Inspiration for today: http://www.writingproject.org/cs/nwpp/print/nwpr/2137
On Writing Well, the National Writing Project, and the Future (2005).
During the annual NWP meeting in 2004, Richard Sterling gave a speech that resonates today. In his speech, Sterling addresses several of the concerns we have mentioned as a group (Ann, Crystal, and Richard). At the same time, he notes that valuable strides are being made but there is, of course, the need for continued growth.
The theme that struck me was the idea that professional development is key to success, yet often hard to follow through. Sterling says: "Powerful professional development in the hands of knowledgeable teachers can, and does over time, change and improve classroom practice. Even the No Child Left Behind Act insists in its documents that professional development must be long term and sustained. So why is so much of it not ? Many districts are driven by external concerns—adequate yearly progress (known as AYP), state assessments, and the threat of action if results cannot be shown within a short period of time."
Those "external concerns" surely feel internal to me. We take two steps forward through research and exploration, but are often forced to take a step back to meet state demands and district requirements.
Sterling addresses another whopper of an idea in the following quote: "In many ways, our task is more complex than when paper and pencil and typewriter were the only tools available. Our work to improve the “craft of writing” in Zinsser's terms—learning to use the tools of writing well—for different audiences and purposes, with this increasing array of technology at our students' fingertips, is daunting." So true. Technology is wonderful, helpful, innovative, and rapidly changing! We work so hard to bridge the gap, only to hear one day later about the latest and greatest. Professional development so often goes sour because something bigger and better comes along. It takes guts to stick to one idea or program, but we never want to risk missing out on the new.
It reminds me of a recent exchange between our tech coordinator and myself. She came to me with a CD and said "Here. I'm hoping you can use this graphic organizer program in your room. Go home, explore, and let me know if I should install it." I did as she asked, only to find that the program, developed in 2000, was no longer compatible with our computers and would not download. Ah, technology....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I cannot agree more with the idea that effective professional development is one of the missing links in seeing technology integration come to fruition. It's one of the themes that pops up in almost every piece of literature as a suggestion for improvement. "Long term" and "sustained" as the author points out are critical. I have been teaching for 12 years and I cannot tell you the number of themes we have worked on from year to year. Just when a few teachers approach "buy in" and actually get excited about it, the theme changes and we no longer care about any of the projects, logs, collaboration, etc. that we just spent an entire school year on.
In my mind teachers should be allowed to pursue an area of professional development that they feel "passionate" about and something that they can look at, study, apply, etc. to their own classroom. Adminstrators have to loosen the leash a little bit and trust that as professionals we can use our time "responsibly". It seems to me that if we have an "inservice" day and what is at the top of my mind is the stack of papers that need grading or the project that needs tweaking for next week or the technology that needs to be in place, then it should be up to the teacher to decide how to use that time. If getting those things out of the way frees up time later to use for pursuing the professional development, then so be it.
In addition, there has to be more money and time invested in motivating teachers to really "buy-in." I trust you to follow your passion, and I will hold you accountable, but you may proceed as you see fit. Here's the extra time to do it and hey, how about some funding too. I know there will be people who take advantage of the freedom, but what happens to those people in other professions?
Great points, Ann. And, as Laine said, it is nearly impossible to keep track of every new educational technology innovation. Should we as educators, then, give up on the idea that there needs to be some massive pedagogical shift (as I asserted in my first paper for this course) in order to most effectively integrate educational technology across the board? If so, it would seem that the technology would shift from what I termed an imperative for change to a tool for improvement.
It might make more sense to start with sound pedagogy and curricular objectives and then -- to borrow the idea set forth in Understanding by Design (Wiggins & Mctighe, 2006) -- work backwards from there. Professional development should then focus not on educational technology itself; instead, it would focus on using technology as an instructional delivery tool and not the impetus for shaping curriculum as I initially thought necessary.
Computer-based educational technologies are ubiquitous and will likely continue to be for the remainder of human existence. The question is, how do we best shape the learning experience for our students with the tools we have available. I guess that's been the question since Socrates and the boys were hanging around talking about life. Only Socrates didn't have a podcast....
Hi Laine, this is Joe (TA)
You've identified a problem and illustrated it quite well. The question is, what are the solutions we need to seek to overcome professional development problems? I believe it stems from them we'll likely discuss numerous times. When people hear "technology", they think about material things like radios and computers. However, technology can also be a process. This is a concept that is difficult for educational technologists to focus on, but it is much more difficult for policy makers at the school, district, and state levels. As such, I'm never surprised to find out that a school owns 20 MacBook laptops but only uses them in the library for browsing the internet with one student to each laptop. Now, if I only knew of a group of tech-savvy and intelligent teachers that could help policy makers learn more about educational technology...
Laine, I can't tell you how many times we've filled out surveys at our school asking what types of professional development we would be interested in, and yet none of mine have ever come into fruition. I would venture to say that very little of my colleagues ideas have either. Your article stated, "All teachers, of course, need a way to participate in the building and sustaining of professional learning communities throughout their careers", and yet, I don't think I've been too involved, unless you consider my own efforts in this program. :)
Post a Comment