Group items tagged

Collective Participation:

Training takes time

5 Key Points of Professional Development

allowing teachers to actively engage in their own learning can help them retain lessons on using technology to solve classroom challenges.

Active Learning

Sustained Duration:

Content Focus: When providing technology coaching, concrete examples are key

K–12 teachers are interested in adopting technology, but low confidence in their abilities to use it well enough to make the integration worth the investment is a significant barrier. 

K–12 teachers are interested in adopting technology, but low confidence in their abilities to use it well enough to make the integration worth the investment is a significant barrier. 

5 Key Points of Professional Development

allowing teachers to actively engage in their own learning can help them retain lessons on using technology to solve classroom challenges.

Training takes time

Even more than selecting the right devices for the classroom, professional development is the key ingredient in successful 1:1 computing programs in K-12 classrooms.

that everyone is working at the appropriate level of understanding, allowing students to construct learning and providing learning in easy-to-digest nuggets. Those principles will also help build effective professional development.

Next, design training to fill in gaps and give teachers what they want. Ensure that each session is designed to be self-contained so that teachers can choose to attend workshops only in the areas where they need extra learning.

If organizations are to develop a capacity to work with mental models then it will be necessary for people to learn new skills and develop new orientations, and for their to be institutional changes that foster such change. ‘Entrenched mental models… thwart changes that could come from systems thinking’ (ibid.: 203). Moving the organization in the right direction entails working to transcend the sorts of internal politics and game playing that dominate traditional organizations. In other words it means fostering openness (Senge 1990: 273-286). It also involves seeking to distribute business responsibly far more widely while retaining coordination and control. Learning organizations are localized organizations (ibid.: 287-301).

it’s the capacity to hold a share picture of the future we seek to create’ (1990: 9). Such a vision has the power to be uplifting – and to encourage experimentation and innovation. Crucially, it is argued, it can also foster a sense of the long-term, something that is fundamental to the ‘fifth discipline’.

When there is a genuine vision (as opposed to the all-to-familiar ‘vision statement’), people excel and learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to. But many leaders have personal visions that never get translated into shared visions that galvanize an organization… What has been lacking is a discipline for translating vision into shared vision – not a ‘cookbook’ but a set of principles and guiding practices. The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment and enrolment rather than compliance. In mastering this discipline, leaders learn the counter-productiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no matter how heartfelt. (Senge 1990: 9)

By attending to purpose, leaders can cultivate an understanding of what the organization (and its members) are seeking to become. One of the issues here is that leaders often have strengths in one or two of the areas but are unable, for example, to develop systemic understanding. A key to success is being able to conceptualize insights so that they become public knowledge, ‘open to challenge and further improvement’ (ibid.: 356).

In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations were people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models – that is they are responsible for learning…. Learning organizations will remain a ‘good idea’… until people take a stand for building such organizations. Taking this stand is the first leadership act, the start of inspiring (literally ‘to breathe life into’) the vision of the learning organization. (Senge 1990: 340)

In essence, ‘the leaders’ task is designing the learning processes whereby people throughout the organization can deal productively with the critical issues they face, and develop their mastery in the learning disciplines’ (ibid.: 345).

One of the important things to grasp here is that stewardship involves a commitment to, and responsibility for the vision, but it does not mean that the leader owns it. It is not their possession. Leaders are stewards of the vision, their task is to manage it for the benefit of others (hence the subtitle of Block’s book – ‘Choosing service over self-interest’). Leaders learn to see their vision as part of something larger. Purpose stories evolve as they are being told, ‘in fact, they are as a result of being told’ (Senge 1990: 351). Leaders have to learn to listen to other people’s vision and to change their own where necessary. Telling the story in this way allows others to be involved and to help develop a vision that is both individual and shared.

People need to be able to act together. When teams learn together, Peter Senge suggests, not only can there be good results for the organization, members will grow more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise.

It is about fostering learning, for everyone. Such leaders help people throughout the organization develop systemic understandings. Accepting this responsibility is the antidote to one of the most common downfalls of otherwise gifted teachers – losing their commitment to the truth. (Senge 1990: 356)

handling stress and balancing their personal and professional lives

importance of compassion

espond to people and events in an appropriate way.

self-control and discipline in your actions

cultivate strategic thinking

curious and genuinely interested

flexible in your mindset

Focusing on the future

positive outlook

able to clearly and succinctly explain to their employees everything from organizational goals to specific tasks.

one on one, to the department and to the entire staff, as well as via phone, email and social media.

being approachable and involving people from different levels.

hold themselves accountable and take responsibility for their own mistakes—and they expect others to do the same.

et clear goals and be determined and purposeful in achieving them

unshakable self-confidence

radiate enthusiasm

If you give up, so will everyone around you. To be a successful leader, you must be willing to keep going when others are tempted to throw in the towel.

If leaders want people to try new things, they have to openly show, that they are willing to do the same.

we have access to so much information, not only from schools, but from outside organizations.

The least innovative organizations often seem to surround themselves with like-minded people.

