Professional Development
In the very early stage of my current teaching career, I have already been very lucky to have learned a few very important professional development strategies. With this help and the help of the course readings, I have started to form an idea about the types of Professional Development that works well with me.
While observing my host teacher and getting a grasp for his educational practices, I can honestly say I have learned so much. For example: I am always trying to think of new ways to get the students thinking about different concepts, some of which may be really complicated, and some of which may seem irrelevant in the student’s minds. As I observed this teacher, I’ve realized that most of his teaching practices are really designed to do just that: help kids learn to think. He is able to explain the concepts in a way that is intriguing to the students, then helps them to process the information, and explain it to them in their own way. From these observations and as the course readings have explained, Professional Development is very beneficial when it’s comes during real time classroom hours. Job-Embedded Professional Development is a very crucial concept and one that I think is extremely beneficial. From watching my host teacher provide excellent lessons, as a new teacher observing a veteran teacher, this has truly given me inspiration and has made a huge impact on how I want to help shape my lessons. Moreover, this has taught me many new ways to make my classroom more learner centered.
From my perspective, this professional development opportunity worked very well because I am able to observe not only the teacher, but also the students. When something would hit home with the students, it was quite evident by their large response. Throughout the duration of these observations, I have took notes and described what I thought was working very well to convey the subject matter and also get the students truly thinking and engaged. Because this is job-embedded professional development experience, I am able to learn as a teacher while the learning process is happening. I thought this was an excellent teaching development resource.
The professional development strategy I plan to use in my Technology Integration Initiative will be a multi faceted approach to professional development. It will pull from a lot of different directions, in an attempt to take away the positive aspects from many different types of development. The foundation of the technology integration initiative will be the creation of a state wide social studies association, like many other academic groups already have, and from that help to asses the needs of teachers around the state. In addition to the association, a message board will be created to explore gaps in statewide technology integration in social studies classrooms. However, this is also where teachers can share example lesson plans and other resources such as informative websites, post ongoing school class projects, and then the creation of a conference to provide informative workshops to integrate technology into the social studies classroom. The ultimate goal will be to have visiting teachers come to classrooms and observe and learn from teachers who have high standards in technology integration into the classroom, so they can take back to their classrooms new ideas to help the learning environment.
To provide leadership in professional development, from my current teaching situation (student teacher), I think the best way I could contribute would be to fully document new tools that can be used in the classroom and learn how to successfully share those teaching tools with others and share what has worked for me. Also, helping to arrange workshops and teaching observations for other teachers would also be a way that I could really help to be a leader of professional development.
For other academic studies, below is a list of links that are similar to what I would like to help create in WV:
The West Virginia Council of teachers of Mathematics
http://www.wvctm.com/
West Virginia Science Teachers Association
West Virginia Foreign Language Teachers Association
A to Z Teacher Stuff Message Board
Pro Teachers Social Studies Message Board
http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/forumdisplay.php?f=32
My students are easily distracted and most do not value school at all, so keeping my students interested in my class is a challenge. It can be difficult to teach students how to think if they are not interested in the first place, so learning from an experienced teacher is a great way to learn what works with local students. Job-embedded experiences are the best way to learn and develop practical knowledge and skills, I'm glad you got to experience this from your host teacher! A state-wide group for teachers where we can freely interact would be great! I would enjoy and certainly learn a lot if I was able to visit many other science teacher's classrooms and study how they teach and what strategies work best. I like your IT initiative.
ReplyDelete