Side-By-Side Learning

Using 30 second video reflections has become one of my favourite ways to share on Twitter.  There are a few reasons why I see this as powerful:

1. It forces you to focus on what you are wanting to share because of the 30 second time limit.
2. You become more conscientious of what you are going to share because you know that anyone in the world can see it.
3. The ability to hear voices and see faces, brings a certain amount of “humanity” to see who is behind the tweet.

It is a very powerful reflection tool, and this quote resonates through this process:

This past weekend, I worked with a group of administrators from the “Texas Association of Secondary School Principals”, focusing both on their learning and leadership.  It was a tremendous opportunity for me to not only share my learning, but to learn from them as well.  I truly believe that the more connected we become, the smarter we all are. We can all learn from each other, no matter our experience or expertise.

One of the people who attended, was Dr. Kenneth Gay.  He is just an awesome person, and he shared his own fear of “jumping in”, and that he wanted to learn more.  So trying to help him see the opportunities, while understanding his own reluctance, we did a video reflection together, side-by-side. Check it out below:

I’m with my friend Kenneth who is signing up to Twitter and is a principal at #TASSP16ELR http://pic.twitter.com/qS2LedOKdY

— George Couros (@gcouros) June 18, 2016

Sometimes the best way to model the power of certain learning opportunities, is to do them together. And I appreciated this comment from Cindy Kirby.

@gcouros excellent teaching strategy…walk the path, side by side — Cindy Kirby (@CindyKirby05) June 18, 2016

What was awesome, was as the weekend went on, Kenneth saw the power of connecting through this medium, and ventured out to share on his own.

Here is my reflection #tassp16elr2 http://pic.twitter.com/ld7JfunhEb

— Dr. Kenneth Gay (@DrKennethGay) June 19, 2016

Throughout this weekend, as with any learning opportunity, there are people at all different levels in the room. What is important is not that they are learn the same thing, but that they learn. As stated in “The Innovator’s Mindset“,

Effective leadership in education is not about moving everyone from one standardized point to the next but moving individuals from their point “A” to their point ”B.”

What is imperative though is that that movement from point “A” to “B” is always the choice of the learner.  Sometimes standing in front and sharing ideas is one way to create this movement, but as Cindy stated, sometimes the best way to learn, is to do it “side-by-side”.

from Connected Principals http://ift.tt/29wBUrW