What is purposeful interaction? Why inquire about it?

Purposeful interactions are learning-focused conversations that lead to meaningful and authentic professional learning. Professional learning leads to student success and students are at the heart of everything we do in the teaching-learning community. Professional learning has "the greatest effect when it is clearly focused, practical, guided by current research and shared among educators in a supportive, risk-free learning community." (Partnering for Success: Getting the most from Ontario's New Teacher Induction Program, September 2010) There are several professional learning opportunities offered by the board to teachers of the board. But I do believe that professional learning that happens at the grass root level, in the classroom, in the school halls or staff rooms, in the form of professional dialogue and purposeful interactions,  in a timely fashion when there is an authentic need for it sticks. These kind of professional interactions are to educators as effective feedback is to our learners. If focused, purposeful, professional interactions have such a positive impact on student and educator self-efficacy and success, then it is worth inquiring about. It is worth having a professional dialogue on purposeful interactions. Collaborative inquiry is a very effective platform for any professional dialogue and purposeful interactions as it enables educators to learn in a supportive and risk-free environment. Though purposeful interactions can involve many stakeholders in a teaching-learning community and as a principal, all of these purposeful interactions are absolutely significant to student success, in this collaborative inquiry I want to focus on interactions between student teachers and mentor teachers.

My Rationale: As a principal, I want to foster learning in the school and around the community. Part of fostering learning is building capacity within the school and the larger community. I already know that there are resources in the school as teachers who are running a rich inquiry-based program. Our school also has a great partnership with York University's Faculty of Education program through which we welcome student teachers into our classrooms and mentor them in a safe, risk-free non-evaluative manner. This is a great platform to focus my inquiry on- purposeful interactions between mentor teachers and host teachers that lead to professional learning. This is even more significant this year as this is the first year when York University's Faculty of Education launched the two-year program of education in which the first year is focused on observation rather than teaching. Imagine the learning opportunities this year can create for our student teachers who will be the future teachers in our school system as well as the opportunities for our mentor teachers to continue to refine their practice through professional relationships and purposeful interactions.

Problem of Practice: For the past three years, we have been hosting student teachers through York University's Faculty of Education program. We have welcomed student teachers into many inquiry-based classrooms that are empowering our students through inquiry. However, we have also felt a disconnect between how student teachers are planning and preparing to teach in these open-ended, and inquiry-based classrooms and how programs are being run in these classrooms on a day-to-day basis. Hence, it is imperative that as mentors, we prepare our future teachers for the type of teaching and learning that focuses on 21st century skills and competencies while addressing the big ideas through curriculum expectations. This can be done when we have purposeful interactions between mentor teachers and host teachers.

The Question: How does effective purposeful interaction between the mentor teacher and the student teacher lead to professional learning in an inquiry-based classroom?