Teacher in Development

 

Via the Fast Company blog: Education: The Cream Is Rising

So does having high grades as a student teacher mean you’re going to create star performers out of your future students? The FC post seems to avoid unwrapping that point - but don’t you think it’s a rather important question to explore?

Perhaps the main thrust of the post was that the education field was attracting smarter talent…but does that mean anything on the front lines of the classroom?

In my opinion, not really. Most teachers are smart…but I’ve had more than my fair share of them who lacked the heart of a teacher.

For me, math was always my weak spot. (That’s why I’m a social worker who teaches English. I got as far away from math as I could.) There were concepts and operations that just never clicked with me, and though I’m sure I had really smart math teachers, not one of them had what it took to see my state of stall, and come along side to help me out. Or if they did, they quickly lost patience and moved on.

There’s more to being a great teacher than just having great marks on your training courses. (A really cool FC post that touches on this here:Talent is Everywhere (if you know how to look) Especially with teaching, I think there’s a lot to be said for talent, vocation, and heart - but I wonder how well DELTA or CELTA courses (or any other teacher training course for that matter) help you develop there?

Knowing the theories and facts about teaching is very important, but if you are lacking in the other areas like how to make what you know meaningful and understandable for your students, then prepare yourself: instead of inspiring your students to dig deeper and march forward, you’ll be great for a few (the smart, fast moving ones like you) but you’ll shut down the slow movers, and help perpetuate the idea in them that english class sucks, and I might as well give up on trying to learn the language in the first place.

Being a great teacher is more than just head knowledge. 

Photo Credit:

Teaching Math or Something: by     foundphotoslj

The Intro 

Was prepping for a meeting tomorrow with a company director. My mission: get approval for more class time. Presently, the company only has two hours a week alloted for each person to take English class. I know that you know that this amount of time is simply not enough, but he doesn’t seem to be very aware.

I met this guy once before, and noticed that his office was covered in cool statues related to jazz and music in general. The guy loves it. Then, thanks to reading this article ( using metaphores to help you connect with the people you’re trying to convince of something) I thought, maybe I could use his love of music as a way to convince him that more English study time was needed.

As I did a little research about how much pro musicians practice, I realized something…

The Realization

English teachers can learn a lot from professional musicians…

From Principles Of Practice - Music Teacher Magazine here are three ideas that can and should make there way into our teaching style:

"PRACTISE ONLY AS FAST AS YOU CAN RETAIN CONTROL Practice which is too fast leads to inaccuracies and works against the development of technical control. Every single mistake delays the leaning process more than one might expect. It takes much less time to make a mistake than to erase it from the memory. In fact, it is estimated that up to 20 correct repeats can be necessary to prevent the return of a single mistake. Mistakes which have been practiced are especially persistent, particularly rhythmical ones. It can be quite an effort to eliminate them completely, and it is sometimes almost impossible."(Principles of Practice, Isolde Schaupp - emphasis mine)

Point One: "Practice only as fast as you can retain control" 

Application: do students demonstrate control over those new grammar points you just introduced? Can they "control" that list of vocabulary - or are they just spitting out the right answer on your fill in the blank test?

Class time should make lots of room for "language control" to develop. (If we’re marching through our lessons in order to finish our course on time, do you think we’re promoting lang control? "Practice which is too fast leads to innaccuracies."

Point two: "… it is estimated that up to 20 correct repeats can be necessary to prevent the return of a single mistake."

Application: 20 correct repeats. 20 correct repeats. 20 correct repeats. 20 correct repeats. 20 correct repeats. 20 corr– ok, so I think you get the point. Repeating is, in my humble opinion, an underused - or abused - language learning power tool.

Underused in that teachers (or perhaps schools or HR folk,) simply don’t make time for it. Maybe repeats happen two or three times, but if you’re at a basic language level, repeating what you hear is the only way forward.

I am teaching a wonderful guy who is almost at square one in English. It’s slow. It’s VERY repetitive, it’s very repetitive, it’s very repeti- oops, there I go again. Really, we sometimes have to repeat a phrase or word so many times that I feel a little….silly. (Sorta feels like this sometimes: Steve Martin’s English class  (**If this little video doesn’t make you laugh out loud, I’ll give you your money back. 100% Guaranteed.)

