I left yesterday more than a little frustrated, feeling like the sessions I attended were long on inspiration and short on implementation. Today is a different story. I think I picked well, as the first two sessions I attended (other than the keynote) were highly practical and left me with some great ideas for next year.
The first was on modeling effective Professional Learning (PL). (Professional Learning is teacher-initiated, individually selected; Professional Development is something that is done to teachers in a group.) They made the point that if we want teachers to shift their instructional methods, then we must model that instruction in their PL sessions. We cannot stand and lecture from a PowerPoint to a room full of inert, inactive bodies and then expect them to go back to their classrooms and teach in an active, engaging way. Just as a teacher has to model desired behaviors for students, PL leaders have to model desired behaviors for teachers. This has some pretty profound and obvious implications for the way our district and sites deliver inservices.
The second session was about a relatively new initiative from ISTE to support instructional coaches. In the last six months, this group has developed National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for coaches, as well as established a Special Interest Group for Educational Technology Coaches (SIGETC). The presenters at this session cited research indicating that in order for PL to produce lasting beneficial change in classroom instruction, it must be
- Job-embedded;
- Intensive and ongoing;
- Connected to practice;
- Collaborative among teachers; and
- Connected to school initiatives.
This is a promising model that I think I can begin to implement next year. In addition to myself and our other established ToSA, our district has one new full-time ToSA and six new part-time ToSAs. I want to explore ways to make this the norm in our schools next year.
