Recently at the beginning of a day long workshop, I used a Google form to get feedback on this question:
If there was one part of your personal learning practice that you wanted to focus on today, what would it be? What questions would you seek to answer?
Now I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not a perfect question in terms of trying to get some sense of the personal learning lives from the teachers who were participating. But in the context of a discussion we’d been having about the passion-based learning opportunities that the Web now affords, I was hoping to learn what they wanted to think more deeply about when it came to their own interests and their own learning. Unfortunately, most of what I got back (on the first go round at least; I asked them to do it again) was about how to use the tools in the classroom, and very little about what they wanted to learn about learining around their own passions with others who share them.
I know that over the years, I’ve thought about and written about this quite a bit here and elsewhere, this idea that teachers need to see themselves as learners first. In our PLP cohorts, Sheryl and I are constantly working to get teachers to be selfish about the learning at the outset, to not see the experience as simply a way to learn tools that they can then bring into their classrooms. (We didn’t call it “Powerful Tools Practice” for a reason.) And I usually end most of my presentations with that plea as well, most times only to get asked a question about how to overcome the difficulties of making this work in the classroom. It’s always a struggle.
Anyway, it’s interesting to review some of these responses that did attempt to reach beyond tools:
- How to take the learning practices that I’ve been taught by senior teachers, as I am a new teacher, and make them work in concert with the needs of my students when in the face of so much negative energy from my coworkers?
- We are dealing with numerous “tools” that help us find, sort and use information in a directed manner. Is there a “best” approach to pulling these together to enable us to better deal with and share these in one place.
- Interested in gathering ideas about how to motivate groups of teacher to value the importance of developing their own PLN. Often educators understand the idea of developing a PLN but they are not consistent about maintaining it. The shift from sit n’ git to planning a goal and following a custom path seems foreign.
- I really like having ammunition for the folks who say learning 2.0 is eeeeviiiil, that the state of education is going to pot and literacy is at an all time low.
Obviously, these reflect a lot of the messiness that exists right now around technology and the Web in learning practice. (That’s why I picked them.) But it still leaves me wondering why it’s so hard to get educators in particular to be selfish about this stuff. Maybe it’s not in our DNA?
Selfishness is a much undervalued and misunderstood quality. I think it’s essential in any creative activity, and for me, teaching/learning is very much a creative activity/process. The thing is that the selfishness implies a need for commitment, focus, rigour etc. Using the ‘excuse’ of not wanting to be selfish therefore allows an easy ‘out’. Which is entirely natural, and not limited to eductors of course. although they may be more prone to using that line because they see themselves more in a selfless role as nurturers, facilitators etc.
This is too simplistic of a response here, but when I look at my own [adult] students, they are interested, but pulled in so many directions. Person/professional “grazing time” seems to take a back seat to the routines of daily life. I suppose one could relate this to those who make a sincere commitment to physical exercise and those who see it as important, yet can’t seem to dedicate consistent time to it. I believe your term, passion, has a great deal to do with all of this. Being merely “interested” is not enough…
My personal self-description has developed into “Too many interests, too little time.” I fall into the lifelong learner category, but as a librarian, perhaps it’s easier to justify (and create time for) learning about things unrelated to my students’ schoolwork. No matter what I learn about (or do), someday it WILL be relevant to one of my students or teachers.
But I can make time for some of this as part of my work day — learning HTML, reading and responding to professional blog posts, playing with online tools in order to teach others about them, is all fun learning to me and ok to do at work. At home, every minute I spend reading a novel, watching an instructional video, or trying a new knitting technique, is a minute I’m not attending to the zillions of mundane repairs, chores and other tasks required to keep my family afloat. And anything outside the house – kayaking, scuba, a cooking class, lectures? Not happening. Classroom teachers may find themselves in this situation.
I also wonder if the traditional divide between “teacher/work life” and “personal life” doesn’t influence the focus on learning things only related to classroom needs. If the institutional culture encouraged integration between personal and professional interests, perhaps would feel more freedom to make time for personal learning. I’m thinking of the elementary teacher with a passion for Negro League baseball who was able to make that a core subject in his 3rd grade curriculum, and the history teacher obsessed with Buddy Holly & 1950s rock & roll, who teaches a class on that topic during a short term. Of course, the institution also has to value real learning and not just test scores. Make teachers’ personal learning part of the annual evaluation process. A job requirement?
