Danielle: The Nature of Professional Development

How much of a teacher’s professional life should be spent in professional development? How about a coordinator? An administrator? What constitutes professional development? Taking a class, going to a conference, watching a webinar or attending a committee are certainly all activities that everyone in the education field will agree are professional development related, so long as the class, conference, webinar and/or committee are education related. 

What about less organized activities? Collaborative planning, data analysis of student work, book groups about education-related material and peer observations have all come to be recognized as professional development too. Over many decades, the nature of professional development has evolved to include much more than organized conferences and seminars, and rightly so.

A week or so ago, I laughed when I read a friend’s post on Facebook, which read, “Pinning lesson plans and education research on Pinterest should earn us CEUs.” It occurred to me, however, my account on the same social media site has nearly five times the number of lesson plans than anything else. In the last month, I had to open a professional Twitter account in order to attend National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) event chats. Since then, I’ve used it exclusively to keep track of interesting education sites, articles, thoughts and blogs. Oddly, Twitter and Facebook are nearly essential to keeping on top of the latest in education news, since many groups post information there first.

I discovered over the summer that LinkedIn was another essential social networking site. I joined several discussion groups which provide me not only with the latest information, but free resources! Through my LinkedIn connections, I’ve gotten free books and found websites I’d never have thought to try.

There are definitely days when checking all of my social networking sites feels like my full-time job. I find it overwhelming sometimes and I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into! I have found that a separate, professional e-mail address that isn’t linked to school helps keep the e-mail digests to a minimum on days when you aren’t up for tackling the masses.

I find myself laughing alongside my older students; they understand this world so much better than I do! As teachers, we need to adapt. I find it troubling that as an adult society, we tend to treat social networking as something silly or frivolous. If kids and teenagers are gravitating toward social networking then we need to harness the power within it to connect with students and each other.

What makes it even more challenging is that many districts have decided that social networking isn’t just frivolous, it is also dangerous. Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube and even LinkedIn are blocked at many schools. Blocking access to these sites cuts teachers off from these powerful resources. It also cuts off the ability for teachers and students to connect through classroom Facebook pages, which have proved so successful in many districts. Worse, it cuts off the all too important conversation that needs to occur about internet safety and privacy.

Is there a happy medium? How do we protect students and still empower teachers to use the available technology to educate them?

Comments

[Tim Larrabee]

As part of my education program I have often been compelled to enter the world of blogs, facebook, twitter, pintrest, etc. as an indoctrination into the resources available to teachers through the ever increasing networks in the cyber world. Often, especially as a student trying to balance my time between school work, classroom placements, family, friends, etc. I have felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of information that is out there. I am happy that it is there and I often draw from this well to learn from those who have gone before me and those who are walking the path alongside me but I don't ever see myself being able to keep track of it all.

[Sheena McKibben]

I definitely agree that time spent on social media sites, such as Pinterest, should count as professional development. I know I spend countless hours online looking up activities, lesson plans, reading articles, and other activities that are classroom related. There are so many resources on the internet: community discussion boards, sites to buy lesson plans, research articles, etc. Perhaps these activities could be logged and then used to earn credit for professional development.

[Hailey K]

Danielle,
This made me giggle a little because my mom is a principal and people always ask her when she is going to get a facebook and she always replies, "When would I have time for facebook?" I feel your pain! I get my emails sent to my phone thinking that would help me keep up, and yet I still find ways to fall behind. We are currently trying to find ways to communicate with parents using technology on websites, but trying to find ways to keep privacy and also the fact that some families don't have access to these resources in mind is hard to do. We have some families that don't have email or access to a computer, so communication with them is relied on snail mail and phone calls... which these days is not reliable! Thank you for your share... something we should all keep thinking about!!

[Kayla]

As you said, technology and social networking has become so prominent in many people’s lives. I know of many people that use Facebook, Pinterest and other social networking sites to share and learn information that will help them in their classroom. These have turned out to be great tools to communicate with other educators, share lessons, share behavior management ideas, ask advice, and learn about tools and skills that we can use in our classrooms. These websites can also be more involved with the students in a class for example, a classroom website or Facebook page. If these sources benefit students and teachers, I think they are great resources for the education system as long as internet safety is discussed and taught when using these resources. We should take advantage of the knowledge and advice of others that share items on these sites, especially if they are free!
Thanks for the post!

