This week in EDU790, the focus of conversation was around community. After reading materials and participating in some online chats, I reflect on my experiences thus far in my school and feel fortunate to work where I do. Our school is big on PLCs (Professional Learning Communities), and I can say with certainty that they have helped me become a better educator. We meet with our grade-level teams on Mondays, then grade-level content teams Tuesday through Thursday. Although I would at times be annoyed that I had to go to a meeting instead of getting my tests graded, I understand the importance of this dedicated time for teachers to sit down together and discuss how to best help students learn. As a new teacher, PLCs helped me survive, as I built strong relationships with my coworkers and was provided a support system. After teaching for several years, PLCs helped me thrive by getting feedback on what I was doing and learning new ideas from my peers that I used in my classroom. As the tech coordinator, I'm now on the other side of the PLC table, participating in the discussion with every grade-level and content area, supporting them any way that I can. These meetings have been the highlight of my new role, getting to work with teachers I normally never saw and hearing about all of the great things teachers are doing throughout the building. My PLN within my school is already strong, but after taking a few classes towards my Tech Specialist endorsement, I have come to realize that there is a massive community of educators full of ideas that are waiting to be tapped on Twitter and other various places on the internet. When asked to perform an activity off of the
PLN Tic-Tac-Toe Board, I decided to grow my learning network by participating in a Twitter chat.
Although I have been a "lurker" in several #edchats on Twitter, this was only the second one that I have actually participated in. That is why I felt this experience supported, out of the 4 areas of growth that Torrey Trust says PLNs support. the growth of my identity. It has been hard to change gears this year as the tech coordinator, as I never imagined what life would be like outside of the classroom. I am still struggling at accepting the fact that I am no longer just a math teacher, so participating in online communities is one way that I've felt myself identify more as a tech leader. Out of
Sylvia Tolisano's Seven Degrees of Connectedness, I'm happy to say I've moved out of the initial lurker role (she couldn't find a less creepy sounding degree for everyone to start as?) to novice level.
The #Twitterchat I participated on was called #ecet2, short for "elevating and celebrating effective teaching." I randomly chose this off of the list of chats on the calendar, and this week it happened to be focused on PLCs! This was perfect, as this week EDU790 was focused on community, and a huge part of my new role is sitting in PLCs throughout the week. I felt that I had a lot to share about our successful PLC format, and enjoyed getting feedback from other passionate educators. My PLN grew, as I talked back and forth with other educators and got some new followers. Although I didn't take a whole lot of new information away from this chat, it was nice to feel like I could provide others with some useful information. I know that I will be going back to other Twitter chats whenever I can, and will now be more likely to get involved. No more lurking!
I am lucky enough to work in a school that supports professional learning communities, but it's nice to know that if I ever work in a place that does not I can always turn to Twitter each night to get new ideas and bounce some ideas off people. One thing that stood out to me from the article
"Why Learning Through Social Network's Is the Future" was the following quote:
"
But why just teachers, and not students? Could students benefit from a network of learners? Considering the importance of exams in determining futures, it seems that professional development for students not only has unbounded potential, but must be taught as a matter of urgency."
After reflecting on my experience of learning through Twitter, I can envision a future where children start to use social media for productive learning opportunities. This gives me hope for there to be more equitable education opportunities in the future, just from the internet alone.
Hi Jake, during my first year of teaching, I never thought I'd see myself type "I miss PLC's." At my first school we had so many of them and would often have to get up and practice whatever new technique we were working on and participate in ice breakers after a grueling week on Chicago's West Side. Looking back, I can honestly say that so much of that was needed. I have seen the opposite in some of the other districts I have worked for and their data suffers for it. I agree with you whole heartedly on the effectiveness of using PLC's to grow your teachers. It's just sad when that time turns into venting sessions more than strategic planning. I saw you mentioned liking where you work. I suppose that has a great deal to do with how well you and your peers are able to work together.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why my name isn't showing up above. This is Sharon.
ReplyDeleteJake,
ReplyDeleteI understand the need to meet with your PLC, but there is such a struggle to keep up with EVERYTHING expected from educators. My team and I meet once a week, formally. But, we eat lunch together almost every day and those tend to become loosened up PLC meetings. I love my team and we work very well together, so it feels natural. It's interesting that you work together for lesson development- are you a co-teaching district?
Best,
Sarah
Certainly there are benefits to participating in PLC's, however, this shouldn't be a mandated element. While I understand he benefits of participating in such forums and enjoy the element of learning from others, I am primarily a "lurker" although on occasion I am compelled to move beyond that stage, but that is by mu choice at a time of my choosing. I echo Sarah's comment above as to the struggle of keeping up with the sum total of required expectations piled upon educators, and participation in PLC's is one more iron in the fire. Our professional interactions and conversations with colleagues, be they formal or casual, serve as quasi-PLC's in that we share and discuss information pertinent to our roles as educators which only serve to improve our practice. Mandated participation can sometimes change the environment and tenor of the discussions from a positive learning experience to negative as members are not there of their own volition. This can cause some to edit their comments or severely reduce their involvement in the process, thereby reducing the effectiveness of such interactions. The level of participation should be freely made by the individual, at a point and level of their choosing. Forcing people to work outside their comfort zone rarely produces benefits for anyone involved.
ReplyDeleteMichael and Sarah, Thanks for your responses and I can appreciate what you're saying about PLC meetings being the last place you want to be while you are swamped with everything else the job requires, and if you are forced to be in PLC's with a negative group of people they can be extra toxic, but I do still find them to be beneficial when we're given time to do work that's important to us. Work that I specifically find PLC's to be useful for is creating common assessments with my grade-level content team. Our school is very data driven and we try to align everything we do to standards, and if our entire team is expected to get our students to reach a certain level I think it's important for us to talk about what we want them to learn and how we expect them to show they learned it. We don't have to all teach it the same way, but we should all at least have the same end result in mind. I know that when we're too busy to have these conversations before we teach something it usually turns out people have different understandings of what learning looks like and students suffer because of it. We also talk about what our students didn't understand the first time we taught it and what we can do differently to get them to learn it. It's nice to have others to bounce ideas off of.
ReplyDelete