Abused: Repeating can easily make your student feel like a moron. Watch yourself: don’t become impatient. Don’t laugh AT the student(heard horror stories of that from students) and if they seem to reach a frustration point, take a break and do something else. Return later.

Point Three: Focus Small - Focus on Quality.

"Only if one makes it a rule to practice in short passages can enough attention be paid to each detail." (Schaupp)

Application: Biting off more than you can chew is a common English student killer. Classes should be about "how well we can do this" vs. "how fast and far can we go?" Nuff said.

 

If you liked the connections, try exploring these articles…you might get some useful ideas:

BBC: Practice Makes Perfect 

How to Get to Carnegie Hall 

A Guide to Great Home Music Practice 

If you’ve ever gone freelance, or if you’re doing it now, you can likely identify with this:
You start off with a great big empty (or next to empty) bank account. The bills keep rolling in. The fridge keeps emptying. The kid needs new shoes. The car needs gas. The rent/mortgage needs paying…you know the deal.

That’s what I call BIG motivation. So you roll up your selves, and start working as hard as you possibly can in order to bring your income up. A few weeks or perhaps months pass, and you look at your schedule with great satisfaction: You’re loaded with classes. Cash flow is happening again, and the fam and the bill man are happy.

Packed teaching schedules are great for your wallet or purse. They’re great for keeping  your bills paid each month, and they’re great at keeping food in your fridge and your family clothed and taken care of.  But is a packed schedule good for quality classes? Sure it’s wonderful to have a full day of classes ahead of you, but how much quality time have you spent prepping them? How long have you spent on your own professional development as a teacher? (Remember: He who dares to teach, must never cease to learn.)

This has happened to me a bit. My schedule has filled out rather quickly, thank God! But I have noticed that I find myself outside my house most of the day. I’m either teaching, or commuting across the city for another class. At first, with only one or two classes, prep time was abundant. But as more and more clients came on board, I’ve seen my prep time dwindle down to the leftover scraps and crumbs of the day.

I recently read this post over at the Hello, my name is BLOG blog. Very thought provoking. Scott tells a story about a vetran toastmaster who always attended the toastmaster meetings:

During one meeting in late 2004, I spoke with a man named Les. He was a veteran of the organization, but told me that he still came every single week.

When I asked why he said: “Because the best swimmers are always in the pool.”

HELLO, my name is BLOG: The best swimmers are always in the pool

“The best swimmers are always in the pool.” Replace “swimmers” with teachers, and you have yourself something cool to think about. 

I’m sure every single reader here will agree: professional development, and planning are vital to providing relevant and engaging classroom experiences. But for some reason they are also usually the first thing we sacrifice as business, or the school year picks up. At least that’s how I’ve been noticing things in my own life these days.

Creating and sticking to planning periods are vital. I don’t have the luxury of a whole day to do this, but then again, few teachers do. But I do have a few hours here and there that I can scrape together. Perhaps it comes down to wiser uses of time, and learning how to place proper priority on the activities of my life.

Last night, Sunday, I spent a good hour planning out my classes for the week. I waded into my bloglines account for content ideas based on the needs of each of my classes. It was great. Before long, I was saving files to my delicious account to access later from my student’s computers. I was burning a podcast onto CD (I don’t have an mp3 player yet…:( ) and was printing off a few articles to use as reading material. My total prep time was only an hour or so, but I was able to get 90% of my classes ready for the week.

It felt great to wake up today knowing that I had a well prepared for full schedule ahead of me.
Again, I’m not expert on time management. The conversation is wide open: How do you leverage your time to plan and hone your skills as a teacher?

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I can’t complain about this: but as of late, I’ve been working A LOT. That’s the main reason why my posting rate on this blog has trickled down to next to nothing. I really like the fact that I actually have lots of work to do these days, when you’re freelancing and have no one else sending you stuff to do, steady work is vital to survival.

