Applause, Applause

This morning started with just that - applause, applause. A round of applause to start the session. As David puts it, applause is a great way to start as it draws people as they want to see what the applause is all about and if there is applause, it must be good. I think it's a great idea and well worth a try in my classes.

In the morning session, we broke into small groups to discuss innovations. Prior to coming to the GTS we were each asked to write one page on an innovation that we used in our own practice. Everybody had a turn to talk about their innovation (and there were some AMAZING Ones), and everybody had to comment or speak to the innovation - it was a very powerful experience - lots of free-flowing ideas and suggestions.

David kicked off the afternoon with more incredible words of wisdom (and I am paraphrasing because I spent more time listening than writing) - "If you want something to last, don't organize it. Use oral tradition and don' take ownership". It's worked for the Great Teacher Movement which is now 40 years old. The term David uses is "Rigid Minimal Structure" - less IS more and I'm going to try that too in my practice.

We talked a little about problem solving (one of my favourite topics) and some interesting points came up:

1. Have a well-defined problem (know what it is)
2. Define what cannot be changed
3. Recognize to what degree you are part of (or the whole) problem

In the afternoon we talked about issues that we were asked to bring with us - again a very illuminating and stimulating session - we may not have solved all of our issues, but we did come up with strategies that are worth a try - the power of the group. We talked about how to engage the learners we were not getting to, how to best implement technology, what to do when our passion may not be that of our learners, what happens when an icebreaker doesn't work the way we want it too, and how to engage online learners. While we had no definitive solutions we all left with lots of things to try.

End of Day One and my toolkit is bursting at the seams. Applause, applause - I can't wait for tomorrow...