Supporting Teachers' ICT Curriculum and Pedagogy
Something that I've really come to value over the years as I've delved deeper and deeper into the world of teaching is the potential of learning from others. In an environment where I have always considered myself to be much "greener" than others, I rely on and depend on the expertise, experience, and knowledge of other teachers to help support my own learning. Thus, the topic this week about helping to support one another's learning is something that I can really connect with.
Back in China, with the small number of staff that we had to work with, professional development could only be achieved in person by sharing with one another what we know. We didn't have the luxury of attending PSA's or other professional development workshops due to the relative isolation we lived in in our dingy, backwater countryside town. Each month at our professional development workshops, the administration tried to cater to our need for learning about new resources and technology by offering one small workshop demonstration whenever they could, which (sadly) wasn't always a monthly thing if there were other topics of urgent importance to cover. Sometimes they were useful, sometimes they weren't. A majority of our staff weren't very tech-savvy, so I daresay that they found a lot of the workshops more useful than I did. Being in China also limited the number of resources we could actually use without a VPN, as I've described previously, so I had felt rather deprived of new tools by the time I came back to Canada.
The complaint that I often hear about sharing and collaborating is the lack of time that teachers have to spend on it, and thus we really need to maximize the amount of time that we have to share. So I have a few strategies in mind to help with that.
1. During my very first day teaching at my current temporary job, we had a lunch and learn in the library that I participated in. This was a strategy that I have not yet heard about before, but makes absolute sense to me because, well, when teachers are gathered together and eating, are we not talking about our teaching practices anyway? It's only natural that we would extend it to using the time for professional development (and the free food never hurts either). The teacher librarian (or a rotating team of teachers) can decide on a monthly topic of inquiry to explore, share, and discuss with the staff via videos and articles that can allow for more school-focused professional development outside of Pro-D time.
2. We (myself included) spend a lot of time on our phones nowadays, so what if we use that time more wisely and use Twitter professionally? Last week I talked about wanting to engage in Twitter more as a professional - I think getting the whole staff on board to use Twitter and share ideas and resources that they find would be very beneficial for everyone. From retweeting things that we see to sharing links to fun lesson ideas or useful resources, Twitter can be a space where everyone is collaborating on developing their professional practice 24/7.
3. Having time at staff meetings to share out resources that we find can help to build our teaching toolkits. The first administrator I worked with professionally had a habit of starting off each staff meeting with shout-outs to staff members who had been helpful around the school - why not do the same with resources that staff have used? The teacher librarian, as someone who sees the staff a lot, can ask staff members before staff meetings if they have stumbled upon a useful digital resource that they have used successfully to share at the meeting. A quick presentation can be typed up and used at the meeting to share about the resource. The TL can also be ready with a resource if none of the staff members had found anything for that month.
4. Staff members can have a professional reading list posted in a public space for all teachers to access. This could be included as part of a "reading door" for promoting literacy at a school, so students can see that teachers are reading for both personal and professional reasons. It does not have to be a physical display either; websites like Goodreads can help to review and share books that teachers have read. While I haven't personally explored how to use Goodreads in depth myself, I believe it should be possible to create groups and lists of book recommendations with others, so this would be easily achievable in a staff group.
References:
Goodreads. (2018). Goodreads. Retreived from https://www.goodreads.com/
Phillips, P. (2017, January 4). Personalizing professional development for teachers by teachers. EdSurge. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-01-04-personalizing-professional-development-for-teachers-by-teachers
Salandy, P. (2013, November 18). 12 benefits of a learn at lunch program. AMA Playbook. Retrieved from https://playbook.amanet.org/12-benefits-of-a-learn-at-lunch-program/
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| Ellagrin | Shuttershock |
Back in China, with the small number of staff that we had to work with, professional development could only be achieved in person by sharing with one another what we know. We didn't have the luxury of attending PSA's or other professional development workshops due to the relative isolation we lived in in our dingy, backwater countryside town. Each month at our professional development workshops, the administration tried to cater to our need for learning about new resources and technology by offering one small workshop demonstration whenever they could, which (sadly) wasn't always a monthly thing if there were other topics of urgent importance to cover. Sometimes they were useful, sometimes they weren't. A majority of our staff weren't very tech-savvy, so I daresay that they found a lot of the workshops more useful than I did. Being in China also limited the number of resources we could actually use without a VPN, as I've described previously, so I had felt rather deprived of new tools by the time I came back to Canada.
The complaint that I often hear about sharing and collaborating is the lack of time that teachers have to spend on it, and thus we really need to maximize the amount of time that we have to share. So I have a few strategies in mind to help with that.
1. During my very first day teaching at my current temporary job, we had a lunch and learn in the library that I participated in. This was a strategy that I have not yet heard about before, but makes absolute sense to me because, well, when teachers are gathered together and eating, are we not talking about our teaching practices anyway? It's only natural that we would extend it to using the time for professional development (and the free food never hurts either). The teacher librarian (or a rotating team of teachers) can decide on a monthly topic of inquiry to explore, share, and discuss with the staff via videos and articles that can allow for more school-focused professional development outside of Pro-D time.
2. We (myself included) spend a lot of time on our phones nowadays, so what if we use that time more wisely and use Twitter professionally? Last week I talked about wanting to engage in Twitter more as a professional - I think getting the whole staff on board to use Twitter and share ideas and resources that they find would be very beneficial for everyone. From retweeting things that we see to sharing links to fun lesson ideas or useful resources, Twitter can be a space where everyone is collaborating on developing their professional practice 24/7.
3. Having time at staff meetings to share out resources that we find can help to build our teaching toolkits. The first administrator I worked with professionally had a habit of starting off each staff meeting with shout-outs to staff members who had been helpful around the school - why not do the same with resources that staff have used? The teacher librarian, as someone who sees the staff a lot, can ask staff members before staff meetings if they have stumbled upon a useful digital resource that they have used successfully to share at the meeting. A quick presentation can be typed up and used at the meeting to share about the resource. The TL can also be ready with a resource if none of the staff members had found anything for that month.
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References:
Goodreads. (2018). Goodreads. Retreived from https://www.goodreads.com/
Phillips, P. (2017, January 4). Personalizing professional development for teachers by teachers. EdSurge. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-01-04-personalizing-professional-development-for-teachers-by-teachers
Salandy, P. (2013, November 18). 12 benefits of a learn at lunch program. AMA Playbook. Retrieved from https://playbook.amanet.org/12-benefits-of-a-learn-at-lunch-program/
Well done post that captures some very interesting differences in comparing your professional development experiences in China to back in Canada. Your first day sounded very useful as a lunch and learn is a great example of supporting our colleagues and school community. You came up with many specific strategies that can easily support your peers and also help engage them in ongoing professional development. A good post with many insightful recommendations.
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