Week 5 - Strategic Leadership

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Deborah Bantam on February 23, 2010 at 10:36pm

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?

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

The best learning opportunities for professional development for me are face to face. I think it depends on the kind of learner you are, as to your preference. The term "learning community" suggests all members, teachers and admin. are coming together to enhance the curriculum as well as learning tasks for students. The group needs to work together closely to bring a rich learning experience. Each member of the group needs to be a trusted and involved member. I totally agree with the reference in the book to "The development of a shared vision is essential and leads to essential growth and development of a professional learning community. The time to meet and talk as referenced in the book are a must. Our school meets once a week for 40 minutes and have found that we still run out of time for learning. Sometimes the time is spent doing "housekeeping" and other times our time has been well spent collaborating and working together as a community of learners. Our challenge is to keep focused on learning within the time framework.

Permalink Reply by Mary Lawrenz on March 1, 2010 at 11:19pm

Better late than never, huh! It's called being mired in assessment coordinating duties...ugh!

I, too, much prefer face-to-face professional development, but I have enjoyed the flexibility of some virtual PD experiences and classes that I have taken. When we are learning something new, I appreciate having enough time to experiment, to practice, or to create whatever it is we are discussing for that day. One of my greatest frustrations with our district in-services and some of our trainings that we have participated in for our charter school this year is the lack of the time to absorb and apply. We are often given lots of strategies or resources, with little time to explore.

Our building leadership team has been frustrated this year because we had one in-service day scheduled during the school year. We've gone from an all-day inservice once a month with an every Wednesday 2-hour late start, to an all-day inservice every nine weeks, to this year's one day over the last three years -- board priorities and budget cuts! It has been difficult to communicate and collaborate this year. Our teacher's duty day begins 15 minutes before our students arrive at school--hardly enough time to meet. We have too many conflicts with coaches and organization sponsors being busy to have things after school. Because are staff is dedicated, we do have meetings before the duty day begins and our teachers come. But we can't do the extended professional development that is needed during that 30-minutes or so.

Thank goodness for our TRC time; it has been so rewarding for us, but I feel so badly that our entire staff hasn't had this luxury. Our TRC team has had the opportunity to share, to tweak plans, to get help and support as needed. We are learning from each other and having a great time doing it!

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