Week 5 - Strategic Leadership

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Thomas Schmitz on February 18, 2010 at 10:23am

February 18, 2010

1) What environments promote the best learning opportunities for professional development (virtual, face-to-face, blended) and what are characteristics of the group promote rich learning experiences?

The bottom of page 106 best summarizes my thoughts. “On-the-job professional development programs that are most beneficial when they are long term, focused on students’ learning, and linked to the curricula.”

Face-to-face instruction that is personal and on demand has been my most effective model. Teachers are better students when the professional development displays obvious personal implementation opportunities. I have attended local PD days that include the entire district staff, but only target a specific building, subject, or department. These have never been huge successes. Virtual training seems to have an increase number of people who do not remain actively involved

2) Do you participate in Professional Learning Networks (PLNs)? If so, describe some of the benefits and challenges.

We have professional learning communities (PLC) in my district. They have proven highly successful within the core subjects and departments. Mulvane has six teachers per elementary grade level housed on the same campus. Most secondary departments include multiple teachers. These teachers actively share ideas and knowledge to improve themselves, the students, the school, and the community. Teacher schedules have been adjusted to maximize benefits. Elective classes and departments including only one staff member are the local challenges of PLC. These teachers are grouped into a PLC, but they may not share students, curriculum, concerns, or needs.

Permalink Reply by Jenny Gridley on February 18, 2010 at 5:01pm

What environments promote the best learning opportunities for professional development (virtual, face-to-face, blended) and what are characteristics of the group promote rich learning experiences?

In my experience both as a leader of professional development and a participant face-to-face seems to work best. As the leader of the PD I really enjoy the physical cues that you can't get from a virtual environment. Those cues really help me adapt my training based on the audience, you can't do that in most virtual opportunities (although maybe in second life it's possible to some degree). The characteristic that seemed to make the best learning experience is when group has a need to learn whatever is being taught, if there is a vested interest you will always have success. It also helps if there is a lot of active learning where participants are being able to interact and apply what they are learning instead of being "talked at" the whole time.

Permalink Reply by Tammy Gilley on February 19, 2010 at 4:07pm

It has been my experience that adult learners like a blend of face-to-face and virtual learning environments. I think the two significant factors mentioned on pg 106 of trust/respect and a choice to choose are of paramount importance with working with adult learners and students as well. In my district we have had PLC teams for years now. However, the focus is just now shifting to student work and learning instead of teaching.

My favorite PLN is PLurk. I like it because I can Plurk a question and someone will give me immediate feedback on websites, technology trouble shooting, and more. The challenges with any PLN is keeping up with it and being aware that the whole world is seeing what your post. So you have to be very careful what you post online.

Permalink Reply by Kari Hinkle on February 21, 2010 at 7:39pm

We were shown Plurk once during an Inservice. We tried and used it a little that day and I have never gone back to it. At the time I didn't care for it. Looking back now, maybe I didn't care for it because I was rushed to try to learn it and use it. I should give it another try since I know some educators who use it.

Permalink Reply by Melanie Farmer on February 22, 2010 at 10:56am

Definitely try it out and find me (ur7smiles). We can help you get started at the next TRC gathering =) I have enjoyed networking through Plurk.

Permalink Reply by Jill R. Pfannenstiel on February 20, 2010 at 9:05pm

As far as environments that promote the best learning opportunities for PD, I feel that face to face is more interactive and personal, but at times I can see that virtual can be just as good. I think PD needs to be interactive and keep the teachers attention and make them feel like it's something they can take back to the classroom and use immediately and easily. It doesn't make sense when a district has a professional development day and makes everyone attend, but the target audience is actually just certain teachers of certain subjects. It makes the rest of the teachers feel like they are wasting their time and they have better things to do than sit in meetings all day. If teachers feel like they are learning something they can use, then it's more beneficial for all.
I do not participate in PLNs so I cannot comment on those, but would be interested to hear more about the benefits and challenges.

Permalink Reply by Kari Hinkle on February 21, 2010 at 7:36pm

I believe that the face-to-face environment is one of the best learning opportunities for teachers. The face - to - face environment is personal and if it relates to the educator's subject area the teacher is engaged. However, the downside to this is sometimes the topic is not related to some educators' subject areas and they feel it may be a waste of time sitting in a meeting. Also, in my builiding there is just one teacher per grade so when we have just our school present I don't have another teacher to collaborate with. When we have a district PD day I can talk to the other third grade teacher in our district and share. I also can see how the virtual environment is beneficial. In the virtual environment educators can connect with other educators outside of their building, district, or even state to see what they are doing and gather some new ideas.

