With our dominant themes defined, we set off to design and conduct experiments in our Year Four, Five, and Six classrooms. Guided by our intention 'to awaken wonder and harness the dominant themes', our teachers employed their own creative genius to weave in elements of the DiG that they thought they could manage or wanted to tinker with first. They were united in their desire to embrace the Designed inGenuity learning framework in their classrooms yet experimented differently.
As a leadership team, we didn’t prescribe a mode of experimenting in classrooms. We simply made time and space for discussion, for sharing of voice. Time each week was intentionally dedicated to sharing of ideas, experiments, voicing vulnerability, and delighting in surprises as our teachers experimented. Upon reflection, we now understand that this reflective practice is a crucial construct for cultivating thriving innovation.
In their first experiment, our Year Four team worked to equip their learners with the skills to DiG. They provided opportunities for their learners to hone their research skills. As they researched together, learners were encouraged to boldly shared their deep interests when their curiosity was piqued. They then dug deeper in a guided way in order to unearth delights to share. During their journey, the Year Four teachers consciously sought to embed the dominant themes of the DiG experience that they had identified. They allowed time for their learners to share their authentic voice, they built deeper personal connections through vulnerability, they shifted mindsets as they learned in pods and the trust within the learning community flourished.
Our Year Five and Six classes experimented with DiGs in different forms. Some created homework DiGs, others linked their base word to their curriculum, some used a DiG to explore the transition to high school, others harnessed the power of the dominant themes in their classrooms. Each DiG revealed remarkable stories about learners and their learning and we started to get a real sense of how Designed inGenuity might assist us to reimagine learning.
Today, DiGs are happening in many of our classrooms and are taking many forms. A large proportion of our teaching staff have now experienced a DiG for themselves and are finding the courage to experiment. As a Leadership Team, we’re not orchestrating the implementation, many are propelling their own bold experiments. We’re simply helping to support courageous teacher exploration through time to share authentic voice, vulnerability, creative genius, and joy. We’re giving the teachers ‘airtime’, deeply listening as they share their journey and clarify their own thinking, much in the same way as learning happens in a DiG. We are curating a culture for innovation.
Our experiments don't always live up to our hopes. They are not always fruitful, sometimes they fail. Sometimes they exceed our hopes and unearth joys we'd never dreamed of. Experimenting with Designed inGenuity is a courageous journey with an unfolding path. The Dormant Phase is now an accepted part of our journey. Our guide is the feeling of learning coming alive.
In reflecting upon our first messy DIGs, we are constantly connecting to our intention and asking ourselves, ‘Are we awakening wonder? Are we harnessing the dominant themes?’ These are our signposts of success. Using the three Learning Questions, we’re in a constant cycle of research and reflection, digging into how DiGs might translate into the classroom and power-up inquiry pedagogy. There’s a sense of a collective emergence of a different kind of learning, a reimagining of what school could look like and a deeper understanding of what learning in powerful ways can do for learners.
Bringing the DiG experience to our learners continues to be powerful. DiG after DiG, the joyous exploration of our teachers continues to delight us. Their willingness to take on ‘another thing’ is driven by ‘once you feel it, you can’t unfeel it’, and the core intent of wanting learners to experience what they had as learners. Connections are deepened, classroom culture is thriving and curriculum is often exceeded.
Many learners have undertaken multiple DiGs, each revealing deeper courage, learning, and joy than the one before. Our experiments with the DiG learning framework are reinventing our understanding of the way learning can occur. Our inquiry pedagogy and class culture are being strengthened, the learning process illuminated, and the emotional journey of learning made visible.
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