Assignment - 9

Professional Development on Your Way

            Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants. Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event (e.g. being burned by a hot stove), but much skill and knowledge accumulates from repeated experiences

So, learning and studying never stops it goes on until our last breath, it is a long & continuous process. Teacher is always being a mentor and nation builder and having great responsibility on his shoulder. Teacher needs to learn and develop certain kind of skills because a good teacher is a good learner.

For years, professional development went a lot like this:

(1) You sit.

(2) An outside expert or consultant talks.

(3) You listen.

Many teachers jokingly refer to this format as “Sit ’n’ Git.”

            In the last few years, teachers have started turning this model on its head with “unconference” gatherings like Edcamp, Cue Rock Star, and PLAYDATE, and with online tools like Meetup, Twitter, and blogging. The community-driven experience creates a chemistry and a sense of common purpose not found in traditional PD. “We learn so much from watching one another, not talking ‘at’ each other or reading a PowerPoint,” says Joanne Miller, who teaches fourth grade at Pride Elementary in Deltona, Florida.

Finding a safe, supportive venue to bounce around ideas regularly—whether in a group face-to-face, on a blog, in a staff meeting, with a friend, or alone in your journal—can be crucial to professional growth.

Ready o make our own PD? Here are few teacher-tried ways to do it on your own terms.

1 | Go on (adult) field trips.

            Get a group of teachers together and going to museum, a learning farm, an art exhibition, or even a discourse session —anything to give you fresh perspective on a topic or something to buzz about to your students. Going with other teachers is not only social, but it is likely to lead to many new lesson ideas—and maybe some cross-curricular collaboration with other classes.

2 | Make tech work for you, not vice versa.

Do you break into a sweat when you see all the technology and social media tools available (and subsequently hide under a desk with a quill pen and papyrus)? So do we, sometimes. But instead of becoming paralyzed by choices, just pick something and give it a deadline.

“Try something for two weeks, and pay attention to how much time you put in and the value you are getting out. Is it just entertaining or are you extracting value?” Or, try two tools for a limited time. “See which tool feels more intuitive and offers you more value, then ditch the other one.”

 

3 | Start a book club.

“I’m always amazed at the way books can spark deep conversations about important topics. This has especially been true when I use them with teachers,” says Susan Dee. To launch professional development conversations, she uses picture books such as If You Hold a Seed, by Elly MacKay, to remind teachers that sometimes it’s okay to step away, refocus, and try again; and Courage, by Bernard Waber, to encourage her peers  to talk about all the things that take courage in their teaching practice.

Dee says books “create a non-threatening way to have important conversations, without them becoming personal.” Also consider forming a club to discuss the latest teaching memoir, pop-psychology book, or education documentary—and enjoy the fruitful conversations that result.

4 | See lessons through students’ eyes.

Chris Aviles, a K–8 education technology coach for New Jersey’s Fair Haven School District, found a bold way to keep tabs on his teaching. He straps GoPro video cameras to his students’ foreheads! This helps him see what their day is like and how his lessons went. “It’s basically all about looking at a lesson, at the classroom, at the environment through the kids’ eyes,” says Aviles (see Cool Teachers). “It was amazing to see kids turn and talk to each other…and how often they were discussing the lesson when a teacher might otherwise think that they were disengaged and talking about something else.”

If video cameras aren’t your style, there are many other ways to get student input that could change your teaching. Aviles suggests surveying kids about their experiences, interests, challenges, and goals—or inviting them one-on-one to “show” what they’ve learned, in lieu of testing.

5 | Break down the walls of your classroom.

No, we don’t mean remodeling! Try handing over your classroom stage to others on a regular basis. Invite guest speakers to present; host or attend videoconferences with faraway teachers and experts; swap classes with a colleague; pair up with another teacher to present a cross-curricular lesson; or ask a student “expert” to teach a topic. All of these strategies can give you a fresh look at new teaching styles and ideas—and reveal different ways your students learn. They’re also great for expanding the range and diversity of perspectives available to the kids in your class.

            A few other ways of profession development:

• Online Training: It’s been giving now a days to teachers by government and with APF co-operation. Through this teachers can make their profession development.
• Playing with Technology: Having huge free time due to COVID – 19, we can spend on learning many new technical skills which helps in enhancing profession. Ex: Learning computer soft skills like Ms Office, Ms excel, Ms PPt, Photoshop, and Blogging, and using other new gadgets.
• Preparing new models: To give live experience while teaching its better time to create new technically used models. Ex: Collecting and creating new you tube videos and Interesting charts and banners.
•  Watching You Tube videos:  Watching online educational programs or videos on You Tube, Dhiksha etc, can improve our profession. Ex: Spoken English videos, grammar and pronunciation videos etc.
• Reading:  Reading good books, novels and subject related books    
• Communicating with students: Continue conversation with students and solving their problems and giving feedback, doing follow up can develop students learning as well as teachers profession.

        Subsequently learning new activities, creativity, participation and continue practices keep us active and updated. Self progress and development increases in quality of education which leads in building good nation and good society.

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