But I’ve been noticing something about my work: It has me really really busy, and being busy has meant that I have a lot less time to spend on planning classes, and finding content (I don’t use books).  My class schedule is completely full. In fact, I’ve had to turn away folk wanting to work with me as I still haven’t taken the next big step of hiring additional teachers. Now when you combine this with a family, work with my church, and trying to keep a semi normal social life with friends, there’s just not much time left over for doing things that, and I borrow from Steven Covey here: “sharpen the saw.”

I really identify with a recent post from AJ over at Effortless Acquisition entitled Burnout. He has some valuable insights around the need to step away from the daily grind and take a break:

They (breaks) provide time for teachers (and learners) to rejuvenate. They provide time to get away from the subject matter, do other things, and let your brain work unconsciously for a while.

Without this, we grow stale. Doing the same thing over and over again without a break is a recipe for burnout.

Effortless Language Acquisition: Burnout

Yep. Totally agree. While I don’t feel like I am drawing close to a mental break point, I have noticed a great lack in the time I have to really think about things. I have less time to think about, and plan classes, and I have less time to think about other things that are unrelated to work.

And one thing that I totally miss, is my contact with the blogsphere. Before I got into freelancing, I had way more opportunity to wade in, float around, and dig into the great ideas and practices that are out there. I felt like my own practice as an English teacher was greatly inspired by what I read from other blogging teachers. I felt connected, as if I were a part of a vibrant professional development community.

Now I feel like I’ve lost touch, and though I don’t think I ever occupied a place of greatness in the blogshere, I sure do feel like I’ve lost pace with the rest of the pack.

I still manage to skim through my bloglines account on a semi-regular basis, but I rarely have…or make…the time to slow down and dial in on the cool ideas I so often see there.

And AJ raises another pretty important point: If you freelance, vacation times are really difficult things to take. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid, and we all know that getting paid is pretty important. 

So it’s like freelancers are stuck in a vicious circle. 1. You live to find work. 2. You work to live. 3. You live to work. 4. I don’t think there’s a 4 - - the circle has begun.

So what can us freelancers do to tame things a bit? Afterall, I didn’t go for this way of life to become a slave to my work. I chose to freelance because I wanted the benefits of being able to be my own boss. I wanted to have the complete freedom to cancel a class if my son or wife got sick, and needed my presence at home. I wanted to have the freedom to live OUTSIDE an office, and be able to move around more at will. I wanted the freedom of having a better income. I wanted the freedom of doing things the way I thought or longed to do them, without “company rules” etc to slow me down.

And in almost every way, I have gotten those benefits. But that time issue, the time to recharge, think, and discover new things, seems to be suffering. And the vacation thing…well…totally. If I stop working for a week or two, it would seriously hurt financially.

So what to do?

1. I must learn how to stick to my budget.
If you want a great way to learn about finances, check out www.daveramsey.com he has a great podcast. Over the months, my wife and I have been learning about how to make and keep a budget. The making bit is the easiest part. The sticking to it, now that’s where we’ve really been suffering a lot. But it’s so terrible: we do great at spending every penny we earn on our budget before we actually get paid…but when the money actually comes in, we always seem to find a way to break some part of the budget. Very frustrating, but a work in progress I guess. But what I see here for us freelancers, is that we simply must learn how to put away money. We need to learn how to live on less than what we earn. Doing this for a while will help us move into stronger financial position to actually take a break for a week or so. If we simply would save a little every month, maybe we could actually continue to pay ourselves via our savings accounts when we go on vacation.

I know for me, budgeting my income better - no, I lie, STICKING to my budget will open great opportunities for mini breaks and vacations throughout the year.

2. Regular Planning Days.
I’ve experienced this with my own work: You can become so busy with your classes that you actually stop being effective in them. You race from class to class, your schedule completely filled out,  but what are you bringing with you that’s valuable? If you’re really turned onto the idea of delighting your clients, and if you’re really sold out on the idea of offering personalized content that actually MEANS something to them, you simply can’t run for long at full speed, and no planning time. Been there. Trying to stop that. So here are a few things I’m going to try out over the next weeks:
    A. Go to bed earlier…every single night. It’s a proven fact: The less you sleep, the less effective you’ll be the next day. Help your body out, and give it some rest.
    B. Wake up earlier, and use the extra hours to do things that really matter.
    C. Block off a nice chunk of time, at least once a week, to plan all classes for the week. Make this practice a habbit.
    D. Look for exercise activities. I’ve known this for years, but I fear that I’m a great procrastinator. Exercise reduces stress, and helps prevent burnout. We all know this, but how often do we really make time to do it? I know I don’t do it nearly enough.

