My Cohort 21 Action Plan Story

Beginning of the end puts an interesting light on how to approach this year of Cohort 21 and the action plan developed through the sessions and thinking behind the implementation in my classroom. As a teacher still at the beginning of my career, reflecting on success and failure sometimes means admitting that a lesson which wove specific and overall ministry expectations with interesting activities and learning objectives just flat out did not resonate with students. The feeling like you need to hold onto the lesson planning because of the work and effort expended is often overwhelming “maybe it was just that day’s schedule”/”I’ll be more engaging next time”.

I can honesetly say Cohort 21, the action plan I developed, and the collaborative process for the face to face sessions and online communication were instrumental in disrupting and reconstructing the way I approach instruction and reflection on each and every lesson I taught this year. That other educators struggle with similar questions and innovative teachers are trying, failing, and sharing their learning on how to improve was inspiring.

Recognizing the opportunity to continue a personal passion of mine towards the ideas of global citizenship education, my “How might we” question for the action plan was framed within the context of the Grade 10 Civics curriculum: “How might we inspire students to recognize the impact they can have as engaged and active global citizens?”

 

Inspire. Recognize. Two verbs which I’m still unsure whether they are perfect, but at least they have served to guide my action plan to this point.

Inspire: is this inspiration coming from me? From experiential opportunities? From students themselves? Their peers? These kinds of questions dominated my approach to formulating and reshaping how to deliver my lessons and assess student learning.

Recognize: what is the best way to highlight or celebrate students who have made an impact? can we recognize impacts which may take months/years to become fully formed? what kinds of forums or venues should this kind of recognition take place?

Going into the future I’ll be spending more time thinking and testing the possible ways to inspire and recognize students for their work on global citizenship. Specifically, my thinking is to broaden the focus from classroom to a more school-wide approach capturing the motivated and engaged students in other grades as well. This will require collaboration with the faculty/staff at my school as well as continued inspiration from the C21 group and others who have been recommended from this year’s work.

Without a doubt, this is the end of the beginning. Where the next steps may take me is part of the excitement.

 

 

3 thoughts on “My Cohort 21 Action Plan Story

  1. I appreciated your thoughtful post,Gordon, especially the first chunk about the great lesson that failed to click. I laughed out loud at the part when you wondered about the schedule! Seeing the investment of time and creativity wither on the vine is sad and humbling for us when we really want to engage and inspire! Your mission is a great one, and I hope you keep at it – a glance through the headlines or a listen to the news on the radio when one is preparing dinner give us all the information we need that having students engaged in making positive change in the world is sorely needed. I particularly appreciated your insight that the work you are doing is a little like a pebble dropped in a pond – the ripples will be felt for a long time and may have meaningful impacts that you never see. That’s the way of teaching, I guess.
    Take care,
    Dan B.

  2. And that’s exactly it @ggrise – this is more the start than the end! I’m really excited to see how you engage and collaborate with faculty from your school over the next year – and I’d love to chat about what that might look like. While our action plans are not particularly similar, I have had some first-hand experience over the past couple of years in working with my school’s faculty as a whole group. Keep us in the loop, and reach out to share/chat/discuss often! Looking forward to connecting F2F soon!

  3. great work @ggrise ! I really appreciate your open an honest reflection. This kind of sharing is instrumental in helping other teachers see that teaching is a process of pedagogical experimentation and constant reflection and iteration. The fact that you have embraced this philosophy to early in your career will serve you well. It was a pleasure working with you and supporting your action plan. Keep at it!

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