Today’s class was in the form of dialogue circle, albeit lacking a bit of the circle form as we were on zoom. Nevertheless it was an invaluable opportunity for us as a class and cohort to come together, reflect on how we are all doing so far in the semester and support each other. The online nature of this program can make you feel pretty lonely sometimes and today was an incredible reminder of the support network that exists within our cohort!

So what is a dialogue circle? This video shows some insight into how we ran ours today, and some of the education applications for dialogue circles. I really love how the video shows that in using dialogue circles, students are able to have equal voices in the classroom. In many ways, you are handing over some more agency to students in terms of the classroom conversations.

Although I am far from done this program, today also got me thinking about further emphasizing my own personal learning networks beyond this program and into my career as a teacher. So far I am currently engaged in developing my own network within my cohort which I know will prove invaluable beyond this class and this program. But beyond my peers I am recognizing the importance of growing other learning networks whether that be through twitter, feedly, other social media platforms etc. I have set up much of the accounts and platforms to build my personal learning network but haven’t spent much time growing these networks over the course of the semester. I have started to follow many of the recommend twitter accounts for education in BC, but admittedly I don’t find myself engaging to the extent I would like due to my already high screen time, and the workload of this program. I would like to make this more of a priority moving forward though! Inevitably, there will always be learning to do as a teacher, and developing those networks now will be so valuable!

One final call out to any fellow educators: any education podcast recommendations?

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash