Using collaboration to better reach (our) students
From the 1st of May to 2nd of May, twelve Participants and Alumni from seven countries around Europe as well as different Alumnis and Staff members from Teach for Belgium were gathered for the third edition of Sprout to be Teach!
Sprout is an event organized by “Teach for Belgium” Alumni, this year by Fiona (Alumni from Teach for Belgium), Urté (Alumni from Teach for Lithuania) and Yohann (coach from Teach for Belgium).
It is a 4-day meeting based in Brussels which aims to contribute to building a network of professionals. Sprout wants to stimulate the participants’ collaboration, share ideas, learn from one another and find solutions to our common struggles. Then COVID-19 came but we decided to try to keep this event alive adapting the circumstances and this is when we launched Sprout to be Teach Webinar first edition.
This year’s Sprouts event involved TFArmenia, TFAustria, TFBelgium, TFBulgaria, TFLithuania, TFRomania and TFUkraine. We were happy that even some participants from the USA and India showed their interest in this event.
Keeping in mind the different challenges of our current educational situation, we decided to focus on the strength, the potential and the impact of collaboration on our students/participants under the topic “How can collaboration help me impact all of my students?”.
Sprout’s participants have not only participated during two days of Webinar but also did three weeks of pre work that allowed them to first get to know each other, secondly to learn about belgian education system and thirdly and most importantly to learn about different tools and methods that foster collaboration.
During these two days of webinar, the participants shared and worked on collaborative tools by putting in practice the main principles of collaboration. They also met some Alumni and Team Members from Teach for Belgium explaining how and why they use collaboration in their specific context. Last but not least we even managed to plan a yoga session to start a nice day together.
Our participants expressed their joy and were positively surprised by how easy it was to work together beside the different countries and timezones that we were in and came to the conclusion that collaboration is easier when we all have the same Teach for All vision.
As a result of our webinar we want to share with you the collaborative tools that our participants created together by clicking on this link.
Here are some thoughts that our participants shared after this Sprout to be Teach webinar :
“I loved the tools you used in the presentations and the fact we could practice on them, then the presentations. I got lots of insights about how to collaborate in my team and with teachers, really useful tools. I loved that you invited different people in the call to talk about how they collaborate with their team. It was really nice to spend two days with nice and interesting people who have lots to share about their work. I love the roadbook, really well structured and practical. I’ll use lots of things from this experience in my work, for sure. After the first day I told to myself: `Wow! If that’s so intense and interesting experience online, how it would be to meet all those people and share ideas with them face to face.`”
“I loved all the materials you prepared for the sessions, the roadbook is really nice and well organized, with lots and resources and clarification for the sessions. The possibility to connect to a person during the lunch was a great idea. Overall, I liked the friendly and collaborative approach over the day. “
“I liked the collaboration work during both days, and the possibility to create collaborative tools by ourselves.”
“You did a Great job. An example for all of us.“
We wanted to thank Teach for Belgium for supporting us in our project and giving us wise feedback and sharing their experience with our participants. A special thank to Yohann, Vinciane, Caroline, Marie, Hynd, Julie, Catherine and the BEEM- team.
We finally and mostly would like to thank our amazing resistance participants with whom the Sprout 2020 could not have been such a great success! Bella ciao !
We had such a nice experience during the webinar so taking into account the current situation and the wonderful experience we had during this webinar we are considering to organise another webinar about collaboration mid of June so don’t hesitate to contact us : Fionabuidin@teacherforbelgium.be
Greetings from Belgium,
Urté & Fiona,
Sprout teachers
