If you're reading this blog post, you probably saw it on Twitter and are likely someone who participates in chats like #miched, #edchat, or any one of the various education-themed chats that happen regularly on Twitter. If you don't know what those are yet, I very strongly encourage you to check it out. I've only recently started participating in the #miched chats from 8-9pm on Wednesday nights, but it's already radically changing the way I go about learning and improving as an educator.
Last night's #miched chat (9/23/14) was about personalized learning, and it really got me thinking about a few of the questions and responses. One of the questions asked during the chat was "share a time when YOU benefited from having your learning personalized." Many of the participants responded that the #miched chats and their Twitter PLNs were helping them to become better teachers. It was great to see how many educators feel that they've benefited so much from just communicating with each other. Every person in the #miched chat was there because they wanted to be - because they care about their students and they care about becoming better educators.
However, this got me thinking about how many teachers there are who are not yet participating in #miched or any other online sharing between teachers. They are either unaware of or choosing not to participate in such a great opportunity for learning and professional development. For some teachers, it seems that they equate professional development with boring lectures about things that don't have a direct connection to the classroom. It's like professional development is just something to suffer through to check a requirement off a list. There is a gap between what some schools are using for professional development and what teachers need and could really use to become better.
I find it kind of sad that this gap and attitude toward professional development exists at all, and it makes me want to go out and change people's minds. I know of some people who don't think that teachers should have to do any professional development - that teachers have too much going on as it is already. To me, that sounds like there are teachers who don't want to learn.
However, if we expect our students to always strive to become better and to become lifelong learners, shouldn't we teachers have the same expectation for ourselves? How can we prepare our students for the world when we're not keeping up with how the world is changing?
I've learned a lot regarding this issue from #miched and other Twitter chats. It is now easier than ever to do your own, personalized professional development, thanks to the Twitterverse full of teachers who are willing to answer questions and share ideas. Also, by sharing my own ideas on Twitter and from the responses I've gotten, I feel very empowered and like I have something of value to share with my fellow educators, even if I'm only in my 3rd year of teaching.
Professional development isn't just lectures provided a few times a year by our school districts. Professional development as I think of it (as teachers learning to be better teachers) is so much more than that. It's a Twitter chat between educators on a Wednesday evening. It's a discussion with a coworker in the hall about a new tool you're trying out in class. Maybe it's even a reflective blog post that you're not sure anyone will ever see.
My point is that we need to get the word out about how valuable some "non-traditional" forms of professional development can be, and we need to be willing to try new things and to share our own experiences and ideas. If we get more educators sharing and learning, we can all get better together.
If you would like to check out all of the tweets from #miched chat on personalized learning from 9/24/14, click here. Thanks @ToddBloch for tweeting out the Storify story of the chat!
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