Professional Development: When 1 size doesn't fit all





Like many schools around the country, our doors were closed for school on Columbus Day.  Our faculty and staff on the otherhand were required to come in and participate in a professional day.  The day was broken up into a couple of parts but for the puposes of this post, the focus will be on the edtech related PD.

Before the faculty and staff were sent off to their discussion groups, we asked them to fill out a google form so they could select the classes they would like to take during in each of session.


Things we remembered to do before they filled out the form:

• provide netbooks for the faculty/staff that only work on desktops so they can participate in the workshops
• we have COWS(computers on wheels) which made this possible
• send/post the link to the Google Form via email and post on the website
• provide multiple ways of accessing links

Regroup:

• When the faculty and staff returned from their breakout sessions,  the sessions were tallied, room locations were set, and we emailed the information to the faculty

 Send them on their way:

•  We were off and running with our tech sessions but the really valuable information would be realized a couple of days later.

What worked and what didn't. Some comments from the faculty and staff:

• thank you for giving us the opportunity to sign up for sessions we are interested in exploring
• choice is important!
• sessions should be longer so there is time to tinker and play with someone to guide
• learning through doing!
• add a 3rd block-I wanted to learn more
• maintain and foster passion!
• track the sessions so there is a novice and advanced track
• I am well beyond how do I reply in gmail? I wanted to learn how to apply filters and labels
• provide differentiated instruction
• provide enrichment and remediation opportunities 

Lastly, we certainly didn't hit a homeroom, but it does seem like we managed to hit at least a double.  The constructive criticism was great feedback and if the end result is that our faculty and staff in effect wants more and more levels of PD, then our students are the real winners!

Create, Reflect, Revise

This is a big summer for St. Christopher's School.  We have a 1:1 program launching in the fall, our school will be celebrating its centennial, and we will be opening the Luck Leadership Center in January 2012. So in the midst of all of the excitement, I find it is critical that as we create new and engaging activities for our boys, we must also be mindful to reflect and revise as needed.

A true master teacher/learner will reflect on the outcomes of their lesson or activity and will take the time to revise the approach to maximize learning.  At a recent PD activity on Google docs for the faculty, I opted to share my notes with the attendees rather than give them hard copies.  In so doing, I was able to augment the notes with their ideas and suggestions after the class.  It was quite easy to amend the notes and best of all, I didn't have to resend an updated version because the document was shared. Having done this 2x and with several more PD sessions remaining throughout the summer, my latest reflection has prompted me to give the participants editing capabilities so we can truly benefit from our collective efforts.

We've been using this approach in our tech dept meetings to collect minutes and document action items so why not extend it to the classroom. It's like a wiki on steroids with the benefits of concurrent users.

While most of us are in the business of creating, let's not forget to take the time to reflect and revise.

Fostering a love of learning

How many times have you found yourself being sucked into reading hours of information about a topic just because you stumbled upon it? Or maybe you intentionally sought out information that had little or nothing to do with what you teach but you needed it solely for personal reasons.

Well, it is the second example which is the impetus for this post. Within the past few months, I've acquired information on how to repair my mountain bike through bicycletutor.com, determined the location of the cabin filter on the family van through wikianswers.com, watched a video on how to install a 3 way dimmer switch at easy2diy.com, and most recently, I was able to correctly insulate the pipe leaving the central air unit using yahoo answers. Can you tell I am a new home owner?

In each of those instances, I was hoping to be an informed consumer and save a few bucks but ultimately it was my passion knowing for how stuff works(great site) and a love of learning that drives me.

So how can we foster a love of learning? With respects to the curriculum, often times, too much emphasis is placed on content objectives when it is the affective component of the curriculum that is deficient. Please note, that I am not advocating abandoning content because having a foundation is indeed important in creating interest and passion.

What I am advocating, however,is balance on a sliding scale. Provide the foundation, check for understanding, and then allow your students to discover, apply, and create. And as the content becomes more complex, allow that scale to slide some, perhaps in favor of content, so the affective component can grab hold.

This is hardly a new concept, but imagine the time and energy our students would spend given the opportunity to engage in meaningful learning. For some teachers, this is a radical shift in pedagogy but our teachers need models too. If we model this approach within our professional development days or classes, we can take advantage of the innate curiosity within educators. Spread the seeds of curiosity(change) and watch the learning take hold.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spursfan_ace/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Personal Learning Network(PLN) is the New Reference Librarian

In the fall of 2008, our school joined PLP-Powerful Learning Practice. At our opening meeting, we were encouraged by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson to develop our PLN or Personal Learning Network. As a node within an expanding network, the PLN improves the probability that one will come in contact with those individuals who can assist us with in my case, technological aspirations, endeavors, and questions. However, it is the unique 2 way nature of the PLN that strengthens, validates, and ensures the reliability of the information within the network.

Well back to the title of this post. Having done a number of research papers during my tenure as a student and a teacher in training, I cannot emphasize the importance of reference librarians. Their acuity for detail and the vast quantities of information that they seem to absorb daily is astounding. However, the availablity of this resource is often limited to face 2 face meetings and email. As Web 2.0 technologies often do, an opportunity for a new paradigm in this arena has taken form and the tool is Twitter.

Now I have not written a research paper in a few years, so my reliance on reference librarians has been minimal but for several months now, I have relied heavily on my PLN via Twitter to gather information both actively and passively. Everyday my PLN provides me with some pearl of wisdom or a response to a query and I can only hope that I am able to do the same for those who have included me in their PLN.

Nevertheless, because I am Still Learning, I am grateful to have my very own PLN/Web 2.0 reference librarian.