My TRC team is my PLC ( Professional Learning Community). We meet one day every week after school to talk about our successes, frustrations, challenges, and discuss new ideas/websites/ thoughts. We also spend one day a month together and have more indepth discussions and have more time to collaborate than we do on our after school meetings. This time allows us to grow as educators and learn new ways to help our students learn. We are of all different grade levels and share what each has found or discovered and how it will work for all of us and our students. Plus, our facilitator is wonderful in finding resources for us and leading us through wherever we may be headed. I think a statement from one of my students after I had been gone for one of our all day meetings puts it best. I was getting ready to show them a Smart Board interactive we had discovered and told them I had something new to share with them that they could use. The student's comment was, " She learned something new again at her meeting and I am sure it will be fun." They all chimed in eager to see what I had discovered and were engaged and ready to learn.

Permalink Reply by Jona Neufeld on February 21, 2010 at 10:08pm

Our school district implemented PLN's or as we call them, PLC's this year. We have a 40 min. late start on Wednesdays. This has been a great avenue for information to be given, new programs to be tried, or just a general sharing of best practices. We have really discovered some great new ideas from each other that more than likely we would not have tried because we would not have taken the time to sit down and share. We have discovered the strength and the power in sharing and have also discovered that one idea can be used several different ways. We have learned to appreciate our differences and have really seen the differences in our teaching styles. As a teacher with children this has been difficult because it is impossible to find a sitter for 40 min. once a week, what do we do with our kids? The other piece that many of us have mentioned is that 40 min. goes really fast and sometimes it is not enough time. I noticed in one of the previous posts that someone had mentioned that they did not like a program because they felt rushed to learn it. Many of us feel that way in the short 40 min. PLC time, we just get started into something and it is over. The question remains-- How do you find just the right amount of time?

Permalink Reply by Melanie Farmer on February 22, 2010 at 10:53am

The school I taught had incorporated a blended model that I really liked and allowed for PD time or team meetings on Wednesday mornings. We had three days on a bell schedule with 50 minute periods and two days where we saw each class for 90 minutes over the span of the two days, and one of those days students got a late start so teachers could have meetings. I think the schedule was great because it provided us the time to meet as well as time to organize our schedule to plan more student centered lessons during the block periods.

Our administrators used the time to start discussions with the hope that we would carry on the discussions in our teams. The administrators would pick themes for us to focus on each year for our personal and professional development. They also got us a book to read over the course of the year and I believe they offered some college credit for educators who desired to meet on a regular basis to discuss the book. I think engagement and motivation is key. The reality is that with so many demands on a teacher it is hard to do 'one more thing' but if the content is pertinent an helpful it will motivate teachers to carry on the discussion, even into the lunch room.

Permalink Reply by Stacy Aschenbrenner on February 21, 2010 at 11:07pm

1. What environments provide the best learning opportunities for professional development and what are characteristics of the group promote rich learning experiences?

I agree with Thomas when he picked the quote on the bottom of page 106. I also highlighted that quote.

“On-the-job professional development programs that are most beneficial when they are long term, focused on students’ learning, and linked to the curricula.”

This is what TRC is all about. I have seen almost more gains from my TRC teachers from the PD days we have had this year than in all of the PD days we have had in a single school year. The reason being that they are face-to-face, focused, and relevant to what is going on in their classroom. I am on the Professional Development Committee for my school, and for a while now I have been trying to get our committee to take a different look out how we as a building deliver professional development.

I believe that embracing the belief in differentiated instruction also applies to professional development. Let teachers choose what they want PD on, let teachers choose if they want to work in small groups, large groups, or even individually. There are some great podcasts for professional development. Let teachers get their PD as they are walking and/or running before or after school.

http://www.pdtogo.com/Welcome.html
http://www.podcastforteachers.org/
Tech Chick Tips Podcast—You can subscribe to this podcast through the iTunes store.

Just as the way we teach and the way kids are learning is ever changing, professional development should take on those changes. I can’t speak for other districts, but for the district I work in has not embraced change. Teachers dread professional development and have a negative attitude towards it. I think that there is lots we can do to CHANGE this.

Permalink Reply by Melanie Farmer on February 22, 2010 at 10:46am

Thanks for sharing the podcast links, Stacy! I can't wait to check them out :-)

Permalink Reply by Casey Wise on February 22, 2010 at 11:56am

We have found that with our TEC program the best trainings are face-to-face. With the growing responsibilities teachers face it is often hard for them to dedicate time to virtual classes. We schedule 5 full day trainings and 10 after school trainings to work with the teachers in our program. The principals have to approve their application and guarantee that they can have the 5 days off that they will need to participate. This has worked out wonderfully and we have seen an increase in our teacher participation over the past 2 years. I liek teh quote that Thomas added in his post from page 106. We are constantly reviewing and practicing the skills teachers need to be successsful at using a new technology piece in tehir classrooms.

We have tried some virtual PD for technology through our Moodle site. They were highly requested, but when it came down to it we have had very few sign up and complete them. I am not sure if it is a time issue or the fact that our online courses had to have assignments with them to ensure that they were completing the work.

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