Teacher in Development

The opening post to some deeper explorations around community building, professional development, and learning portfolios. This is an incomplete thought, and as always, wide open to your comments.

The Frame:
In the throws of setting up a professional development program for 2006 and beyond.

Key thinking points:
1. Community building for sustained collaborative development (Communities of Practice.) - but how do you accomplish that when your teachers are 100% mobile in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world?
2. Professional Development that is BY the teacher, not done TO them. Where our institution lays out minimal “must knows” and certification requirements, then begins to step away from “guiding” the developmental process. Moving towards an “organized chaos” development program where teachers explore what is valuable to their immediate practice.
3. Learning Portfolios - that refuse to restrict, but encourages autonomous, empassioned life-long learning.
———-

Dave Tosh has a fantastic post around blogging and community which I think is particularily relevant to what I’ve been thinking about as of late.

Reflecting around our school’s rather unsuccessful team blog, and if we should attempt to use it this year, Tosh gave me some good food for thought - and in many ways confirmed my own developing ideas on the issue: development, and the tools employed, are never one size fits all.

“I suppose it is technically true that creating a blog means I am part of the blogging community. However, the social capital from being part of this community will vary greatly from person to person, often blogging can be quite isolating which can have a knock on effect with motivation and engagement.

This is not to say the blog does not play an important part in building a successful community - there just needs to be a variety of tools to suit different needs and individual preferences as well as reason and purpose.” (Tosh 2006)

I think one of my mistakes from last year was thinking that the launch of a group blog would somehow create a wildly successful learning community, where everyone would instantly sell out on the idea of net based collaboration.

Tosh touches on a few of the reasons why I feel this did not fly: 1. Collaborative blogs are “technically” community based - but the true value and appreciation of that membership will vary from person to person. 2. One size really does not fit all - one tool does not fit for all. There are people out there who really don’t enjoy computers, blogging, the internet etc. They just aren’t wired in that way. Forcing them into our 2.0 mold destroys development instead of fosters it. 3. “Community First - tools second.” Nuff said.

So how do you build the offline community first? I think if you’re dealing with a team of teachers, the offline - face to face aspect of community needs to become paramount. If there is no f2f developing community to begin with, virtual endeavors at community building will fall flat.

“Community first…tools second.” - Dave Tosh.

So I see that as our first area of focus: encouraging community within a group of teachers who are widely spread, and very mobile.

Next Post: Professional Development that meets the school’s requirements, and then pushes for autonomy.

Fascinating Related Resources
The Whales-Wide Web (ePortfolio category) - by Graham Attwell. (Via Dave Tosh)
(http://www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell/weblog.categories/e-Portfolios)

E-Portfolios for Learning- by Dr. Helen Barrett
(http://electronicportfolios.org/wordpress/)

innovate: Designing e-Portfolios To Support Professional Teacher Preparation- by Tu Tran, Robert Baker, and Margo Pensavalle