So, I have my work cut out for me. I’m sure there are other things I could do to help keep myself fresh, on the cutting edge, and in good mental health…but for now I think I have a starting point. What do you think? What do you do to blance your life, and keep yourself fresh? I would love to learn from you!

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I’m not rich. I don’t have piles of cash sitting around my house or living in my bank account just waiting to be used for whatever purpose I desire. Nope. Most of the time, my money gets earned,  and very quickly leaves me to pay the telephone bill, cover mortgage payments, keep food on the table, and gas in my car. I use it to pay what needs paying.

So what about professional development? I firmly believe that if you’re a teacher, you should never stop learning. The moment you decide you’ve "arrived" and don’t need continuous development, is the moment you stop being relevant. Professional development is a vital part of being an excellent and effective teacher - in my personal case: a language teacher.

But what do you do when you can’t afford professional development? What do you do when you can’t afford to pay x thousand dollars to take a DELTA or CELTA course? What if you can’t afford to pay university tuition and books? Or worse still, what if you don’t even have access to such resources to begin with?

I don’t even understand what I’ve just found, but I want to pass it on to you. This link comes via Derek’s Blog

I just watched the vid cast by Richard Baraniuk (it’s short, interesting, and well worth your time.) and visited the Connexions site. All I can say is this: blown away.

Are you like me, and don’t have piles of cash sitting around, yet you would like to polish, and develop your teaching skills? Why don’t you take a peek at this: Teachers Without Borders: Course 1: Education for the New Millennium.

 This is the start point of a 5 course certificate program. All for free. I know where I’ll be spending some serious time over the next few weeks. What do you think?

I came across a really interesting blog today via EFL Geek.

If you’re an ESL teacher, you will likely find some very interesting thoughts to ponder from Scott Sommers. His post, The Power of Reading by Steven Krashen, left me with much to think about.

I’m big on equipping students to help themselves as they work on their English, or at least I’m trying to be.  I often ask, "What can you do outside of the classroom to continue working on your English?"

One of the primary suggestions is free reading.

Scott highlights some really interesting gaps that surface as free readers attempt to produce language. Gaps occur in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Even with massive free voluntary reading of appropriate texts, complete acquisition of the conventions of writing may not take place; even very well-read people may have gaps in their competence. Typically, these gaps are small, and many readers will recognize them as problems they experience. Here are some examples:

Spelling demons: Words like “commitment” (or is it “commitment”?) and “independence” (or is it “independance”?).

Punctuation: Does the comma go inside or outside the quotation mark?

Grammar:Subject-verb agreement is sentences such as: A large group of boys is (are?) expected to arrive tomorrow.

These errors usually do not make much of a difference in terms of communication. “Independance,” for example, communicates the idea just as well as “independence.” Obeying the rules, however, is important for cosmetic reasons; readers often find written language containing errors irritating, and this reaction can detract from a writer’s message." (Sommers, 2006)

I really liked his exploration into why this happens, and I think I agree. Why are free readers reading in the first place? Likely for enjoyment, with little attention paid to form and mechanics. 

 

 If I follow Sommer’s ideas correctly, solid teaching practice should be to encourage free reading, but also help students pay attention to the mechanics - the grammar, the punctuation etc.

I can attest to this myself. If you’ve been reading my blog at all, you’ll notice that I’m not very good with punctuation. My college English prof once said that I was a "promiscuous comma user." Punctuation was never something I’ve excelled at.

However, in an interesting and wild twist of fate, I’ve been asked to build and deliver a course on effective email writing for one of our clients. As I’ve researched and prepared for this thing, I’ve found myself returning to the basics of simple, compound, and complex sentences. I’ve even started to learn about proper punctuation again.

