The article Transforming Teacher Learning to Student Learning-Slater School, reminded me of the school I currently work at and our transformation as a staff. We are currently undergoing an internal transformation of how to best and effectively teach our current school population. As a staff, we are learning how to teach our students best by applying “The Core Instructional Model,” which is our districts way of preparing us for success with the common core state standards. The model highlights academic learning time as student driven lessons which gives students access to manipulate content matter. The lesson is guided by student friendly objectives which allow students to monitor and self asses their progress.
Although as a staff we all share the same goal for our students; we also all had different means and conceptual understandings of how to go about it, similar to the teachers at Slater School. Their was a shared feeling of confusion at the start of our transformational program as well. Some teachers were very reluctant to implement any change despite efforts of the district.
Nevertheless, the process shared by the article made me truly reflect on our experience both as a staff and individually. The article presented many similarities in the overall process and learning expectation.
I find it interesting that many teachers are confused and reluctant to change their teaching styles, use of standards, school budgets, and other policies at the workplace. In other industries, change happens constantly and employees are expected to adjust. I definitely think that the reason for some teacher's reluctance has to do with the fact that we are working with children and if we make changes, we worry about the effect on our students. After teaching almost a decade, I am consistently amazed at students' resilience to change. They can be our allies in change if we let them.
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