Imagine you have been at a conference, or you have heard a radio programme related to the curriculum. In either case, an idea, something you hadn’t considered before, or a connection you hadn’t made, catches your attention. When you meet a colleague the following day you begin a conversation with ‘I heard / saw something really interesting yesterday which I think might change how I teach…….’  

In this scenario you are telling a story about professional learning, a story about the value and potential impact of what you have heard / seen. Telling stories about our professional learning allows us to share ideas with others, articulate why something has caught our attention, and it makes explicit the link between what we have heard and our current practices.  

Telling stories about positive, generative aspects of our professional learning experiences are therefore central to immersing ourselves in and with the ideas we want to take forward (Bushe 2007&2013, Zandee 2013)

This next activity helps us tell our stories in a short amount of time. If you are working in a group, with a number of you attending the same event(s) you may all choose to write your stories and look across them to find commonalities. If you are considering a number of interlinked professional learning events, you may choose to write stories about each and then find commonalities or connections between them.