Random Thoughts

I ran across a post today from Mary Ann Wolf at the Huffington Post about professional development.  She says:

A stand-alone workshop has less than a 5% chance of actually changing teacher practice in the classroom. However, if you add on-going and embedded professional development, provide professional learning communities where teachers interact with their colleagues, and ensure on-going support from coaches and administrative staff, the chance of really affecting teaching and learning increases dramatically — to nearly 90% (Joyce and Showers, 2002).

While Wolf goes on to talk about the way technology has made this kind of ongoing professional development possible, I was reminded of another way to get quality professional development that is not a one-shot deal but rather an on-going process: institutes put on by local sites of the National Writing Project.

Any of us who have gone through an Invitational Summer Institute put on by our local Writing Project site know the truth in what Ms. Wolf said.    If you go through the writing project, you  have those colleagues and coaches and on-going opportunities to learn from each other.  My Louisiana writing project friends continue to support me and encourage me.  My new New Mexico writing project friends feel like long last family.  They are here for me all the time. Because of my Writing Project experiences and these people who provide me support long after my first institute, my teaching is forever changed.  I am forever changed.

If you have a chance to participate in a Writing Project institute of any kind, I encourage you to take advantage of it.  It will be the best professional development you have ever had.  And it will transform your teaching.

I just got back from a training institute put on by the New Mexico Adult Education Association. It was the best PD I have ever received, I think.

Friday I attended an all-day session on TESOL run by John Kongsvick of TESOL Trainers. His focus was low-prep materials for use in the ESL classroom. A lot of what he talked about was not totally new to me, but it was really good to be reminded. He presented 8 strategies — including my favorite: Don’t do for students what they can do for themselves.

This morning I had the opportunity to talk with GED instructors from UNM-Gallup and Dine College. Although our teaching situations are very different, we found that we struggle with many of the same issues. It was great!

I was able to attend this institute at no cost. It was held at Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe, NM. The accommodations were lovely. The food was wonderful.

My boss sent out an email a few weeks ago asking who would like to attend. I was the only person who expressed interest, so I got to go. We could have sent 2 more people, but no one else was interested. I couldn’t believe it then, and I really can’t believe it now. We missed the opportunity to have a real core group of excited teachers working together to improve our program. Now, I am excited, but I am sure that excitement will be killed after about ten minutes back at work on Monday. That makes me sad.

I said a while back that I wanted to focus on adult education in this blog, and I have attempted to do so — without a lot of success. But I started reading adult ed blogs at least. A post on Technology for the Adult Education Instructor today caught my attention today. What it says is applicable to all levels of education, I think, but it is definitely true of adult ed.

Of course, schools have evolved. But has staff evolved as well? To some extent, yes, but is it enough? From the iPhone to Wi-fi to the Wii, technology is part of daily life for students. Yes, there are pockets of educators creating innovative 2.0 interactive Websites and Podcasts, but it is hardly a universal phenomena. The average instructor is satisfied with accessing 20th century technology. Many have changed (usually reluctantly) to LCD projectors and PowerPoint presentations but I am sure that in most every school there are still those using the overheads with abandon….

A lot of people have been saying this: that the problem is the current staff/ employees, not the difficulty in transitioning to whatever the new thing is. And I agree. It is the reluctance of teachers to change and our inability to envision a new way of teaching that slows us down. The technology is out there waiting for us.

And yet, I think about my own situation at the moment. I would willingly teach with all kinds of technology if my students had access to it. I would happily use the most modern and up-to-date gadgets if I had access to them during class. But I don’t. So what do I do? How can I exploit technology if I have only a chalkboard?

There are still ways to include technology in my teaching. My students, unfortunately, do not get to participate in it, but they can benefit from it anyway. At the very least, I can avail myself of the wealth of information that is out there and inform my teaching accordingly. I can provide my students who have Internet access with web addresses of sites that might help them with their study of English.

Something else that I can do, and something that intrigues me more than these other options, is to try find low-tech ways to enhance my students’ learning. What I am looking for are ways to encourage student investment in learning, connection both with the topic and with each other, and deep thinking. One tool that immediately comes to mind are HipBone games. There are others.

I think, then, that it all comes back to the teachers. Are we willing to change? I don’t think that technology will save us if we are unwilling to examine our own classroom practice and its suitability for our situation and our students. I think that there are times and places where overhead projectors are just fine — better than LCD projectors even. And I can use PowerPoint all day long, but it won’t help if the lesson I am teaching with it isn’t relevant to my students and their lives. It isn’t the tool as much as what we do with it that matters.

I believe that we, as teachers, are at the heart of education. We shape what happens in our classrooms by our action or inaction, by our creativity or lack of it. And that is where I see technology as critical. We can get our encouragement and our ideas from what others are doing. Technology gives us access to classroom practice in hundreds, if not thousands, of classrooms around the world. It gives us access to teachers who may be more creative than we are or who, at least, are ahead of us in learning about some of the options that exist. No other form of professional development is as personal and as universal at the same time.

The tools are out there. The knowledge exists. What remains to be seen is what we do with them.

Bud has an old post about professional development that really struck a chord with me. He says:

I think so many of the professional opportunities that teachers are afforded are races, mere dips of a toe into the waters of potential. There’s lots to do and not enough time to do it.

I feel that way about much of the professional development I have done lately. Maybe all of it. We don’t get a chance to really explore the possibilities of a thing before we move on to the next one. We seldom get the opportunity to try something out in our classes and then report back to the group. Reflection is what is missing from most professional development.

Bud goes on to say

I want sustainability. I want reflection. I think others want it, too. we don’t learn by racing. We learn by doing and reflecting and questioning.

One good thing that has come from my determination to blog every day until the end of the year has been the fact that I have read more blogs and I have reflected more on what I have read. I think that I am learning from this process; I know that I am. And I am determined to continue after the first of the year.

I don’t think it will be easy to continue this pace. I know that at times it will feel impossible. But I think I owe myself the time that it will take. I deserve it, actually!

Miguel’s posts usually make me think, and this one on professional development was no exception. I was struck, though, by his parting comment:

In the meantime, I’m glad that I embarked on the blogging adventure 2.5 years ago. I’m much further along than if I’d limited my conversations to traditional venues and people who I hope will embrace a different way of learning.

This ties, again, to what I have been thinking. Reflecting is good. Connecting is good. But blogging is better. What I have learned, the people I have “met” and interacted with since January, 2005, truly amaze me. There is no other way that I could possible have learned as much as I have through blogging and reading blogs.

I have taken three grad classes since I started blogging. None of them made me think as much as blogging has. None exposed me to the variety of thought and opinion as blogging has. Blogging nourishes me as a professional in a way that nothing else seems to. It inspires and challenges me on a daily basis.

Once again I find myself reading and very much liking what I read over at Creating Passionate Users. Kathy Sierra has a reminder for us all on the need to stay passionate (or enthusiastic, if you prefer, Aaron!) about what we do. She gives four tips in her post Creating a passionate…you:

1) Find a way to be around others who are passionate about the work you do.

2) Attend conferences.

3) Ask yourself, “What did I used to really love about this?” Remind yourself why you wanted to do this!

4) Learn something new.

Kathy’s ideas give us a clue, I think, to one value of blogging: our own professional well-being. Blogging puts us in touch with other people who care about the things we care about. It also is like a little mini-conference every day, and we can definitely learn something new.

So once again, I thank Kathy for helping me to understand my own field better by talking about hers.