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"recent Gallup poll of 170,000 Americans - 10,000 of whom were teachers - found that teaching is the second most satisfying profession (after medicine). Ironically, the same Gallup poll found that in contrast to their overall happiness with their jobs, teachers often rate last or close to the bottom for workplace engagement and happiness. "Of all the professions we studied in the U.S., teachers are the least likely to say that their opinions count and the least likely to say that their supervisor creates an open and sharing environment," said Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup Education, at the Next New World Conference. This is a troubling trend at a time when schools need to continue to attract high quality educators. "If the perception in our country is that teaching is not a great profession to go into, we certainly aren't going to be encouraging really talented young people to be thinking about the profession of teaching," Busteed said in an interview with Stephen Smith on the American RadioWorks podcast."

"Over the past nine years I have had the pleasure of hiring (and the displeasure of firing) new hires into their teaching careers. In watching teachers come into the profession some just "have it." Some seem to be innately programmed to be teachers. For others, it is a much more difficult road to travel. Additionally, there has been much awareness brought up about "teacher burn-out" and teachers not being able to survive this profession. It has taken nine years of watching, listening, and observing to come to understand that there are two distinct differences between teachers that excel and love the profession, and those that do not excel and are prone to burn-out."

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"I love teaching! I love being a School Librarian & Technology Specialist. I love my practice, my profession, my school, my library, my students, my families, and my community! I can't imagine doing anything else that feeds my soul like being an educator. I love the seasons and the time and tide of it. * Every new school year is a do-over. Any and all the mistakes or things you didn't get to do the year before can be corrected the next year. I can't think of any other profession that gives you such a clear start and stop and a time to reflect. The great thing about summers off (other than that they are made of awesome) is the ability to step back and reflect about the past school year. "

"For all of you new teachers out there (and also those who have been in the profession for a while now), I wish you years of success, as you are in the greatest position of all- the position to influence the lives of many students. Right now, your current focus is probably on how to have a successful first few weeks of school. What might be the best ways to spend your time as you are preparing for the school year to start? What are some things you should keep in mind once the students arrive and class begins? Here are 12 tips for success as you begin your career (or school year) and continue growing in the teaching  profession."

"If you'd asked farmers a few hundred years ago what skills their kids would need to thrive, it wouldn't have taken long to answer. They'd need to know how to milk a cow or plant a field. General skills for a single profession that only changed slowly-and this is how it was for most humans through history. But in the last few centuries? Not so much. Each generation, and even within generations, we see some jobs largely disappear, while other ones pop up. Machines have automated much of manufacturing, for example, and they'll automate even more soon. But as manufacturing jobs decline, they've been replaced by other once unimaginable professions like bloggers, coders, dog walkers, or pro gamers. In a world where these labor cycles are accelerating, the question is: What skills do we teach the next generation so they can keep pace?"

"In this presentation, Brad Ovenell-Carter shows you the work he and his students have done on what they call the "field school model," an innovative instructional methodology distinguished by the way it asks students-not teachers-to curate and catalogue the content they themselves gather, effectively creating their own textbooks as they study. The model capitalizes on mobile and web technologies and borrows design-thinking strategies to get students to identify and collaboratively resolve original, real world problems. "

Dos & Don'ts for Building Positive Student Relationships: Teaching is a unique profession because its success i... http://t.co/g3dhVk2E

Change is something that we fear or embrace. It is widely considered as the one constant in our lives. For education at present we face a deluge of reports that the pace of change shall only accelerate and its scale become more absolute. No wonder then that many teachers feel now is a good time for a move out of the profession. For others the changing face of education is seen as bringing exciting new possibilities wrapped in engaging challenges. Regardless of how reliable predictions for change may prove to be it is worth considering how individuals and groups respond to it.

There is a growing momentum in education driven by a desire to share our practice and learn from our colleagues. Increasingly teachers are finding ways to break free of their classrooms and share their ideas. Collaborations in the interests of unlocking the collective potential of the profession are spreading within and importantly between schools. For many these collaborative endeavours and desires are satisfied by online communities but for many the possibility for a face to face conversation is more alluring.

