Collaborative Inquiry: Sustaining Meaningful Professional Learning for Our Colleagues and Ourselves

EDU BA603 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

***ONLY OFFERED FOR OEL STUDENTS*** Many educators spend a lot of time in meetings—faculty meeting, department meetings, grade level meetings, task force meetings, committee meetings, and so on. And yet, how many of those meetings are focused on understanding and improving the day-to-day teaching and learning that happens in our classrooms and schools? In this course, we’ll focus on how to leverage ordinary meeting time for meaningful professional learning: how do we work together with colleagues to identify and make headway on the core questions about teaching and learning that are most important in our particular contexts and communities? In interactive sessions, we will explore tools and processes for sparking, sustaining, and deepening learning conversations among colleagues. These tools and processes include protocols for guiding and supporting collegial conversation; strategies for documenting learning (both students’ and our own); practices for thoughtful listening, observation, and question-asking; and the broader process of collaborative inquiry and what it takes to sustain it. We will spend class time practicing with these tools and processes. Participants will keep a reflective journal and develop a set of next steps that they can take in their own contexts to support their own learning and the learning of colleagues.  ***Please note that attendance at the first class session is mandatory.***