Long reply, but no real solutions. Good to think about it, though.
I think all the previous comments make valid points that are part of the explanation. These “selfless nurturers” find that they must compartmentalize their lives and severely limit the time they give to their interests. I would add that in many circles, there is a certain peer pressure against being passionate about one’s teaching and learning. There’s also the fact that educators generally come from the ranks of those who succeeded in schools as they have been. It’s a model of “sit and git” that is comfortable and familiar, and routine. Plotting your own course, and being responsible for your own learning is scary, messy and you might not get it right. We’re plenty conditioned to wanting to get it “right”
Monica,
I think it is very true that not until one experiences something powerfully different does one develop a hunger for more of it. Many simply “deliver” the kind of instruction that was delivered to them, without really challenging or reflecting upon the effectiveness or the value of it. To light a fire within others, one must know how to light a fire and have experienced many such fires on a personal level. It’s hard to instill passion in learners when we ourselves are passion-less.
Sometimes it’s not a matter of a lack of interest in expanding the horizons of the self … but rather apathy and laziness. A good teacher will go wild with excitement in presenting a lesson and some of the kids will sit – bored and unaffected. Many adults are the same – the world is a feast … but most of the people in the world are starving (a line from the old film Mame).
I think the essential problem is a bit of all of the above. My personal experience is that while I am a practicing teacher and a student pursuing my master’s degree at the same time, I want to know more about technology for myself, but I need to have something I can show an immediate use of for both my students and my instructors. It is an unfortunate fact that many of us, as educators, succeed in the old-school methods, so we want to continue on in the ways which work for us. And finally, even those of us who do want to be selfish and use technology in our own learning face an incredible dearth of knowledge if we haven’t been on the front lines from the beginning. I literally spent hours on the computer tonight searching for a place where I could blog to meet my university assignment and “Be sure that the blogs you explore are educational in context and are relevant to your professional work.” I wanted something I cared about, something recent and relevant, something I felt would be resonded to, but as this is only the second time in my life that I have participated in a blog, I was clueless where to start. I did feel like I found something worthwhile to respond to in your blog, though, so thank you!!!
I suspect that it’s largely because the teachers are coming out as part of an education-based conference or workshop. That focuses their thinking and everything is related around that context. I was at the OTF09 conference with you last week (fantastic, btw), and when you’re surrounded by other teachers, again – that learning happens within that context of “hey, I’m a teacher”. I found that several discussions I had that day started with “I’m using ____ in my class to do _________…” So right there, you’re reinforcing that the topic can/should be used in school.
On top of that, it was probably billed as a ‘professional development opportunity’, so we want to use it in our classes or feel guilty for using a workshop for non-educational purposes. Maybe we should call them ‘personal development opportunities’ instead.
I very much appreciate your push for teachers to be selfish with our learning. It will take a mind-shift, though.
Please keep it up!
I suppose that if I have something I am passionate about besides my family and my students, it would be my subject area, (religion), and I’ve been feeding that passion and continuing to learn in different ways for years. The need to connect over the internet did not feel strong, so your words at our school regarding that did not take hold.
But along comes a new interest (can I call it a passion yet? Getting there…), an area where I have much to learn and fewer people at hand to learn from, and suddenly I am in the midst of trying to make those connections, to anyone who has something to teach me, to London, to Australia or wherever. It’s about the Web 2.0 connected classroom. That’s what I took from our in-service day with you almost one year ago. I guess it makes sense that for teachers, teaching is going to be a passion.
Okay, now I need to add this: This morning I heard a report on the radio about a study done with babies and how they seem to be able to recognize and reproduce, even in crying, intonation of their native language. This interests me. I was interested in linguistics in college. And in the last few months I have remembered this (because of what you said last November, Will). And I have bookmarked a couple of sites, joined a Facebook group. But I never go there; I have not pursued it.
It probably boils down to things said above: no time (understatement), and the fact that it’s an “interest” that has not developed into a passion.
