edJEWcon‘s team, consisting of Andrea Hernandez and Silvia Tolisano, had the great pleasure of visiting Gray Academy of Jewish Education in Winnipeg, Canada in October 2015. We were warmly welcomed by Lori Binder, Head of School and Rob Dalgliesh, Gray Academy’s Director of Teaching & Learning.
A school visit brings many opportunities with it.
From a physical tour to seeing the the campus, the architecture of the buildings, the classrooms…
… to something more beneath the visible surface of a school.
The edJEWcon team set out to document the visit with images, videos, sketchnotes, conversations, listening to leadership, teachers and students…
…getting a feel for the school community…
We had the opportunity to spend quality time with Rob in his role of a newly created position as director of teaching & learning. We discussed possibilities of supporting a school culture of self-directed and self-motivated learners. What types of professional development opportunities would be the most successful? How could life-long learning skills and 21st century literacies be embedded for faculty in order to allow them to experience themselves the type of learning that would prepare their students for the future?
We had the opportunity to visit several classrooms… to see teachers and students go about their daily routine…
We saw visible, displayed student work…
We had the opportunity to meet and connect with students…
The leadership team invited us to listen and document their team meeting, a reflection on a recent PD day at their school.
We noticed and observed….
…students displaying information literacy by jumping in for impromptu research to support learning in the classroom…
…teachers bringing in outside experts to allow students to learn from people… off the pages of a book…
…we noticed collaboration and meeting spaces…
Let edJEWcon give you a glimpse of the school through two video perspectives.
Andrea and Silvia created a photo challenge for themselves in order to deepen their observation skills and to document their visit through the lens of
A photo challenge consists of selecting a list of keywords to be captured during a pre-determined time period (1 day/1 week/1 month). A great challenge for anyone, wishing to capture their perspective when visiting or touring a school and for a school to see themselves through different eyes. Such a photo challenge can become a critical component when “looking for learning”, conducting observations, walk-throughs, audits, or documenting coaching cycles, etc. Imagine asking parents, community members or students to capture visuals of teaching & learning, 21st century skills and literacies, applied pedagogies, best practices, dispositions, values, traits, trends, patterns, etc.
Andrea and Silvia set out to capture images that visually represented the following keywords:
- Feedback
- Student Ownership
- Classroom Displays
- Classroom Design
- Happiness
- Kindness
- Collaboration
- Student Reflection
- Visual Communication
- Community
- Literacy
- Learning