[Emma]

This has been the hot topic of conversation at the school I'm student teaching at for the the past couple months. We are one of the schools where we are cut off from any social networking sites during the school hours. Recently, though our technology coordinator, superintendent and principals came together and got a happy medium. They agreed to allow teachers to access social networking sites before students came to school each morning and that once the school day started, they would be allowed to use those sites if they had pulled it up and left it running. They did throw in one other stipulation. If they are going to use these sites, they needed to send the principal a copy of the site and the reason behind them using it before they could use it in class. I'm also at a school where the principal is very involved and likes to do surprise visits. This has worked wonders for us. Students learn about internet safety during their technology time and do presentations on them throughout the school year. They are also blocked from the sites at all times. A problem that we have found is that if teachers use their iPads to load the social networking sites, the students will access them through that. But this was fixed easily enough with a passcode on the iPad itself and on the web browser that changes every 90 days. But all in all, I think that we have found some sort of a happy medium.

[Kristine Harris]

Previously teachers were paid to work extra hours and collaborate in a Professional Learning Community, (PLC), however, it is now a condition of our employment, and no compensation for the extra hours are given. Also, our team had to create norms and smart goals to govern our collaboration. This has helped in student learning because we are not calendaring, doing mapping pacing guides, but soley talking about assessments, interventions and identifying high risk students. This has helped student learning and test scores the last few years at our school. We were just recognized as the winner of the National Breakthrough school, which I contribute to effective and focused Professional Learning Communities.

[Brittany]

Thanks for posting this! I haven't thought about using social media in the classroom as a positive way for students to learn. It is so easy to get distracted by all of the personal things these sites have to offer. This is something I will consider incorporating into my lessons and teaching. I think that we NEED to teach our student what is okay and appropriate for the internet. They need to know how to be safe on them because there are some dangerous things/ people out there. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention!

[Jo]

It continues to amaze me how much technology and the social media has changed our lives...not only personally, but professionally. I realize that Facebook is a great tool to keep up with friends, but it can also be time consuming! Students lives seem to revolve around technology on a daily basis. Because of this, I thin that it's time for schools to find a happy medium between social networking and students. Perhaps create Facebook pages for the students to log in. They could use the pages to help with homework, give a compliment, or keep abreast of school activities.

[Jenkinsn35]

I could not agree with you more. Just to comment on this post I used my Facebook account to sign-in. Our education world is becoming more and more Web 2.0 based, and we need to embrace that. You are right, some of the best ideas come from Pinterest or Twitter, because that is where we collaborate with teachers from all over the world. How can we grow as educator's if we are blocked off from the outside world? We need to help each other through the use of social media, and stop being so afraid of it. Newton once said, "If I have seen further, it was by standing on the shoulder of giants." As teachers we cannot develop professionally without the help of our colleagues.

[Alison]

I never thought of how great a resource all the social media sites can be. Now that you made me think of it I can really see how they can have some great information for teachers to use. It is sad that it is blocked at school because it would be nice to use the tools during the school day. As a future teacher I will be taking advantage of these tools, staying on top of educational news, and learning new and fun lessons daily. Keep up the great work!

[Jerry]

I agree that there is a disconnect between schools and social networks. I have to skirt the rules a little even to access this blog (since blogs are blocked by our software). Furthermore, it is rather ridiculous that youtube is blocked given that there are so many valuable resources available on youtube that could/would benefit our students. I do not know what the solution is, and it's probably different for every district, but there is value and opening up the can of worms might actually limit/prevent some of the horror stories we see in the news every now and again.

[Tonya]

How can we rethink the time issue and how can we use our time better to collaborate on understanding what students are learning and not learning? Not having the time to talk and think together about teaching and learning is the biggest barrier to providing effective professional development. When we learn how to utilize our networks better and when we reconfigure a teacher's day so that they have time built-in to meet with each other about student learning, we will begin to see more teachers designing learning environments, activities and assessments which fit their particular students better.