What’s Your Why? How Educators Engage to Create a Dynamic Learning Environment
SERVE’s PK-3 Distinguished Leadership Institute (DLI) provides educators across North Carolina the opportunity to connect and receive specialized leadership development in their field that is designed to lead to positive educational outcomes for early learners. Cohort IV of the DLI kicked off this year at a day and a half meeting on September 20 and 21, 2024. The overall theme of the meeting was “What’s Your Why?”
Relatedness was a key focus for the day and Carla Garrett, Early Childhood Specialist for the RC6 at SERVE, emphasized the importance of thinking about relatedness and what it means. She spoke to Cohort IV participants about how the DLI group functions as a community to make connections and asked them to think about the importance of being able “to cooperate, to collaborate, to learn and grow together.”
In advance of the meeting the members of the group built a virtual “Community Wall” using PowerPoint in a shared document where each person added images and words of what is important to them. Eva Phillips, Early Learning Team co-leader, shared these results and said, “One of our most important goals is getting to know each other and building relationships.” Commonalities on the Community Wall were friends, faith, family, adventure, travel, nature, food, music, and children.
Tracy Cole, Principal, East Carolina University (ECU) Community School, and participant in Cohorts I-IV noted, “We know that when we focus on our youngest learners that we are setting them up for success. We know our why, but also are actively involved in the process. We have our own action plans, and we can go back to our settings and make a difference.”
Cole emphasized relatedness and the importance of having time to process. “What does the learner need to know, how do you learn it? In this case, where we are in the Distinguished Leadership Institute –we are looking to provide equitable learning environments for PK-3 students, and that is our why,” she added.
Kelly Anne Mudd, Principal, Martin Millennium Academy, and member of SERVE’s DLI Cohorts III and IV, shared the ideas that she had implemented in her school to help develop relatedness. “When Carla asked me to speak about relatedness, I immediately thought of our Design Anchors… we have these four design anchors that all of our work is rooted in. Every day we lead with love, we foster safety to succeed, we are committed to doing hard things together, and we believe that YOU MATTER,” Mudd said.
For the Friday afternoon closing activity, the group broke out into teams and played the Brain Architecture Game, which helps players learn about the powerful role of relationships on early brain development. In the game, team members draw random cards, which offer a life experience to build upon. The experiences can be positive or negative. The positive experiences can lead to a stronger foundation as shown by the height of the architecture built using pipe cleaners, while the negative experiences can lead to a weaker foundation, which removed foundational pipe cleaners from the structures.
Cohort IV participants discuss the Brain Architecture Game results and share how they were able to identify with how many of their students face random challenges which can impact their ability to focus and learn.
Akira Hall is a Kindergarten teacher at the ECU Community School. Her principal, Tracy Hall, encouraged her to join Cohort IV DLI. “It’s an amazing opportunity to network and ground yourself. This is a place of peace where you can remind yourself of why you do what you do. I love being a part of this group,” Hall said.
According to Dr. Sharon Ritchie, the bottom line is that it’s more meaningful to participants when they have time to talk so that they are able to take everything in. “That’s our adult learning theory – they have to do the work, and in doing so, they get to know each other. Because we are working with multiple cohorts, we are constantly thinking about our people that have done this before,” said Ritchie.
The SERVE PK-3 Distinguished Leadership Institute was developed by the RC6 Early Learning Team, composed of Carla Garrett, Dr. Sharon Ritchie, and Eva Phillips.
Visit our photo album from the day: https://photos.app.goo.gl/pQXBqaJFXdDjF4AE8.
Post and Photos by: Judi Rossabi, Communications Specialist
