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Teachers Without Borders

Three Questions to Begin Transformation to Teacher Leadership - Leading From the Classr... - 3 views

  • One theme that resonated with me was discussing the knowledge and skill sets needed for teachers beginning to explore their leadership potential. While many schools and districts offer new teacher mentoring programs, there is a lack of formal programs or supports for emerging teacher leaders.
  • Effective teachers develop a range of knowledge and skills from managing a classroom community and helping students learn. But beyond the competence of subject matter knowledge, teachers may also develop skillsets in pedagogy and other areas.
  • teacher leaders need to work collaboratively with administration in order for teacher leadership to be the norm throughout a school.
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  • This normalization of a teacher leadership culture requires administrators dedicated to a distributed school leadership model, but also requires teacher leaders who are able to critically analyze and problem solve school wide issues.
  • "Teacher leaders need to turn around every now and then and look, if no one if following, they are not leading. And knowing a lot about topic is not helpful if it can't be explained in a way that encourages the right people to listen." There is a critical difference between being an "expert" and "leader." Experts know a lot about their area of expertise. But teacher leaders in formal roles are responsible for the direction of a group of people, and apply themselves in a way that allows them to constructively meet the challenges of that responsibility.
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    Teacher Leader Model Standards
Jeff Johnson

Reinventing Professional Development in Tough Times - 1 views

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    Last year, leaders with the Trussville school district in Alabama wanted to help their teachers learn more about integrating Web technologies into their lessons, a central aim of the district's curriculum. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough money in their budget to bring in leading ed-tech experts to provide professional development. So they did it anyway-in a manner of speaking.
Teachers Without Borders

Virtual classroom project coming to a close « Learn Online - 0 views

  • learning about architecture, sustainability, and SL rendering.
  • The simplicity in learning the drawing tools, coupled with the ability to meet numbers of other people in the actual model who would then discuss and help me build the model was a very potent learning experience.
  • people who would be there for me, who would look at and discuss my drawings as I did them, and who would share with me links and other information relating to what I was doing for the simple enjoyment of sharing and helping.
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  • It doesn’t matter if the ideas I had - or the way I was trying to express them were any good or not.. what I’m talking about is the need we all have for encouragement and motivation to improve on and further our own learning. I could have enrolled in a course and paid a teacher to give me that … attention, but even then it would have felt disingenuous and limited by what that one teacher could muster after 20 years of putting up with it.
  • This amazing project that Konrad has taken me on boils down to is this: I have drawn a concept for a building I want to one day build, using Second Life and its communities to draw and develop the model. I have used numerous online networks to research and inform the model, and this drawing is only one step in many for this long term plan I have. That network has given me the motivation to take it all further. In the process I have learned a lot about sustainable building, drawing in SL, communicating with online networks beyond my normal peers, and in that I have gained new confidence. Now I am coming to an end with the VirtualClassroomProject, having reached the limitations of the model in SL Jokaydia, and want to take it further. I have made numerous attempts to connect with a local group who are developing sustainable building designs, but what was that I said about powering down? I think it will turn out that I will install the model somewhere more permanently in SL and continue to tweak the model, make variations and details, do a costing analysis for a real build, develop a website for it, and continue to try and find useful contacts who I can work with and possibly take something like this further - no doubt I will find them online… I already have one lead in Melbourne!
  • this project has helped me to render my private and two dimensional ideas into a public and socially supportive domain.
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    "polished, finished, packed with closure" - these are important words for educators in SL because the environment offers the opposite of that - it encourages creativity and makes it easy to engage in the process of constructing spaces.
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    Leigh Blackall reflects on his virtual residency in the Virtual Classroom Project
Teachers Without Borders

BTW, teen writing may cause teachers to :( - CNN.com - 0 views

  • It's a teachable moment," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew. "If you find that in a child's or student's writing, that's an opportunity to address the differences between formal and informal writing. They learn to make the distinction ... just as they learn not to use slang terms in formal writing.
    • Teachers Without Borders
       
      It's also a great opportunity for teachers who use blogging in their classes. At the same time, I don't think discouraging informal writing is the right thing to do. Students should have the freedom to use the kind of language they feel is most appropriate given their audience and content. Teaching to adjust one's voice based on audience is therefore crucial.
  • Teens who consider electronic communications with friends as "writing" are more likely to carry the informal elements into school assignments than those who distinguish the two.
    • Teachers Without Borders
       
      I'd be interested to learn how many teachers use emoticons or other informal elements when writing on blogs or communicating with students outside of formal class assignments. For example, do teachers use informal elements when leaving comments on student blogs. Shouldn't they if they want to be seen as readers rather than evaluators?
  • Teens who keep blogs are more likely to engage in personal writing. They also tend to believe that writing will prove crucial to their eventual success in life. Parents are more likely than teenagers to believe that Internet-based writing such as e-mail and instant messaging affects writing overall, though both groups are split on whether the electronic communications help or hurt. Nonetheless, 73 percent of teens and 40 percent of parents said they believe Internet writing makes no difference either way.
    • Teachers Without Borders
       
