by Graeme Boyd
The weekend of 12th -13th March, I was privileged to attend The Inquiry Educators Summit (TIES) 2022 https://ties.toddleapp.com/ I had heard about this conference for years but this was the first time I had actually participated.
TIES as it is known, is designed to be a ‘festival of learning like no other’ which is an intriguing logo hard to pass by. It has a fantastic reputation for attracting the most recent, relevant and thought-provoking educators from throughout the world. The general remit of the Summit is that over 100 educators will be talking, sharing and interacting for over 3 days on a variety of educational topics from for example, autism to wellbeing. How could you not be excited about such a festival of creativity?
The Summit was a fantastic way to network and share ideas with other educators, especially those from my own field of librarianship. I virtually met with High School Librarians from Kenya, Mexico and the United Kingdom. We created our own ‘Lounge’ whereby other educators could stop by and ‘meet’ us. It was a pleasure to reconnect with some of my peers, especially given the niche field of international school librarianship can be somewhat solitary.
I attended over 20 sessions. Some I stayed for the full 45 minutes. Some I dipped in and out. The sessions were synchronous and offered all day and night, so depending on your timezone there would always be a ‘live’ session you could participate in. Some of the key names in education who presented included Helen Street (founder of Positive Schools), Rachel French (from Professional Learning International) and mindfulness consultant, Lucy Keller. Best of all, the sessions were all recorded and as a participant I now have access to every session for the next 6 months. Looks like I am going to be busy!
Some of the presentations included our own staff. Amber Rhinehart co-presented a fabulous session on Friday 11th March called ‘Using Triangular Partnership to Sustain Inquiry’. Amber is a natural presenter partly because she is so experienced but also because she is so passionate about what she does, so it was a pleasure watching her present. There were well over 40 participants in attendance at Amber’s session and I felt proud to be present representing LCS and supporting Amber.
An added bonus was that within this session Amber accredited the work from another esteemed colleague, Vanessa Gomez (MYP Spanish) as an example to discuss ‘Student Agency and Inquiry in Self-Assessment’. Here’s the exact slide Amber used:
It’s encouraging that LCS offers its teachers opportunities to join such prestigious professional development events. I felt thrilled to be accepted to attend. Perhaps next year it will be me presenting! I do hope so.
Useful links:
- The Inquiry Educators Summit TIES https://ties.toddleapp.com/
- Harvard Project Zero http://www.pz.harvard.edu/
- Helen Street https://www.positiveschools.com/
- Rachel French https://www.professionallearninginternational.com/
- Lucy Keller https://www.mindfulnessbylucy.com/
Graeme Boyd is the Middle and High School Librarian at Lincoln Community School. If you have any library related questions (including reading skills and reading levels, selections, formats and suitable online resources for your children) please contact Graeme directly at:< gboyd@lincoln.edu.gh >