Tony Burkin Workship - Professionalism

On Monday 16th May most of the teachers in Central Otago attended a Professional Development day lead by Tony Burkin. The focus for the day was on teacher professionalism. 
The first session explored mindsets and what it means to have a fixed or growth mindset. The key messages were:-
- Learning creates anxiety and your mindset will determine whether you see it as a threat or an opportunity.
- Having and maintaining a GROWTH MINDSET will help you grow as a professional.

Tony challenged us to reflect on our teaching practice and whether we "stretch" ourselves as a teacher.
“Do you push your practice?"

Innovation comes out of failure.

The second session focused on Professionalism. Tony talked about ‘Teaching as Inquiry’ and how it is about critically evaluating practice.  Teachers should not see this as an extra, it should be undertaken because we are professionals.   He also talked about how teachers should be linking their TAI to PTC’s . It was affirming to hear this, as it echoed what I have been saying in our recent staff meetings around our new TAI and focus group documents.

The third session explored ‘Teaching as Inquiry’ in more depth. Tony referred to finding the starting point for your inquiry as ‘Reality mining’. He spoke of looking for what will make the biggest difference.

Tony used a river analogy to explain the difference between the 'lag data' and 'lead data' and used this to explain where inquiry should be focused.  'Lag data' is what happens downstream and
'lead data' is what happens upstream. It is the 'lead data' that will effect what happens downstream.
A lot of the big picture data is predominantly lag data - PAT tests, national standard results, etc

Teaching as Inquiry needs to be focus on your teaching practice. It needs to be focused on what you need to change in order for change to be TRANSFORMATIONAL.  When TAI is about strategy (within reading, writing and maths) it is the students that have to change, not the teacher.

Teaching as Inquiry should be in the depth of professional practice not on the surface.

The final part of the day looked at  the "Principles of Reflection"

By using what Tony referred to as the "three fence post questions" teachers will be able to think critically about their teaching practice.

These three 'fence post questions' will become part of our Teaching as Inquiry reflections going forward.