Doing Away With Some Double Standards

It is interesting, how professional development so often differs from the approaches that are recommended for the classroom.  Collaboration and inquiry are stressed as essential for developing an innovator's mindset in our students, yet when I attend professional development opportunities we often sit and listen to a presenter convey information to us.  This past week I enjoyed reading the following monograph from the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat and it has inspired me to talk less and facilitate inquiry among the teachers who attend any professional learning experiences I plan:  http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_CollaborativeInquiry.pdf

I have also been thinking a lot about the third teacher.  On this topic I enjoyed reading http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_ThirdTeacher.pdf

The third teacher between the parent, the teacher and the child is the learning environment.  It has occurred to me that we need to keep this idea in mind when we design professional learning experiences for teachers also.  I teach in an elementary school and the third teacher is present in most classrooms.  Teachers spend time decorating the class, posting learning goals and success criteria and posting student work.  However, as a parent of high school and university students, I have noticed tat as my daughters go up in the grades the third teacher becomes quieter and quieter until it is silenced..  I see some signs of the third teacher in our high schools but many university lecture halls are pretty bare.  Maybe it is because there is a new presenter and completely new audience each hour so no one feels ownership of the space. Professional development often takes place in even more temporary settings, so this poses an extra challenge.  Still, we need to reintroduce the third teacher in higher education and professional learning experiences.  We need to be creative and use welcoming online environments so that everyone can access them with their devices and make these digital environments an extension of the classroom.

Fostering Human Connections with Technology

Children in our classrooms today do not remember a world before the internet and this has affected their world view.  Many people are worried about this.  They worry today's youth interact more easily with technology than with people.  At least that is one stereotype that is out there...

However, lately I have seen many examples of technology actually enhancing, not hindering contact between individuals.  Students can converse with students from other parts of the planet via video conference.  Students who can not get together after school can collaborate on projects using a Google Docs or Slides.  Time and again over the past two weeks I have noticed examples of technology building human connections.

So, if students are so proficient with these tools, often well ahead of their teachers in knowing how to make devices work, what role if any do educators play in the student's learning about technology.  In other subject areas, teachers tend to be ahead of the learning curve but not in this area.  Our responsibility isn't to be the tech experts, but rather, it is to provide leadership in how to use technology to foster human connections.  It is through human connections that we learn and grow best.  Our students need leadership to use these tools, especially those with built in collaboration like Google Apps for Education to interact with one another and learn from one another.  Yes they know how to Google, but do they know how to evaluate sources?  Do they know how to avoid dangers on the internet?  A new kind of leadership is needed from teachers in schools today.  We need to be open to letting students show us the cool features of whatever program they are exploring but we also need to show them a few things as well.  Teachers are the ones in the best position to show students how those cool features can be used in a safe way, to make learning better by bringing people together.

The Dance

As the first week of summer holidays draws to a close, so does the first Learning Experience in the online summer course I am taking.  We've been learning all about taking on a leadership role in our school with respect to the integration of technology.  One of the earliest tasks was to watch a video called, The First Follower. The narrator in this video spoke about the role of the leader as well as the often hugely important role of the first followers in making a movement happen. The video shows a lone shirtless man in the middle of a field, doing an unusual dance.  Others are just watching him, probably not so sure what to make of him, until first one person, then a few others join in.  After that, everyone around the shirtless man and his first followers join the dance.  This, the narrator explains, is how  movements are begun.  If one compares a movement to a fire, the leader is the flint and the first followers are the sparks that ignite the movement.

As I have gone through this week, completed various activities, learned from my instructor and learned from my peers, this example stayed in the back of my mind at all times.  I came to realize, that movements and people's roles in them are more complex than a simple structure of leader, first followers and later followers.  Throughout the week, leadership roles keep switching from one person in our course to another.  Each time someone posts an idea that hasn't been mentioned previously, they, like the dancer in the video, take center stage for a while.  Then once the first classmates read and respond to the post, they, like the first followers in the video who affected the direction of the dance, become important to the direction of the online discussion.

No one can lead all the time.  Truly effective leaders often take a step back to learn from others and then in another setting apply what they have learned, but put their own spin on things.  Thus a first follower or even later follower in one context may become a leader in another context.  Leaders, it seems are not born, they are made.  In fact they are made and re-made with every new dance.