"Think back to 2005. Since the dot-com bust, there had been a steep and steady decline in undergraduate enrollments in computer science, with no end in sight. The computer science community was wringing its hands, worried about the survival of their departments on campuses. Unlike many of my colleagues, I saw a different, much rosier future for computer science. I saw that computing was going to be everywhere. I argued that the use of computational concepts, methods and tools would transform the very conduct of every discipline, profession and sector. Someone with the ability to use computation effectively would have an edge over someone without. So, I saw a great opportunity for the computer science community to teach future generations how computer scientists think. Hence "computational thinking." I must admit, I am surprised and gratified by how much progress we have made in achieving this vision: Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by the middle of the 21st century. By fundamental, I mean as fundamental as reading, writing and arithmetic."

"Work based skills are changing as more and more jobs are displaced by digital technologies.  Software, apps and online technology such as Uber, Airbnb, Legal Zoom and TurboTax to name a few has already had an impact on many professions.  Online shopping has eliminated tens of thousands of retail store positions. And with self-driving vehicles on the way, how many taxi, trucking, express delivery-and even aviation jobs-will go the way of the telephone switchboard operator? If history is a reliable guide, the technologies that are eliminating one set of jobs will create others: jobs that require twenty-first century-mainly digital-skills.  The explosion in industrial robotics, for example, is eliminating thousands of assembly line jobs but it is creating a demand for people who can design, manufacture, program and maintain those machines.  The questions are -  what will the net impact on jobs be and how well are our schools preparing young people for those new, higher skilled jobs as we head toward the fourth industrial revolution?"

"While project-based learning has existed for decades, design thinking has recently entered the education lexicon, even though its history can be traced back to Herbert A. Simon's 1969 book The Sciences of the Artificial. So why the resurgence of these ideas? Lately, I have heard teachers and school leaders express a common frustration: "We are _______ years into a _______ initiative, and nothing seems to have changed." Despite redesigning learning spaces, adding technology, or even flipping instruction, they still struggle to innovate or positively change the classroom experience. Imagine innovation as a three-legged stool. Many schools have changed the environment leg, but not the other two legs: the behaviors and beliefs of the teachers, administrators, and students. Consider this conundrum: much of what we know about teaching comes from 16+ years of observation as students. In no other profession do you spend that much time watching the previous generation before being told to change everything once you take control. Without the framework or scaffolding for that change, it's truly unreasonable to tell educators, "OK, start innovating.""

"Social media enables collaboration, which for adult learning is the key to success for most adults. The best form of collaboration comes through conversation, which is often enabled by various social media tools. The key to accepting social media as a tool for learning comes in the term "Social". This requires involving other people in order to have a conversation. This requirement precludes the use of social media being a passive endeavor. It takes time to learn the tools, time to learn the culture, and time to learn the strategies to effectively learn through social media. All of this discourages people from even attempting to change what has made them comfortable in their profession. It requires effort, time, and work."

Are we the life long learners we want our students to be?

"One term into the official launch of our iPad program, I thought it would be opportune to reflect on the successes, failures and everything in between. I have to admit, as a self professed, but not certified, iPad/Mac "expert" and 'All Things Apple' zealot, things haven't gone as smoothly as I'd hoped. I would like to blame it all on our proxy server, but I suspect Apple has something to do with it too."

"It should be abundantly clear to anyone with experience around classrooms, teachers or students (which is to say almost all of us), that teaching is a highly emotional craft, loaded with possibility and expectation, importance and scale. It's troubling when the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future says that 46 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years. And even worse, this turnover is also impacting the whole public education machine - learning, teacher education, teacher training, funding, public perception, and so on - in a dizzying cause-effect pattern stuck on repeat. Fixing this issue is an illusion, as it's not a single issue but rather a product of countless factors. However, there are six ways we can address it here and now."

"No matter how old the profession, those who work in a particular field have always had the ability to communicate with one another to compare notes and improve services. The form of communication began with face-to-face contact in early civilization and evolved to a more digital form in today's age of technological advances. Technology has always improved communication methods by enabling all-not just professionals-the ability to consult, collaborate, and learn from others. This has progressed from the earliest printing presses to the most recent smartphones."

"Did you know that March is Women's History Month? Yes, I know that there is a month or day for celebrating just about everything out there, a number of these designations offer excellent teaching and learning opportunities. While it may fit better into some curricula better than others, the women that are highlighted by the NWHP (National Women's History Project) do come from different personal backgrounds, time periods, and professions."