It was interesting to come back into the SPARK MIT at meet up with the other Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers, as well as meeting our SPARK mentors.

The day enabled me to reflect on where I am at with regards to my inquiry, and also to collaborate on ideas around refining my inquiry process.  Key take aways from the session with regards to my inquiry include the following reflective questions and statements:

"What is the point of difference between the innovation [of VTaL] and teacher dashboard, or other existing digital affordances?"

"The innovation could be as simple as ALL sites at Tamaki College being visible".

The main issue that I am grappling with from today's session, is whether it would be more effective [in terms of seeing shift of teacher practice and ultimately student achievement] if my inquiry for 2017, focused on the visibility of all teaching and learning sites at Tamaki College, in comparison to the implementation of the entire VTaL framework within the SPARK MIT inquiry process.  This is not to say that the VTaL framework is irrelevant, but moreso, that the focus of the VTaL framework as a whole, could be captured within my Community of Learning (CoL) role.

In addition to reflecting on my inquiry, I also had the pleasure of meeting with my SPARK Buddy, Bernadette MacDougall, who I will be collaborating with in a few weeks time.

Next steps will be to gather data from student voice in relation to the effectiveness of Visible Teaching and Learning in terms of learning outcomes in the classroom.  Once again, huge thanks to Lynne Le Gros from SPARK and Dorothy Burt from Manaiakalani for another productive day.