell us where have come from and where you want to go next. Share what worked and what what didn’t, what you would have done differently and what surprised you.
| 1) You don’t need to come to any formal conclusions.
2) You don’t need to create any formal findings about your teaching. 3) You do need to reflect on your action plan in a final blog post. 4) You do need to create some sort of digital presentation to summarize your action plan and share the link with us.  #3 and #4 kind of go together 🙂 |
2) Create your Action Plan Presentation
In true Cohort 21 fashion we have created a comfortable small group sharing format that will allow you to tell your “Action Plan Story”  back to the group that helped you formulate it in January. There will be no standing & delivering; rather, there will be sharing and discussion. Your shareable, digital presentation will be included in an archive with everyone else’s, so that the Cohort along with the CIS Ontario community will be able to read through all the great work that has been done this year. Check out last years Action Plans to start thinking about how you will share your story.
While we wanted to give you as much freedom to share your learning as possible we recognize that everyone loves parameters. Here are a few ways your can present your Action Plan journey:
1) HERE is a Google Presentation Template that you can adopt and make your own.
2) It can be a youtube video of you reviewing your blog narrating your journey.
3) It can be a prezi or any other cloud based presentation tool. Whatever tool you use the final product must be embeddable or openly sharable.
So in the spirit of clear, front loaded expectations; every presentation must have the following components:
| Slide # 1 – Who are You?: Name, School, Role, Twitter Handle, Google + Handle, Blog URL, 140 characters to summarize your Teaching philosophy. Check out last years Action Plans for exemplars Â
Slide # 2 – Your Action Plan: Your action in the form of a tweet. Feel free to refine the one you made during the third face-2-face session. If it has changed, no problem, include it here. Put it in quotes or take a screen capture of a real tweet. The aim is to have you distill your action plan down into its essential elements. Slide # 3 – What did you Learn? In this slide you will share three key learning takeaways that you realized from your action plan experience. What were  your goals? What were your challenges? What stretched you? What frustrated you? NB you only have this space to share it. Make it concise and meaningful (this will be difficult to do.. 🙂 Slide # 4 – Where will you go next?Explain how you are and the end of the beginning of your journey. Now that you have new tools, new skills, new network of experience, what is next for you, your students and your school? Slide # 5 – Reflect on your Cohort 21 Experience.What is your big takeaway from being a part of this experience? Reflect on how you experienced the Learning style, Collaboration opportunities, Empowerment?  Challenges? Use this space to reflect on your  Cohort 21 experience. Imagine it is your grad quote. Looking back on your year what parting thoughts do you leave with? ***If making a video please disregard the “slide” constraints*** |
****Please publish your final blog post with link to your presentation by Monday April 18th. Â This will give us enough time to go through them and prepare for the day.*****
Extra Help Sessions
The facilitators and coaches will be reaching out this week to support you should you need it. Here are a few other support opportunities to tap into in the coming weeks .
| April 15th
Noon |
Twitter Chat | Garth | I’m Panicking…Help!
This twitter chat will ease your anxiety and give you clarity on the Final F2F |
| April 20th | Google Hangout | Facilitators | Final F2F: What to expect when you’re reflecting
Reviewing what has been done in the past, and what is possible on April 22nd |
| April 21st
8:30 – 9:30 |
Google Hangout | Garth & Justin | How will you tell your action plan story? Discussing examples, ideas and ways to create the right medium |
Coverage: This is a Friday event. Have you booked your coverage yet?
Have you thought about who from your school might do Cohort 21 next year? Share this infographic with one colleague who you feel might enjoy this type of PD and help grow this community.