Spending time with people and building solid relationships with them often leads to them going miles beyond what is expected and move away from “what has always been done”.  When people know they are valued and safe in trying new things, they are more likely to do something better.  This is at the core of an innovative school.

should try to create new ideas, but it is more important that they create a culture of innovation

. should be embedded within the core subject discipline curriculum so that examples can be course specific and that info lit can be made apparent at point of need and not as a separate (and poorer) cousin.

to allow different teachers to adapt the curriculum to their own teaching style.

I believe information literacy has to be context‐sensitive both in subject but also individual experience.

he need to build on knowledge over time and to ‘scaffold’ the learner with greater levels of support in their first year or at critical points in their career was highlighted. However,it was important for the curriculum to be coherent and to ‘fit together’ and as one expert said:

No longer should the library be trying to sell its resources as part of information literacy instruction. Rather than focusing on resources, IL instruction should be focusing on habits of mind. Librarians’ role as a guide through the information landscape should not be touted but demonstrated.

The IL curriculum needs to consider the whole students information experience – skills are just one aspect.

Collaboration between different groups of staff was considered to be extremely important in terms of the successful implementation of any information literacy strategy or curriculum.

student‐centred approach’.

experts were clear that information literacy should be timed to happen at the point of need, but also that it should extend beyond simple induction.

Effort needs to be made to embed IL into the curriculum at later stages as well.

scalable approach.

Collaboration between library staff and academics was widely advocated, with many experts recognizing the role that learning developers, IT staff and also students could play.

work together to integrate it into the learning experience.

Many experts felt it was critical to the success of a programme that an audit of student abilities was carried out at the outset, to help better understand the needs of the students and any gaps in their knowledge. It would also help in planning more meaningful sessions, as otherwise itwas very easy to make assumptions about what students might know

the concerns of the different stakeholders were considered.

For students the key is to make them see that IL expertise will improve their grades. Students will respond to this most of all. There is some evidence that the term ‘information literacy’ has no currency with students (maybe not academics either), so while we can use it to coordinate efforts within the library, avoid using it externally. We need to show how the library adds value ‐ and increases marks.

Librarians are no longer seen simply as gatekeepers of information, but partners with faculty helping to facilitate learning.

The experts talked about a reluctance by some librarians to regard teaching as part of their role and a lack of confidence around more discursive teaching techniques

there is a danger ofconfusing IT awareness with information literacy.

the digital natives literature has vastly over‐rated info skills of young people, and also they may think they have better skills than they do. At the same time you have to appreciate that some students will be highly skilled online and any introduction that begins at too basic a level will put them off.

Experts agreed that independent learning and information literacy were closely linked: Information literacy creates an independent learning style which can become a self sustainable habit thorough life which must surely be considered as a desirable graduate attribute.

Experts were unanimous in the need to include evaluation skills in the information literacy curriculum.

Rather, it emphasises the need for students to appreciate a wide range of resources used by researchers in their field, although some of those described below might be valuable for students in a variety of different academic disciplines.

intense, deep research skills are lacking. Being able to find not just "good enough" sources but the best sources is critical.

Many librarians might traditionally regard managing information as being solely about bibliographic management, but file management, management of web resources and also developing an understanding of how to keep up to date, should form a fundamental part of the curriculum.

Traditionally this might include an understanding of plagiarism, and citation and referencing techniques.

Sharing information appropriately also forms part of the ethical use of information.

The need to present like someone on TED talks. Is presentation an information literacy skill? It's a digital literacy skill. Being literate in the tools, modes and reach of your presentations (slideshare, podcast, recording and rights.)

I don’t know howyou get across to people that it’s not simply about finding the answer, it’s finding your voice to make a valid answer.

Managing your online identity, web presence or ‘digital footprint’

rodusage ‐ not a consumer but not a producer either ‐ ideas of production and consumption are pre‐internet concepts. Forces of publication/dissemination now much more wide‐spread, democratized. “Produsers” produce and use at the same time. IL is beginning to sound a bit stale

I suppose the idea of synthesising information from different sources – students really struggle with this ‐ the ideasof looking at two different sources and evaluate them – even if its not evaluating for quality, they might both have different opinions about something. Compare and contrast – that idea.

Part of it is developing citizens that are aware and socially conscious ... being an information conscious person and an IL person when it comes to elections and major issues like a referendum.... It’s ina much broader sense we are talking about when we talk about IL.

In most cases, leaders do not change only the dynamics and environment, employees within the organization change.

Like one that does not fit all heads, similarly one style cannot be effective in all situations.

democratic leaders

three different leadership styles

Laissez faire leadership

autocratic leaders

Different researchers proposed that three types of leaders, they were; autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire.

“He further assumed that all leaders could fit into one of these three categories”.

“Adoption needs to happen teacher by teacher, grade by grade.”

By helping educators develop the skills and confidence to grow professionally, school districts are investing in their students and building cultures that embrace technology. “It doesn’t matter how many devices you have,” Mac says. “If you don’t know how to integrate technology with teaching, it becomes just another add on.”