The SHIFT Blog

  Halton District School Board has been SHIFTING in a big way for the last two and a half years. Both educators, administration and corporate staff have shown an appetite for innovation.  We are seeing doors opening up, educators sharing what they do, taking risks and trying new things. There is a SHIFT happening in Halton and there are Shifters everywhere working together, pushing the envelope and improving processes, products and understanding.  Innovating is challenging, it is often the path less travelled. Innovators need time to feed their soul, reconnect with others doing this important work and recharge their mental batteries. TL:DR Date: May 23rd, 2019 What: Full Day “Share Your Shift” Conference Play: Open Space, Swap Meet, Rotman I-Think, Empower Makers, McMaster Design Thinking, CIBC Service Design Team Location: Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre, Oakville, ON Details: 150 Spaces Limited Lunch & Coverage Provided If you’ve been engage...

Well, fellow Shifters, you are probably tidying your desks, thinking of a (HOT!) Canada Day weekend and looking forward to some much deserved rest.  Thank you for following along with and supporting the Shift this year, your energy and enthusiasm has been contagious! If you are looking for some summer learning opportunities, look no further.  There are at least two chances to Shift in the coming months! First up is Second City at the Barn .   July 12th and open to ALL staff in HDSB, this is a great opportunity to laugh and learn with the incredible Second City Improv Group. Next, in August you can participate in the second Shift Your (Blank) Summer Learning Day .  This is a great opportunity to energize yourself before the new school year begins and learn with like-minded Shifters like you. Signing off for the summer! Jamie and Matt

Shifting back to the Barn On Wednesday night, 175 educators got to play together with a revisit to the Barn in Milton. The theme of the evening was “Can creativity and innovation be taught?”.  We’ve come to believe that the answer is a resounding YES!  As we have been exploring here at the Shift, there are learning conditions that foster innovation, in our schools and for our students.  This is where we started with The Case for Innovation and exploring these conditions, followed by Community Building and Risk Taking , and more to come soon.  Rethinking the structure of our classrooms and our schools is what we are aiming to do as we aim to answer the important questions of whether creativity and innovation can be taught.  This is our BIG why as shifters.  This goal is in context to changes happening at the Ministry level as well.  Our report cards are on the verge of a major overhaul.  The stated goal by the Ministry of Education is to...

Well Shifters, it has been a great semester!  Since starting this blog in February of this year, we have had so much fun learning about what teachers are doing in their classes and talking about what they hope to do next. We hope that we did a little to inspire you to think differently about what you teach and how you teach and that you got excited to take some risks.    Working on this project forced us to learn a lot, and most of that learning was driven through trial and error.  Jamie used a Mac for the first time.  Matt built several rigs to help us with our sound recording.  We learned how to blog, edit video, talk on camera and listen to ideas.  We made lots of mistakes that hopefully nobody noticed.  Although, to quote Marisa Cavataio when we visited her Productions Class at Nelson High School, “The most important thing you will do in this class is make mistakes”.   Our mistakes bore fruit!  We just recently passed 10,000 v...

So, we have nearly made it!  Another year down.  Hopefully you have been reading the blog (heck, you are now at least!) and you have been thinking about ways that you’d like to experiment, to push, to shift.  The end of the school year, however is a bit of a tricky time to implement big changes.  Well, how about connecting with fellow shifters a little bit before the next school year ramps up?  We are offering you a chance to “Shift Your [Blank]”, a summer symposium on Thursday, August 24th.   It will be a chance to connect, think about some ways to shift your _____ for the upcoming school year.  There will be a free lunch and Shift swag to boot. So, what do you say?  Want to shift gears with us and start dreaming about September?  We know, it is a tricky thing to think ahead to August, but the early Shifter gets the worm.  Open to All Secondary Teachers.   Register Here to Embrace the Shift!

It’s 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon, and I’m Line Dancing with 200 Halton Teachers and my cell phone is still at 75% battery.  Neither of these things are ever true in the middle of the afternoon on a school day.  First of all, during a regular day my phone is a gateway onto social media for me to share things that are happening in my classes and keep up on what other teachers on various online communities are doing.  Secondly, Line Dancing is far outside of my regular comfort zone. Two shifters, modelling our new shirts.  Try, Fail, Learn! So how did it come to this? First off, the cell phone thing.  I was far too invested in the breakout sessions to seek out my phone for distraction.  Yes, I tweeted about various things that spoke to me throughout the day, but I tried to make it quick.  The only real time I spent reading twitter was during lunch or after the breakout sessions ended.  I loved reading others reactions to what they experien...