Professional development in action
Well, almost in action! I haven’t had the chance to teach any after school professional development for quite some time. Once of my colleagues contacted me a few weeks ago asking if I’d cover a professional development session. I reluctantly agreed. She then told me it was Cream of the Crop Web Sites. I cringed. I hate those kinds of workshops. They always turn into mindless surfing of the web. Sites are delivered rather than discovered or explored. After un-cringing, I decided it didn’t have to be this way. And it turned out really well.
Since we were dealing with ‘cream of the crop’ web sites, something that could be considered technology, I decided to start off with a question for us to discuss. How has technology impacted the classroom, for positive or negative?
We had some interesting conversation, especially about cut and paste assignments. I posed the question: How can we as teachers move students away from the urge to copy and paste? Silence… How about asking better questions? …questions that would require students to develop new thinking rather than spouting back facts.
This led nicely into our main activity – to investigate the web links; describe what the sites had to offer; and describe how a student could use it, and a teacher. Many of the participants found things of interest, and were able to draw out ideas that were far more constructivist than didactic. A frequent comment, “I wish I would have known about this earlier.”
So why was this almost professional development in action? Unfortunately, it was an isolated, one-shot deal with no built-in follow up. So, will any of these people follow up with any of their work this afternoon? Probably not. But on the positive side, I think many people found it worthwhile, painless, and rather enjoyed not being talked at, but investigating things on their own.
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