Letting go and getting messy
Three takeaways from Wayfinding Mentorship with Susan Haws
Educators are planners. We plan lessons, quizzes and hands-on learning. We plan enough time for discussion and enough time for testing. We plan around school breaks and teacher inservice days. We plan during breaks and weekends.
What happens when we relax a little?
Susan Haws, Executive Director of Insight Colearning
For Susan Haws, Executive Director of Insight Colearning in Durham, North Carolina, getting comfortable with Idea51’s Wayfinding Mentorship course meant letting go – just a bit.
“(One) thing I took away from the training is being okay with it feeling messy,” Haws explains.
What else can we learn from Wayfinding? Below are three more takeaways with Idea51’s Wayfinding Mentorship course, based on Susan Haws’ experience in the module.
Go for it. When Insight Colearning first opened, the “ticket” to independent learning was for students to move through several prerequisite stages before they could take on individualized projects. Through the Wayfinding Mentorship course, Haws has come to see the value in turning this approach on its head. One of her junior students who is interested in gardening, for example, is now planning and maintaining a garden plot for a nearby community. “It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to say, first you have to demonstrate that you can do these seminar-style college classes really, really well, and write a college essay, and write a research paper using primary and secondary sources, and do a qualitative analysis, and then you’ll get to do your passion project,” Haws explains.
Sharing is essential. Student work cannot exist in a vacuum. If we ask our students to pursue deep learning on a subject they’re passionate about, they need an opportunity to share it in a meaningful way. At Insight, there is more sharing than ever, as students explain their work to instructors and peers. Haws says this is creating multiple opportunities for connection and collaboration. “It’s like, ‘Oh you’re interested in that? I’m interested in this and those two things go together.’ So we’ve done a lot more of that than we ever have.”
Live in beta. What does it mean to live in beta? In Idea51’s Wayfinding Mentorship course, educators and mentors learn how to apply Living in Beta concepts that help students live and learn with intention. Because language builds culture, and culture builds confidence, Haws is committed to building Insight’s school culture around the concept of Living in Beta. In fact, more Insight instructors are progressing through Phase Two of the Wayfinding Mentorship course to continue building the Living in Beta culture in their community. “Having more teachers speaking the language and more students starting to do (these activities) will spread it,” she explains.
Ready to join the group of credentialed Wayfinding Mentors in the Idea51 Growth Network? Find out more about our innovative Wayfinding Mentorship Program, or sign up for the next Level I session.