I haven’t become an expert, but I have started reading on purpose for examples of the rules I’ve been learning about in my research.

I think I’m starting to notice how simple punctuation works. As I read The Lord Of The Rings, I find myself pausing every once and a while to think about a sentence: hey that’s a complex sentence, or that’s a compound sentence.

I’m also starting to think about why they are compound or complex, and I try to recall and employ the rules I’ve been learning about to explain my reasoning. 

The result…well that’s inconclusive. I’m still in progress there, but I have been working on employing what I’ve been learning about here in my blog. Perhaps there is a decrease in promiscuous comma usage? I hope so anyway.

But the lesson is important: Reading alone is not enough. You also need to pay attention to what you read, and why it’s written the way it’s written.

And maybe, just maybe, you should invite your students to learn the rules used to produce language in order to teach them to someone else.  

In development…What do you think? 

 

Inspired by Graham Wegner’s post…and his question about “Is self directed PD possible…

Professional Development: Is it about hooking up your people to a tasty looking firehose? Is it about guiding them through on a journey of learning where you or your curriculum know what’s best for their brains and your job is to fill them full?

What is, afterall, the purpose of professional development? Is it an automated, repeatable cookie-cutter process that produces the same results in and on the people subjected to it? Is it a well-oiled machine that sucks in, adds on, then spits out?

I think traditionally, yes. Aren’t schools and teacher trainers looking for cookies, where cookies are teachers and their classrooms that look and act the same? That’s what we want right….that when we go to one teacher’s lit room we see adherence. We see the same thing happening across the board where all of our teachers do the same thing when teaching a certain subject.

We look for it over here in the ESL classroom too. We want our students learning about the simple present tense in the same way, following the same method. We don’t care if it doesn’t fit you, or your students. We know this method works, and we want you to do it. Professional Development is blasting
yourself with the firehose before you turn it on your students.

Or should professional development be chaos - where chaos is perhaps in the eyes of the beholder read: trainer, school etc.

What if what I want and need to learn about is not on the training agenda? Is that professional development for me? Or is professional development about me being interested in something that I need for my classes - that’s really relevant and timely for what I’m doing and experiencing?

Professional Development informed by chaos is where the curriculum is the person, to borrow from Wesley Fryer. PD is no longer a firehose, but a trajectory coach. Normally it’s at your side, not in front of you leading. It can take that position if you want it to, but more than anything it suggests directions, but always as a copilot. It’s onboard, going where you, the teacher, is going. It should be the picture of personal adaptation, where one person’s PD experience my vary totally from another’s.

It’s not a unisex setup, where one size and style fits everyone. Yes, there are times I think where this sort of approach is needed, but only to establish a base or foundation.

In my own case I have begun to approach the chaos. Our company is asking all of our teachers to take the Cambridge University Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT). The reason: We want everyone on our staff to have a basic foundation to work with.

This year we’re breaking from what we’ve always done, PD sessions around each unit of the TKT course book. Instead we’re throwing the sessions out to our teachers. They decide what they want to work on. They decide when they want to work on it. They decide the topic and the questions they want answered.

If there is no topic of interest, there is no official PD session. I see my role as a servant. To be there when needed, wanted, and asked for. Our company has given a direction to move in in that everyone of our teachers must have TKT certification by the end of 2006. How each person arrives at this destination is up to them.

Our PD strategy in the future: I see communities of practice forming and disolving around teacher interests. Perhaps fueled by what was learned in the TKT, or via other sources. What spawns it is not nearly as important to me as that it happens.

PD should not be DONE TO ME, but DONE BY ME. Not because I have to, but because I want to.

I see my role as teacher trainer as being a trajectory coach. I need to get interested in what our teachers are interested in and see how best I can fan that into greater flame. What related nodes can I connect them to? How can I encourage greater curiosity? How can I build community where what they know has the opportunity to be passed on to others?

Sometimes I see myself strongly suggesting a certain direction, but this happens sometimes. Most of the time I should be there to serve and personalize.