      If the teacher models informal and formal writing well then this kind of informal writing is not likely to affect students' grasp of formal writing. However, the freedom to use informal, expressive writing might help students develop a stronger sense of voice in all kinds of written work, leading to improved confidence.
Teachers Without Borders

Publications: SRN LEADS - 0 views

  • United States Is Substantially Behind Other Nations in Providing Teacher Professional Development That Improves Student Learning; Report Identifies Practices that Work
  • Every year, nine in 10 of the nation’s three million teachers participate in professional development designed to improve their content knowledge, transform their teaching, and help them respond to student needs. These activities, which can include workshops, study groups, mentoring, classroom observations, and numerous other formal and informal learning experiences, have mixed results in how they effect student achievement.
  • embedded in the work of collaborative professional learning teams that support ongoing improvements in teachers’ practice and student achievement.
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  • the type of support and on-the-job training most teachers receive is episodic, often fragmented, and disconnected from real problems of practice.
  • Teachers lack time and opportunities to view each other’s classrooms, learn from mentors, and work collaboratively,”
  • “The research tells us that teachers need to learn the way other professionals do—continually, collaboratively, and on the job. The good news is that we can learn from what some states and most high-performing nations are doing.”
  • Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad
  • Research shows that professional development should not be approached in isolation as the traditional “flavor of the month” or one-shot workshop but go hand-in-hand with school improvement efforts
  • U.S. teachers report little professional collaboration in designing curriculum and sharing practices, and the collaboration that occurs tends to be weak and not focused on strengthening teaching and learning.
  • Teachers are not getting adequate training in teaching special education or limited English proficient students
  • United States is far behind in providing public school teachers with opportunities to participate in extended learning opportunities and productive collaborative communities. Those opportunities allow teachers to work together on instructional planning, learn from one another through mentoring or peer coaching, conduct research on the outcomes of classroom practices, and collectively guide curriculum, assessment, and professional learning decisions
  • other nations provide: • Extensive opportunities for formal and informal in-service development. • Time for professional learning and collaboration built into teachers’ work hours. • Professional development activities that are ongoing and embedded in teachers’ contexts. • School governance structures that support the involvement of teachers in decisions regarding curriculum and instructional practice. • Teacher induction programs for new teachers that include release time for new teachers and mentors, and formal training of mentors.
  • U.S. teachers average far more net teaching time in direct contact with students (1,080 hours per year) than any other OECD nation
Emily Vickery

Open Thinking & Digital Pedagogy » Blog Archive » What is a PLN? Or, PLE vs. ... - 0 views

  • I am currently writing a chapter regarding open and networked learning. I have used the term Personal Learning Network (PLN) dozens of times over the last few years, and have seen it mentioned countless times in blog and microblog posts, and other forms of media. However, I cannot seem to find a solid reference or definition for the concept of PLN. I sent out several email messages asking people if knew of an existing article or reference for the PLN definition, and I have yet to receive a response. About the best lead I could find was a post from Stephen Downes that mentioned “Dave Warlick has taken the concept of the Personal Learning Environment, renamed it (to Personal Learning Network).”
Teachers Without Borders

A different way to deal with bullying - Parentcentral.ca - 1 views

  • Bound-to-be controversial in light of the recent suicide of 11-year-old Mitchell Wilson, a new approach to bullying uses a “no-blame, problem-solving response” rather than punishing aggressive kids and creating a victim mentality among those they target, say leading Canadian bullying researchers.
  • the idea behind the no-blame method is that it’s “more motivating for a child who has been aggressive.” It also helps the bully save face, and “take responsibility for making change, and to feel good about making change, and it decreases the likelihood of feeling unfairly treated and avenge an ‘injustice’ that was done to (them).”
  • But, in general, “the danger of a very hard-line approach is it elicits sympathy (for the aggressor) ... friends felt justified in their continuation of the bullying.” Bullying is a relationship problem and needs to be solved like any other, says York University’s Debra Pepler, considered one of Canada’s top bullying experts and a founder of PREVNet.
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  • “Putting a label on them really restricts thinking,” said Pepler. “Calling them a bully suggests they are always aggressive and that’s part of who they are.” In fact, they may be bullied themselves at home, or gain respect in the schoolyard for being aggressive, she says. Children who bully at a moderate or high rate are more likely to be delinquent or sexually harass, so “adults need to step in and help them get onto a pathway where they get the attention and leadership opportunities they want in a positive rather than a negative way.”
  • Children who have been targeted first require protection from being bullied — but they also often need to build self-confidence and develop positive relationships.
Teachers Without Borders

The School Leader as Bricoleur: Developing Scholarly Practitioners for Our Schools - 0 views

