Category: professional development
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What We Forget About Learning
What We Ignore About Learning I’m not sure why this is but it seems as if administrators and teachers forget all they know about learning when it comes to designing and participating in their own learning experiences. Professional development opportunities are generally set up as one time events, very often with no real-time relevance. In-service…
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Teaching Teachers to be Avid Learners
One quality of a teacher now and for the future is that we must be extremely avid learners. Because the pace of change is so great, we must expect to constantly be learning new information, new technologies, new ideas, and new methods. This is a difficult shift. Teachers spend an exorbitant amount of time trying…
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Getting Past Initiative Fatigue
Teachers and school communities are all too familiar with initiative fatigue. The education world is well known for introducing new initiatives and moving from one to the next without fully implementing anything. It’s not uncommon for veteran teachers to become numb to these changes and maybe a little bit cynical. In Vermont right now, we…
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Finding Time for Teachers
I have received two important pieces of feedback over the past several weeks regarding our implementation of #innovationhour to transform faculty meetings. After the first innovation hour, a faculty member came to find me. She said that she is usually so scattered when she is trying to do something new. The commitment to spend innovation…
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Traditions That Squelch Learning
Feeling guilty about having a good time? I get this pang of guilt when I learn something and it is actually fun. When I try to plan a learning activity, whether it is for kids or adults, and find myself trying to make it fun, I question its value. Why? Why do we do this?…
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21st Century Professional Development
As I have been engaging in research, collaboration and learning regarding personal learning and school transformation for the past year, I have continually encountered an irony that keeps nudging at me. We have discussed all the shifts in mindset that these changes will require. We have talked a lot about what will change for student…
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Personal Learning Plans for Everyone
As we move towards the use of personal learning plans in Vermont, I have really been wondering what it might look like in our current system. I set out on an individual professional learning path this summer in order to reflect on what it might look like for students. To be honest, I like…
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Ironic Teacher Professional Development
Earlier this week, I worked with members of my school leadership team to plan the initial inservice days of school. Now, inservice has a connotation for teachers that is mostly unpleasant. As we flood into school those first days, the complaints abound, as we discuss our summers, about how we would rather be in our…
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Collaborate With Anybody!
Collaborate With Anybody! As I was leaving my co-planning time today, I turned to my co-teacher and said something to the effect of “I love our co-planning period”. And I truly do, too. We are not only highly productive but we have transforming conversations that change the way we teach on a daily basis. The…