Comments on: No Chicken or Egg Choice

By: 91 EdTech Resources You May Have Missed–Treasure Chest January 15, 2012 | Tech the Plunge

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:00:04 +0000

[...] No Chicken or Egg Choice « My Island View–Which should we support first for the best result, a reform in student learning (teaching methods), or a reform in teacher learning (PD)? [...]

By: MVEducationServices (@MVedservices)

MVEducationServices (@MVedservices) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 02:42:04 +0000

I’ve seen school culture improve dramatically with PD included in the working week. The weekly staff meeting became a planned PD session. “Briefings” were done by email. Only issues that needed staff consensus were discussed in a meeting
As the staff became more skilled, the PD became less admin-driven and began to focus on individual staff needs. All PD was about what teachers could use in their classrooms to enhance student learning.
To make it work, PD sessions were interactive, not “death by Powerpoint”.

By: Kimberley Rivett (@krivett1)

Kimberley Rivett (@krivett1) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:59:32 +0000

Some excellent points! Also the cost for schools to send staff on PD is huge – especially for conferences out of town. I think that there are several excellent and simple ways to combat both problems – staff meetings start with a ‘smack down’ (using a googledoc) to utilise the first 10 minutes of meetings for sharing what tools/sites/skills people are using. At syndicate meetings, we always start with a shared time which acknowledges everyone’s ability to try something new and then develops a culture of sharing. Every school has resident experts in some area so having ‘techie brekkies’ means that new knowledge can be shared then also. We have cluster PD too – organised by us as teachers AT NO COST – when we get together for a day/afternoon to share new learning and new ideas. They are EduCamps and we just go for as little or as much as we can of the day or session. Teachers are becoming increasingly more responsible for initiating their own PD and gathering people around them in their own and other schools who can drive their learning. I think we need to drive the changes in our schools if we can and then seek further afield when we need more.

Perhaps my opinion then on the egg/chicken is this…what about the hen? We need to shift the minds of the administrators and curriculum developers too – perhaps when they are on board and have reformed their thinking, the rest will be a natural flow on? Hmmmm.

By: John at TestSoup

John at TestSoup — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:37:29 +0000

This is a great essay! I’m glad to see that you were inspired to write something from that #edchat — it seemed like you had a lot of great thoughts on the subject. You made it onto my list of favorite tweets so many times I had to cut some of your comments for the sake of brevity.

I’ll be sure to post a comment linking back to this post when my summary/analysis post of the conversation goes up on our blog tomorrow.

By: believefundraising

believefundraising — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:07:49 +0000

It is amazing the passion that surfaces in individuals as they start to discover all that awaits them in the PD realm regardless of the line of work. Personally, I found other experts to discuss issues with, cut hours off my work week by using technology more effectively, read books that changed my outlook and felt better connected to my goals. It may not be as complicated as it seems if we can harness that excitement when the discovery starts.

By: Molly Smith

Molly Smith — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:12:40 +0000

I agree with you on many levels. Often we make an assumption that teachers simply do not want to change. While that might be true of some, there are likely other factors at work, including time and money. Professional development takes one, the other or both of those. Even free PD like Twitter networks come with the cost of time. The motivation needs to be great for teachers to commit precious time needed to really keep up with the times. For schools to provide more time even for free PD, there is a cost. With time so scarce, teachers tend to want to be efficient with their PD, and hesitate to commit time to something they cannot immediately use. Then implementing new ideas takes a commitment of more time to rethink and rework lesson plans. I have been thinking about this a lot, too. Thanks for the post/

By: Ana Cristina Pratas

Ana Cristina Pratas — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:21:33 +0000

Excellent points! I would add one more – if teachers see how PD does help them in their daily practices, they would also be more motivated to attend PD sessions. Often there is no link between PD and teachers’ realities. And of course, often the real PD determiners are time and costs – both which institutions should bear in mind and help support their staff’s professional motivation and development.