I remember my first year of teaching and all the exciting experiences that came along with it like: lunch duty, study hall, proctoring, and professional development(pd). Most of my coworkers described it as one or two days where we sat and listened to someone tell us how to be better teachers. It turned out they were partly correct. Lecture was about 85% , and hands-on held the other 15%. Blogger would have been so useful vs the traditional pd method of you talk and we fall asleep. There are great features about blogger such as easy access from any device that can use the Internet. Just imagine using your blackberry, to refer to something you learned at a pd meeting. Another great advantage to blogger is the ability to store large documents, images , and files for free. Teachers love paper and this can help with distribution at pd meetings. Feedback is another great feature that you gain from blogging. Critique and creative criticism help to make our ideas and thoughts clearer and ultimately to reach our goals. Often professional development is thought of as something one experiences at work but wiki defines it as skills and knowledge attained for both personal development and career advancement. Blogger really allows for these two types of growth to combine for a successful outcome.
I remember those 85-95% lecture days of professional development. I think that interaction and hands-on should be the 85-95% and presentation or lecture the other parts. As you have pointed out, blogs could be incorporated to enable follow-up reflection. This could be especially important if teachers are trying out a new strategy. They could post what worked and what didn't and get feedback from their colleagues. This interchange of ideas through blogs could be ongoing and very useful over time.
ReplyDeleteDr. Burgos
Tamarla-
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your idea about 85% lecture and I think that unfortunately, this also happens too many times in the classroom. I think that this tool could be useful for both teachers and students, whether it be on professional development day or on any given day in the classroo. Either way, I think blogs are a great way to add more excitement and interest into our schools.