Sharing your Unique Pedagogical Gift
The following is adapted from Crowther & Boyne (2017) and Hattie & Zierer (2018). See References.
It is time to rediscover, reconnect with, and revive the heart and soul of what teaching is about.
-Andy Hargreaves
In this exercise you use a visual concept to help organise your thoughts and insights from the GIFTS program. The following visual organisers make powerful use of symbolism and imagery.
Simon Sinek's "Golden Circle" helps us better understand educational expertise when we consider the "what", "how" and "why" we do what we do. Sinek talks about successful leadership, which has clear parallels with educational expertise. His main message is that average leaders start and finish their thinking with "what"- the outside perimetre of the Golden Circle. If we stop at this point, we fail to consider the how and why we are doing what we are doing. At this point, it is easy to lose sight of your goal and most importantly fail at the task to challenge and encourage people to the greatest possible extent in their development, in their thinking, and in their actions. The main question is not what you do; much more important is how and why you do it. This is when your vision, passion and belief can be communicated and shared with others.
Maya Angelou and Andy Hargreaves' provocative insights hint that to achieve your potential, you must first reconnect with your pedagogical heart and soul. You have begun to do this by reflecting on the five pedagogical influences as they manifest in your world. You can then begin to discover who you are, know what you do best and like how you do it.
Maya Angelou and Andy Hargreaves' provocative insights hint that to achieve your potential, you must first reconnect with your pedagogical heart and soul. You have begun to do this by reflecting on the five pedagogical influences as they manifest in your world. You can then begin to discover who you are, know what you do best and like how you do it.
Choose a Visual Organiser
Each of these visual organisers can represent how specific pedagogical strengths link and reveal relationships between aspects of your PPG
Explore
Talk to a trusted colleague and share your choice - you may have even thought of another image that is completely different from the selected images that appear here. Explain to your colleague what it reveals about your pedagogy, and describe how you came to this understanding. The following questions might be appropriate to ask them:
- "Does this description look like me?"
- "Does it reflect my personal pedagogical gift as you perceive it?"
- "If not, what changes would you make?"
The Last Word
A hundred people can listen to a piece of music and interpret it a hundred ways. So too with pedagogical gifts. This 'last word' invites you to lucidly articulate your pedagogical gift in a way that everyone will understand in the same way.
Other GIFTS participants have used a range of phrases and expressions in their final abstracts to capture how they saw themselves and their pedagogical gifts:
Now it is time to ask yourself:
Other GIFTS participants have used a range of phrases and expressions in their final abstracts to capture how they saw themselves and their pedagogical gifts:
- Science is a love affair.
- I'm a Renaissance woman.
- Ellen (de Generes) -that's me.
- Hard fun.
- A conduit-filter version of Jerome Bruner.
- Chicken pellets.
Now it is time to ask yourself:
- What personal strategy-phrase sums up my personal pedagogical gift?
Passion and Enthusiasm
Hattie and Zierer (2018) argue that knowing what you're doing and why creates a combination and synthesis of excellence, engagement and ethics. How you think about your teaching and focus more on why you do it, the more you change up the expertise you bring to your community. This is based on the passion and enthusiasm to have an impact on your students and can manifest itself in the following set of ten mindframes. The first three relate to impact, the next two to change and challenge, and the last five to learning focus. Knowing, understanding and articulating your PPG can help you recognise which of these mindframes you are naturally drawn to and what new strategies you might want to build into your pedagogical gifts.
A. Impact
B. Change and Challenge
C. Learning Focus
Hattie and Zierer (2018) recognise that a high degree of competence alone isn't sufficient to give you a foundation for teaching. It is the interaction between your gifts and your frame of mind. Your knowledge and ability may remain relatively stable over your career but your will and judgement are put to the test daily. It is your mindframe that can determine your ability to cope with the challenges and celebrations of teaching over a lifetime. Knowing, understanding and articulating your PPG helps you accept this challenge and through ongoing professional learning, gives you a sense of renewal.
A. Impact
- I am an evaluator of my impact on student learning.
- I see assessment as informing my impact and next steps.
- I collaborate with my peers and my students about my conceptions of progress and my impact.
B. Change and Challenge
- I am a change agent and believe all students can improve.
- I strive for challenge and not merely "doing your best".
C. Learning Focus
- I give and help students understand feedback and I interpret and act on feedback given to me.
- I engage as much in dialogue as monologue.
- I explicitly inform students what successful impact looks like from the outset.
- I build relationships and trust so that learning can occur in a place where it is safe to make mistakes and learn from others.
- I focus on learning and the language of learning.
Hattie and Zierer (2018) recognise that a high degree of competence alone isn't sufficient to give you a foundation for teaching. It is the interaction between your gifts and your frame of mind. Your knowledge and ability may remain relatively stable over your career but your will and judgement are put to the test daily. It is your mindframe that can determine your ability to cope with the challenges and celebrations of teaching over a lifetime. Knowing, understanding and articulating your PPG helps you accept this challenge and through ongoing professional learning, gives you a sense of renewal.