As I write this I’m keenly aware that I have an unfinished bunny trail that I need to backtrack to. I find it interesting how “trail-like” blogging is, for me as a writer and a reader.

You start down one fascinating trail, reading somone else’s post, which gets you thinking about their topic. You investigate further, and write a post of your own. Your post is just opening the topic, you know you have more to read, think, and write about and so you leave the post open (Part I) and promise further exploration.

Next day, or next net session, you open bloglines and you’re faced with a new volly of targeted, engaging content that reveals a whole new set of really interesting trails to follow and ponder.

Your part I post is momentarily forgotten as you begin interacting with the new content.

This whole scenario just happened to me. Back on January 10, I started researching/reading/reflecting about portfolios, community, and professional development. Next day I found myself on an entirely different path.

Is this little story significant? To me, yes. To you - if you’re involved in web and teaching in a 2.0 environment - what do you think?

James over at Palimpsest redux explores this very issue and relates it to students. He says:

“My concern presents itself in the example of students interacting with texts and asking questions as to where the answer is without following through on reading the chapter or section in which the answer lies. The irony comes when students are not only interacting with text based materials, but when they are also used net-based materials. There seems to be a lack of follow through or engagement with the text (be it net or text based) in terms of reading for information. Students ask quickly for instruction, guidance, ‘the answer’, when the answer to their question lies within the text they are looking. I often find that my job is to point students back to the text/ web after glancing through myself and finding that, yes, the answer is there. Is this a reflection of the ‘digital native’s ’ compressed attention span? It seems that if some students don’t find the answer they seek within less than the time it takes for mtv to run a video (I would say more within the time of a typical commercial, approx. 30 sec.), they seem to give up.

The ‘hyperlink’ style of reading also seems to bring with it cognitive gaps , as students jump from skimming one topic to the next, in a style similar to ‘free association.’ The problem is, only students who are self motivated will come back on their own initiative to fill in those gaps. As a teacher, I find I am constantly pointing students back to topics or areas on the web/text that they should’ve covered in the first place. Hyperlink-style reading is great for keeping interest and for ‘specialised reading’ (read: reading only for what interests you personally), but seems to produce a pastiche style of understanding with a lot of gaps to fill in. Unfortunately, students who are not self motivated seem to turn to the teacher for the answers, instead of backtracking and filling in those cognitive gaps on their own.” (The risk of ‘tech savvy’ thinking and danger of opposing it…, James 2005)

“Hyperlink style reading.” I really like James’ take on this. How easy it is to just skim and not go deep. Or to leave some important stones unturned, and you as teacher needing to encourage your class to go back and fill in the blanks.

I wonder if there is a “hyperlink style learning” spin to this - both for students and teachers. Where what I was sharing above happens: getting hooked into following other lines of thought without first deeply exploring your first one.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with getting lost in the jungle. Professional development is afterall done by the teacher, not TO them.

That “by the teacher” really should leave the door open for chaos - where the only goal is the “upgrading of one’s mindset” (Dirty Business, Bright Ideas. Gina Imperato, 1997)

But what about the gaps? Learning should never have a period after it in the sense that it is an ongoing experience. However, as James points out, hypertext often invites gap leaving - both for students and teachers. In my case, I left a gap in my exploration around portfolios and community which I really want to double back to.

James also points out the importance of learning the art of the double back. Of being disciplined enough, and passionate enough to actually return to check under those key stones that were left unturned in our excited passing.

“Unfortunately, students who are not self motivated seem to turn to the teacher for the answers, instead of backtracking and filling in those cognitive gaps on their own.” (The risk of ‘tech savvy’ thinking and danger of opposing it…, James 2005)

The self motivated backtrack, be they students or teachers. I must be purposefull as I wade through the bit of the blogsphere that touches me, or I risk an incomplete picture - a knee deep experience when I could go for full submersion.

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.
———-
(more…)

Via apcampbell

If you’re in TESOL and looking for FREE professional development opportunities, check this out. I know I’ll be atttending something here, and passing this page along to our team of teachers.

Link> http://webpages.csus.edu/~hansonsm/announce.html