Connecting and Communicating Ideas

A Call to Action

The start of a new school year is always an exciting time for educators.  We get to catch up with our colleagues and chat about summer adventures.  During the first week, I always anticipate the learning I will have the opportunity to experience in preparing for my learners.  For most of the last 13 years, I have been disappointed in the lack of variety in my professional learning experiences.  Why does it have to be this way?  Districts spend tens of thousands of dollars on Professional Development (PD) for teachers, and the results are mediocre (Gulamhussein, 2013).  With all that money and time that district specialists spend developing “meaningful” training, teachers should be growing as professionals.  This is just not happening with how we currently tackle PD development.  

The biggest mistake in supporting educators’ learning is the delivery of short PD experiences that ends with the obligatory survey of one’s attendance and a handout that ends up in the trash or buried in a random filing cabinet.  We are encouraged to create and plan innovative and engaging lessons for our learners, but we are not walking that same walk with our teachers.  Teachers are not given those experiences when it is our turn to be learners.  We must approach PD from a different angle.  The days of “sit and get” learning are antiquated and ineffective at promoting our educators’ growth.  One could see how this could directly correlate with students not finding success and growth in public education.  Professional learning should be ongoing and collaborative. Educators must be given choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities (Harapnuik, 2018).

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Professional Learning Outline

I have tried to wrap my head around what I would want a learning experience to be for myself as an educator; I always end at what I feel like when I have those few “A-ha” moments that occur during a training. Those typically lead to thoughts of “How would that work with my learners?” and “Will it be as effective as the demonstration leads me to believe?” The uncomfortable feeling sets in, and I decide not to try the amazing activity for fear of failure. This school year has afforded me the opportunity to be uncomfortable and take risks for the benefit of my learners. The failures and mistakes continually drive me to reassess my practices and to learn how to assist them better. 

Uncomfortableness needs to be a feeling experienced in a way that can lead to understanding (EdCan Network Le Réseau ÉdCan, 2016). We could foster that opportunity with the correct approach in Professional Learning (PL). By creating PL with the 5 Principles of Effective PD (Gulamhussein, 2013) at the helm, we can have less anxiety about those uncomfortable feelings. We need to get our hands on a new strategy or learning model. We do this with time, support, and active learning. By walking down this learning path, we can better facilitate those moments of productive failure (Song & Kapur, 2016) within our classrooms through our own struggles. 

In my discussions with my colleagues about the PL we are offered, the overwhelming opinion is that most of the experiences are a waste of valuable time. My goal is to change that notion and set a new precedent for PL in my district. My presentation will be a collaborative approach. This starts with the elimination of the “stage” by doing this, I set the tone of the learning from the beginning. No one is more important than anyone else. It is important to establish that we are all on the same team working toward our goal, student success. By listening to the needs of my fellow teachers, I can create a meaningful opportunity to make connections and support educators that want to grow and improve through best practices.

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Putting It All Together

As this course is coming to an end, I am reflecting on progress I have made in the development and planning of my Innovation Plan. This course has allowed me to take a quick detour and shift my planning for the benefit of my coworkers. I see this opportunity to approach PL in a less traditional way an opportunity to inspire those colleagues that do not readily embrace change . Veteran teachers find shifting to a more digital model as trying to fix something they may not see has “broken.” I want to show them that, with collaboration and few new tech skills, a teacher can implement a blended learning model that will better prepare our students for 21st century learning. Not only are we preparing our learners for higher education, are preparing them for the learning they will conquer beyond those college years.

With the ally of time, I will be able to offer a PL experience that will equip a teacher to find that success in their classes. The hour-long sit-and-get professional development is not always the ideal way to learn a new strategy or activity. The plan is for a semester of collaborating and learning about Blended Learning, but my intention is to begin a dialogue between teachers that will expand beyond our school community. And just maybe that collaborative spirit will reach other campuses with the district and beyond.