From what I can tell I have always seen myself in my students, and my students in myself - but what I have noticed over the past eight months (participating in Alternate Accountability Project) in particular, and three years (participating in the Mulitiliteracies Project) in general, is how much more I get the more I trust them and the more they trust me. 

Teaching is not a one way street - students teach me and I teach them, students learn from me and I learn from them.  It has never been a one way street, in my recollection, for me in my teaching.  What I am finding, the more I look and listen, is that the more I can help them also see how they can teach and learn from each other the more we all learn.

Three years ago when Division 15 painted The Mural I tried to document the learning,  as part of the Multiliteracies Project.  I knew what I was doing was working for the students who were in my class, and myself.  I could articulate very little of why I was doing what I was doing.  Diane Potts, (Graduate Research Assistant with Multiliteracies Project), visited and collected images of the students working and I collected hard copy data of our learning.  I saw in the images, and the hard copy data, themes I recognized previously in the teaching/learning moment, but now I had time to analyze them and pull out what I thought I wanted more of.  I also had Diane to prod and poke and ask me questions about why I did what I did the way I did.  I had to think.  In the classroom I helped students to build knowledge sharing relationships, I worked together with my class similarly to how I work today.  I had a tacit understanding of what I was doing; the students had a tacit understanding of what we were doing.  It was a beginning, built on my philosophies and my understandings - my pedagogy.  In the classroom I was a teacher working with a GRA from UBC who was helping me collect data.

Two years ago when Division 15 created Scrolls I documented the learning in my classroom, as part of the Multiliteracies Project, and my doctoral thesis.  This time I foregrounded ideas that had surfaced from my thinking and discussing and learning from the mural.  Ideas such as how to create a cohesive community of learners through ensuring individual responsibility and value to each member, how to invite personal experience, language and culture into the learning environment meaningfully, when to push or pull and when to wait with an idea or a child and how conversation and mentoring played into all of this.  I was becoming more able to articulate what I was doing and why I was doing it.  I was narrowing my goal posts.  In doing so I was becoming more able to explain to the students my thinking and in turn they were more able to explain their thinking and in turn show deeper, wider more diverse ideas.  I was learning how to capture the images of the work in progress for this project.  I was developing my own style of data collection.  I spent hours looking through the images and trying to figure out how to create more opportunities for the 'moments' that I could see in the images of 'learning'.  Collecting, reflecting, discussing, sharing with the students.  The classroom became a space for talking about learning as well as a place to discuss what we were learning.  I was a teacher doing research with students, and a GRA, together we were collecting data.

One year ago when Division 16 created their own Research question, in collaboration with Diane Potts and myself, the students documented their research.  This research was not part of the Multiliteracies Project, it was part of our curriculum.  For me the ideas of community and language required 'poking' and the students, with our support, did just that - they poked.  They formed a question, operationalized their vocabulary around the question, organized their data collection, translated, transcribed and analyzed their data, formally wrote up their research and presented it to their peers, at Begbie and at a Research Day at UBC.  My understanding of what was meaningful learning was becoming more in focus, I was able to articulate why doing the research was important for the students and for myself.  I was not teaching less curriculum; I was teaching deeper curriculum.  I was able to discuss with the students how they were learning; what they were learning.  They were collecting data, they were capturing images, they were analyzing data, they wrote the report, they presented their findings.  They were able to discuss what they were learning, how they were learning it and why they found it valuable.  I was a teacher, working with a fellow teacher, supporting students doing research.  Still, I was not able to share the images of them working or their diverse understandings of their learning with them easily.  I had not found a way to show them what I was able to 'see' in my everyday to help them 'see' what they were doing in their everyday.

This year when Division 15 and I participated in the writing of accounts for Alternative Accountability as part of the Multiliteracies Project  I did not confine us to one project - we lived the experience throughout our curriculum, using the site whenever it felt 'right'.  Because I was able to upload images and work of students so easily I was finally able to share with them what I saw every time I looked through their images and their work - they were able to see themselves 'looking smart', and see the diversity of their thinking.  In the early accounts that I wrote and shared with them they frequently went back to see images of themselves engaged in learning or to reread a piece of their work or their peer's work.  They too were analyzing, looking for ways to learn more.  I foregrounded my desire to continue to learn and understand how they are learning.  I saw that they were always trying to help me and help themselves learn more.  I am better able to articulate what I see as valuable learning today and I do so regularly in the classroom with the students.  In turn, they are able to articulate their notions of valuable learning as well.  They talk about the value of focused conversation, about the feeling of safety required to share ideas and how shared ideas grow into better ideas for all parties involved, about diverse learning styles and needs, about the value of First Language and about feeling like they 'know' things and that they want to 'know' more.  I am a teacher working with students learning together in a collaborative manner, never losing sight of my responsibilities, but sharing the ability to build knowledge together.  We access and represent our learning through a variety of ways, one being the Multiliteracies site.

How have I changed in my school with my students?  

In writing these accounts I am refining my understanding of what is my pedagogy; I share these ideas with my students and ask for discussion, clarity and understanding from their perspectives.  This refinement and sharing has in turn improved the learning environment that is my classroom - how I am with my students, how my students are with me.  Which in turn is further refined and then shared...you get the picture.  I included the three previous projects in my description of my changing classroom practice because these opportunities have added depth and breadth to my understanding of my pedagogy and my understanding of how students learn.  These are two areas I am very interested in continuing to learn more and that have helped me to get the place I am today.