What a year it has been!

I took on this challenge of a year long shared blog with no idea of how it would work out, no idea if we’d have enough practitioners to fill the weeks, but a willingness to fill in when there were gaps, and some very high hopes for what reflection on what Guided Inquiry can do, for learners and for a growing community of educators.

Over the next few days I will reflect on the year and share some data about our collective accomplishments together.  I hope this will inspire people to continue with us next year and inspire even more folks to join in our community of reflection and practice on this blog.

So for my first post of this week,

Who we are?

As I began this yearlong journey, I had a long list of people I have worked with, trained in Guided Inquiry, and of whom I value their use of the Guided Inquiry Design. I knew these folks were smart and had the ability to be humble and reflective – meanwhile get that taking risks is often well worth the effort!  But, I didn’t know who would or could take the time and make a commitment to sharing their work in this very public and sometimes scary public platform.

The wonderful news is, that many people really enjoyed sharing on our blog this year and many learned that blogging isn’t so hard, but actually fun!  Furthermore, many people want to do it again!

I was hoping for a wide variety of respondents- I knew because of the strong connection between Guided Inquiry and teacher librarians that many would hold that role on the team.  I was happy to see that district level leaders, and teachers, as well as researchers and other friends of Guided Inquiry would appear.  I also appreciated the international perspectives that were provided. And members were wonderful to include through images and quotes, the voices of our students.

WOW! The stats on our Blog this year showing the variety of participation!

We are a group active in social media, especially using twitter as a PLN.  Here we are represented on Twitter!  You have an entire PLN of folks who are dedicated to GID here!

And of course we had people who have just started with GID all the way to people who have been working on it for a few years! My favorite part was the many, many perspectives represented and the stories that came from not one perspective to show what we can do with this model, but from so many!  Thank you all.  If you haven’t already- add these folks to your PLN today!

Before the new year rings in I’ll share a little more of a year summary including:

What we’ve accomplished.

AND What we hope to be!

Happy Holidays all!

Leslie Maniotes, PhD