The Teachers Guild
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Challenge:

How might we create rituals and routines that establish a culture of innovation in our classrooms and schools?

Phase: IDEATE Missions: Celebrating and Motivating Innovation

Bust-It Out

Giving innovation a name/space to come out.

Photo of Rolland Chidiac
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The idea for "Bust-It Out" comes from my earlier post about establishing time to gather as a class community and build trust through classroom meetings. Once a foundation of trust is established, the idea of bust-it out would be to take things to another level where class meeting around innovation and creation would take place. Students would be encouraged by their teacher and class mates to break free of the "box" by busting out of it to explore certain avenues of interest and/or work on creating innovative solutions to problems that are of interest to them. Similar to 20% time but different because the focus of this idea would be to gather the group to bust out together....I guess it is giving innovation another name and still involves some structure before giving students more freedom. I see it as a gathering of the minds in order to build on our creating trust at another level and get the creative juices flowing. 

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Photo of Moss
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Yes! I love this idea, Rolland! I'm especially drawn to it since it doesn't involve core curriculum content; rather, it's more about advisory (too often neglected, in my opinion). I think that it's in meetings like these where we can build community and culture.

How would a class meeting of this sort look? Who would lead it? Would we break our kids into groups, if our class size is large? We'd love to see a prototype and sample agenda of a meeting, including any activities done by the group!

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Photo of Rolland
Team

Hey Moss! Thanks for your comment and questions. Initially the meeting start in a circle formation - we establish some ground rules/norms for class meetings - from there things grow/develop based on the needs of the group. Initially I would lead it but as it develops different students lead depending on the needs and I would act as a facilitator and sounding board. My class this year is starting out with 27 students so I suspect that groups would branch off but we would always start together - in one big group. I would be happy to share the particulars of our meetings once we get started...we don't start school here in Ontario until Sept 8. Actually, once we get things underway, I would be happy to invite you to one of our meetings via hangout. Let me know what you think.

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Photo of Moss
Team

Hi Rolland! Sounds fantastic! I can't wait to see this in action and learn more about what you're doing with your kids. And I'd love to jump in on a GHO to have a closer look. Thanks for the invite; can't wait!

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Photo of Rolland
Team

Thanks Moss! Will keep you in the loop.

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