Day 106: Power of Teacher Collaboration - #CraftReconciliation

This week has been a week of eye-opening, mind-exploding learning about the power of teacher collaboration.

SCDSB is working with a variety of other school boards including Wikwemikong High School,
Mnjikaning Kendaaswin Elementary School, Orangeville Secondary School and Mine Centre Elementary School to participate in Wab Kinew's #CraftReconciliation challenge. Wab Kinew made the following challenge to Canadian educators. 

We decided that while Minecraft was a great hook for student engagement, we wanted to make sure the learning was really deep and student-led around the theme of reconciliation. This has led to a group of 28+ classes working together to support each other in completing this challenge. Classes will be getting together synchronously (in smaller groups) throughout the project via Google Hangouts. They will be sharing and collaborating in an online discussion forum (our Provincial virtual learning environment or vLE). Teachers from this interdisciplinary group have all contributed to creating an amazing set of learning activities including; 

• a virtual "handshake" where students share a short media piece about themselves
• an interactive map where we will embed information and media about all the communities participating
• background information building learning activities including articles to read, interactive digital vocabulary building activities, literacy activities, cultural activities, etc. 
• collaborative annotation activities
• lip dub activity where all classes will lip synch to the same song and we will create a video mash up
• a Good Reads group for students reading novels on the theme of reconciliation or starting over

This week has been a week of teacher planning. Our first student Google Hangout with students is next week. Yesterday teachers from SCDSB, Orangeville and Rama First Nation worked together face-to-face to plan. We spent part of the day in a Google Hangout with the participating teachers from Wikwemikong First Nation who were also meeting and planning face-to-face on Manitoulin Island. Then today, I had the opportunity to meet and plan with an amazing teacher from Mine Centre Ontario who will be working with us. I can't wait to learn more about the communities that feed into Mine Centre Elementary School. 

Every single teacher has brought a different set of strengths to the table. Each one has shared ideas and improved upon the project. Some teachers have strengths in technology. Some have strengths in teaching and learning about Indigenous cultures or Canadian History. Some have mad language (Ojibwe) skills. Some have strength in encouraging really deep learning and thinking in students around the themes of power and reconciliation. Some teachers are connection makers. Some are artists. Each teacher has contributed to the learning of the others in the project. Today I read my first bilingual introduction post in our forum written in both Ojibwe and English. 

This project has taken on a mind of its own. What started as a way to simply help students and teachers participate in Wab Kinew's challenge has become a much larger, much richer student collaboration and teacher-directed professional development opportunity. I have already learned so much from my colleagues across the province and we haven't even had our first real official student collaboration yet! 

Please follow our project at http://craftreconciliation.blogspot.ca/ . We will also be tweeting and sharing with the hashtag #CraftReconciliation . If you have resources and links to share to help teachers and students learn about reconciliation please use the hashtag #learntr .