If a group of teachers make great progress and don’t share with others, does anyone notice? Without sharing the learning that takes place in a Sprint the impact is limited. When we share the lessons we learn from our progress, both the teachers involved and the whole school benefits. With that in mind, at the end of a Learning Sprint I propose we Review, Reset and Share.
As we have been progressing in our Sprints and moving to wider school adoption, one aspect that we are looking to improve is sharing the lessons we have learned from the Sprints we put in place. I have found that the teachers involved are gaining great insights into ways to improve student performance, but that often the lessons are not shared with the other staff. We simply did not think about the structures we needed to put in place to share the work with the whole school.
Without sharing what we have learned the impact of the Learning Sprint is lower than it could be. Schools share students and often face similar issues and barriers to achievement. When learning in shared, teachers do not need to be involved in the formal Sprint to benefit from the findings. They can simply put in place the good practices that have been tested and evaluated by others.
Luckily, there are people who have faced this issue and come up with innovative solutions. Having a space where people can post about their Learning Sprints seems to be a great way to make sure that learning is not limited to one Sprint Group. Kristie O’Neill (@ONeillKristie), an instructional leader from South West Sydney in Australia, has shared some great ways to share learning in a school. I am going to try setting up some of the Sprint Walls that she has created.
Sharing the learning visually and making the learning of others visible not only shares great ideas, but I think will also encourage dialogue between teachers about what is happening in their classes. It will ensure that our priorities are clear: working to get better everyday, our students making academic progress, ensuring well-researched strategies are used, making the world open up for our students.
In short, at the end of a Learning Sprint, we are going to add share to the Review & Reset.
Corey Haley 