David Anderson PD Learning Talk

Today we revisited some PD that we did at the beginning of the year at our syndicate meeting.
At the beginning of the year we had David Anderson come to school to talk about professional conversations. We discussed the importance of relationships in a working environment and the culture of learning conversations. Today we discussed some of these aspects again.

We discussed Learning Talk in some detail as a team.
The aim is to create a culture where professional conversations make learning the core purpose. David Anderson spoke about the purpose parrot. To ask your self what the purpose of the lesson, conversation or process. If you can't answer that question then maybe you shouldn't do it. If something you are about to do doesn't have a purpose then what's the point?
So here is where we started talking about our appraisal process. What is the purpose of this process? We have been talking about how we can make this process more meaningful to learning. How are the conversations that we are having during our appraisals going to effect the learning experiences of our students. Because at the end of the day the point of our appraisals is to raise student achievement.
One change that I think that is working well in our school is the constantly evolving goal document for teachers. It is a working document. We have made it a requirement to take some time out every term to collect evidence of how we are achieving our goals or what we are doing in order to achieve our goal. This has made me think about what I'm doing much more regularly. I have become more reflective. I have also started thinking about my parrot of purpose.
How is this effecting my students achievement? Is this really going to make an impact on student learning? What is this idea going to add to my teaching?

At the end of the day I don't want my student to just survive. I want them to thrive, to contribute and to be critical thinkers. So how am I going to make it happen? What are the steps that I'm taking that make that a reality?