MVIFI Archives - The Torchbearer

Pre-Planning Recap: Day 3

Today, Middle School teachers had the pleasure of working with Meg Cureton on a design thinking flash lab centered around making connections with one another. Connections: Design Thinking Flash Lab Part of the flash lab included these two excellent videos (we may have skipped the second one, actually, be we’ve used it before and it’s really good). Get Things Done We had a few hours to get some things done on our own and grab some lunch. Then, we followed up on our morning flash lab with some creative time in the Studio(i) maker space. We took our low-res prototypes and turned […]

eportfolio / Visible Thinking Routines / XLR8 Summer Grants Posted on: August 4, 2016August 15, 2016

Pre-Planning Recap: Day 2

Today was a robust, action-packed day #2 of pre-planning. Front-loading and launching the key initiatives for the upcoming semester, communicating the basic “housekeeping” items, duties + red binders (Thank you Mel), preparing for R & D teams (Thank you Angél), and getting CPR (re)-certified (Thank you Anne-Brown and Patsy). Here are the slide presentations for Advisory (Thank you Max and Tasha), Visible Thinking (Thank you Ann and Charles), and Eportfolios (Thank you Katie).

Council on Innovation / Innovation Posted on: October 26, 2015

Curiosity and Intelligence

Curiosity and Intelligence Mount Vernon Presbyterian School and the Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation hosted the 3rd annual Council on Innovation last Friday. Students in the Upper School iDiploma cohorts read and discussed the article ‘Curiosity is as Important as Intelligence‘ beforehand, then listened as the panel of external experts discussed the same article. The conversation was interesting. Here are a few of the quotes and questions I captured… Complexity is an indicator of change. No one says, “I’m going to manage complexity today.” (As HOMS, I might disagree) How much is innate and how much ‘around the margins’ can […]

Chromebooks / Progress Monitoring / XLR8 Summer Grants Posted on: October 21, 2015

Prepare to Launch

Prepare to Launch I count myself fortunate to be part of an organization that encourages the launching and shipping of ideas, that embraces a ‘fail up’ culture of learning and achievement. This has empowered my colleagues and I to boldly try new ideas. Reflecting on the last few years, I can recall numerous wins and successes as well as a few that I’d love to ‘redo.’ Why do some initiatives go so well while others struggle or fail? What makes the difference? Fail Ups In my first year as a division head, I recall our team was eager to help […]

Badging / Collider Conference / Innovation / Learning Measures / MVIFI Posted on: October 14, 2015October 14, 2015

Scaling Up Badging

Scaling Up Badging In a recent professional learning workshop (at #MVCollider), our team made new strides in the pursuit of badging and micro-credentialing. 3 significant insights have got our team thinking. The first insight revolves around how to create a badge using the 6 components of a badge. A second strand fuses badges with vertical learning progressions. The third one envisions taxonomy or a framework for organizing badges and ‘permission’ for ‘local level’ badge building by anyone in the learning community without diluting the quality of the overall badging program. Build a Badge At the start of the session, participants […]

Collider Conference / MVIFI / Professional Learning Posted on: October 10, 2015October 10, 2015

MVIFI Introduces Collider Conference

MVIFI Introduces Collider Conference Yesterday, Mount Vernon spent a half day introducing a new, in-house approach to professional learning: Collider. The new MVIFI nucleus team, wearing their sweet new ‘mechanic’ shirts, led the charge. More personal reflections coming soon. Meanwhile, here is a list of all sessions/topics and Jim Tiffin’s storify of major tweets and insights… List of Workshops and Sessions/Topics Jim Tiffin highlights the key moments via twitter via Storify I am proud of the Middle School teachers who led several sessions and took an active role as participants.

Learning Measures / student led conferences / XLR8 Summer Grants Posted on: August 31, 2015September 19, 2015

Launching Student Led Conferences

Launching Student Led Conferences One of our major initiatives, Student Led Conferences, is about to debut. In order to prepare, conference mentors will meet with their mentees this week instead of Advisory. The purpose of the second meeting is two-fold… 1) Cultivate deeper relationships with your mentees (get to know them well) 2) Coach them in revising their 2 goals (1 academic, 1 personal). Try SMART goals OR challenge them to pose their goals as questions (How might I {action} in order to {significant impact}? To truly make this debut a success, mentors and students will meet a total of […]

Badging / Drones / Learning Measures / Technology / XLR8 Summer Grants Posted on: August 19, 2015August 20, 2015

Unleash the Drone!

Unleash the drone! A crowd of over 350 students and teachers cheered and watched in awe as the DJI Phantom 3 drone was unleashed on middle school during chapel announcements. The drone is the newest piece of interactive technology to be purchased for student and teacher learning. While many fascinating learning opportunities exist with such tech (students will learn to fly, as well as design new uses and explore ethical decision making in current events), our drone has become a vehicle for introducing another emerging technology: digital badging. Unleash the drone! As a way to expand the learning measures, Mrs. […]

21st Century MV Mindsets / eportfolio / Reflective Practice / XLR8 Summer Grants Posted on: August 11, 2015August 18, 2015

4 Characteristics of a Quality ePortfolio

4 Characteristics of a Quality ePortfolio 1) Easy to Use – We launched our first version of a student eportfolio using Google sites two years ago. It was the result of a collaborative summer grant with a team representing Preschool, Lower, Middle, and Upper School. The product was visually appealing and featured two major sections: Collection and Showcase. The Collection was for everything. Finished, unfinished, polished, and imperfect. The Showcase was reserved for only the finest works. All of the learning demonstrations and reflections were curated by the 6 MV Mindsets (Collaborator, Communicator, Solution Seeker, Ethical Decision Maker, Creative Thinker, […]

Badging / MVIFI / XLR8 Summer Grants Posted on: July 29, 2015August 26, 2015

A Brief History of Badging at MVPS

The jury is still out amongst many about badging. It’s no secret I’m a fan, though much remains to be learned. The work of this summer’s XLR8 summer grant program has only further activated my enthusiasm for exploring and experimenting with badging and micro-credentialing in a variety of scenarios. Next week, when teachers return for pre-planning, I hope they will begin to see the value (and the fun) and share in the growing interest in badging. I could not be more proud of the work of Amy and Chrissy in this area. Get ready folks! In anticipation of the work […]