  • Bricoleur, as presented herein, is used metaphorically and in a postmodern or post-formal (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1999) sense to represent methods, practices and cultural materials that the scholar-practitioner uses as s/he interacts in the complex web of relationships among knowledge, inquiry, practice, and learning
  • The result of the bricoleur’s methods of practice is a bricolage (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000), a construction that arises from the reflexive interactions of different types of knowledge, mediating artifacts, and methods in relation to the social contexts, cultural patterns, and social actions and activities that comprise the daily events of the school.
  • First, the construct of scholar-practitioner leadership is examined, providing a background for exploring the intricacies of scholarly practice through the metaphor of bricoleur.
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  • alternative epistemology of inquiry as practice, wherein the leader as scholar and his or her leadership practice are inseparable from scholarly and critically oriented inquiry.
  • not that of an aloof official imposing, authoritatively, educational ends and methods. He will be on the lookout for ways to give others intellectual and moral responsibilities, not just for ways of setting tasks for them . . .
  • More recently, efforts have been undertaken to reexamine the meaning of “scholar” within the context of educational leadership2 preparation and practice (Anderson & Jones, 2000; Jenlink, 2001b, 2001c; Riehl, et al., 2000). Preparing educational leaders as scholars invests largely in understanding a “scholar” as someone who values inquiry.
  • Relatedly, scholar-practitioner leadership, as a construct, represents a complex set of relationships among inquiry, knowledge, practice, and theory. These relationships have a critical intersect of the core value for and understanding of a “new scholarship”.3 This “new scholarship” defines practice, knowledge, and inquiry within the practice-based world of teachers and administrators, acknowledging the value of “local theory” and “knowledge-of-practice.” Also shaping the conceptual and practical meaning of scholar-practitioner leadership is a dimension of criticality that transforms leadership practice into leadership praxis.
  • In contrast, learning to lead for the scholar-practitioner is concerned less with transitional orientations of knowledge and inquiry and more with engaging in a “new epistemology” of knowledge and practice articulated through the inquiry as praxis.
  • A central element in scholar-practitioner leadership is criticality, which, depending on the degree of criticality, transforms inquiry, knowledge and practice.
  • The ideal degree of scholarly practice for school leaders seeking to create democratic learning communities would exist at a point along the primary axis, moving outward to a level of inquiry and/or knowledge-of-practice.
  • The criticalist “attempts to use his/her work as a form of social or cultural criticism” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1994, p. 139). As a criticalist, the school leader engages in his or her work through leadership praxis5 guided by inquiry that is reflective, ethical, critical, and intentional. Praxis-oriented scholarly practice refers to “activities that combat dominance and move toward self-organization and that push toward thoroughgoing change in the practices of . . . the social formation” (Benson, 1983, p. 338).
  • A critical leadership praxis is also concerned with inequity and injustice that surface within the curricula and instructional systems of schools, as well as asymmetrical power relations that all too shape student and teacher identities along ideological lines that work to control and disadvantage some while advantaging others
  • leadership praxis is emancipatory, “grounded in a critical consciousness, which will manifest itself in action that will always be becoming emancipatory” (Grundy, 1993, p. 174). For the educational leader as criticalist, the question is not “Am I emancipated and how can I emancipate my staff?” but rather ”How can I engage in forms of critical, self-reflective and collaborative work which will create conditions so that the people with whom I work can come to control their knowledge and practice?” (p. 174).
  • The word bricoleur and its cognate bricolage come from bricole, a corruption of which is the English term brick wall. The root word of bricole means rebound. Bricoleur, as Levi-Strauss (1966) has noted, is “used with references to some extraneous movement” (p. 16)—movement in physical terms such as a ball rebounding off a wall, in sociological terms the social interaction in activities, and in psychological terms the interacting and cognitive rebounding of ideas, concepts, and feelings experienced as one individual works in relationship to others.
  • Noting the association with Baudelaire, bricolage, as Norris (1987) suggests, is a French word that refers to the “ad hoc assemblage of miscellaneous materials and signifying structures” (Levi-Strauss, quoted in Norris, p. 134). The bricoleur works in association with his or her culture and the material practices and artifacts available in the culture. Spivak (1976) says “the bricoleur makes do with things that were meant perhaps for other ends” (p. xix). Weinstein and Weinstein (1991) explain the bricoleur as a person who is “practical and gets things done” (p. 161). As Norris (1987) notes of the bricoleur, s/he is “happy to exploit the most diverse assortment of mythemes—or random combinartory elements” (p. 134).
Ben Darr

Coca-Cola Instructional Designer Envisions 21st Century Training (Interview) ... - 0 views

  • Q. What is the greatest modern challenge in the training profession? Employee engagement drives turnover and performance. As business consultants, training professionals can drive improvements in employee engagement which in turn will lead to better retention and employee performance. Q. What makes current challenges so different from previous ones? In our current economy, performance improvement is paramount. To stay competitive, businesses must find efficiencies. Reducing turnover adds value to the bottom line through reducing costs. Engaged employees perform more efficiently and effectively which drives both revenue and cost management.
    • Ben Darr
       
      Johnathan Keith, a trainer for Coca Cola is being interviewed. It is interesting that he highlights engagement as pivotal in keeping employees. Engagement in the classroom is also vital to student performance.
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