There are issues about relearning around the fact that communication and interest does not build a strong community. Inside schools, there is a culture of churn, sink and drift. There are those that need a wake up call, but also those who when they hear it, start to sink time into their own learning, drift away from the ideology that they once held and churn into other areas. So many have already gone into consulting, private networks and higher education from school – I am not sure if they are selfish in doing do, but there is obviously a gap between public education of teachers and self-education.
I plead guilty.
I am currently teaching at a Native American school and I along with other groups receive grants to improve the technology in our classroom. I have been teaching for only 2 years and I am finding I need to be more selfish when it comes to the needs of my classroom. I have to compete with teachers that have 20 years of experience which at times is used as an intimidation tool. I am a number cruncher and discovered several of these tenured teachers have considerably less students than I have and they expect the majority of the money. I submitted this claim to the administrators stating the grant’s purpose was to utilize the money where it would reach more students and the money should be allocated according. This selfish act netted my classroom nearly $12,000.00 which was $3,000.00 before.
I am currently working on my masters and my assignment was to create and interact with a blog. I found your site useful and interesting, thank you.
Maybe the best way to teach teachers both ‘how’ to use the tools and ‘how’ to use the tools to foster learning is to remove the tools from a discussion of education.
I recently led a group of young teachers through a ten week social tech in ed class. In the beginning, I was ‘teaching’ a lot of tools (to mixed results). Later in the course, I brought in pieces of poetry and rather than teach an ‘ed school’ class, I taught a ‘poetry class’. But it was a poetry class taught using and modeling the tools that I wanted the teachers to understand how to use themselves. And that’s when I started to see a connection with some folks who had otherwise been wary of social tech.
Most of us realize that the ‘ed speak’ part of professional development is mind-numbingly boring. And it’s not like teachers haven’t sat through a million prof dev sessions ostensibly ‘teaching’ them new tools.
The trick in teaching teachers how to ‘own’ their own learning through building a PLN and the like is to teach them that social media is not some monolithic thing. It’s not a set of rules meant to be followed.
In addition, there is nothing about the ‘tools’ that suggests that the only way to learn how to use them in the classroom or for the purpose of building a PLN is by treating them in a ‘prof dev’ way.
So why not teach the value of the tools by letting folks experiment with them and find their own value in using them. Interested in fishing? Great, here’s some ways to use Web 2.0 to become a better angler. Like baseball? Cooking? Historical Re-enactments? Here’s how you can use Twitter and FB and everything else to dive deeper into your passion.
Once you’ve got them hooked on the value of the tool, then you can teach them how to apply it to the classroom.
You want teachers to ‘own’ the learning? (Which is what I think you mean by being ‘selfish’). Well, let them use the tools to learn things they are passionate about outside of the classroom. Because I think the most important thing is that they learn how to ‘own’ the ‘ways of learning’ that the new tech — and networked thinking in general — offers.
Shelly
Shelly, that is so true. I always try to do this with my own grad students – find personal/professional value in the tool before thinking about its implications for classroom teaching and student learning. There is no way that we can force passion or convince people to be passionate about ___________ if they don’t see any relevance or personal application in it. This is true for our students just as much as it it true for us. If we all taught our own students in the manner that most sit ‘n git professional development is delivered to teachers, we’d need NTLB instead of NCLB (although, one might argue that this is the reason that we have NCLB 😉
Whenever my students ask me why I became a teacher, I always use my “selfish” answer first: Because I like to learn and teaching gives me that opportunity every day.
Advances in technology greatly facilitate this. When giving a presentation on “Teacher Application of Google Tools” (see http://www.hartwelleducation.blogspot.com) I always came back to my interests and passions to drive the presentation and demonstrate the potential efficacy of a PLN.
As a middle school global cultures teacher (and in a social studies frame of mind), I think it comes down to a “primary needs” theory; true, we aren’t talking about physical survival here, but I do think many teachers are in perpetual “survive or die” mode in the classroom. It’s a sprint from the first bell to the last bus, full of short-hand conversations with colleagues about logistics (rather than philosophy), shoveled-down lunches, parent emails, last-minute have-to’s from stressed-out administrators…and self-imposed pressure to be uber-educators (and don’t forget raising those test scores.) My point is this: I’m a better teacher when I’m a better learner. Right now, I teach amazing students and work with a “dream team” of colleagues–we do take time to help each other focus on our own personal renewal, which, I think, leads to professional revival. There’s a reason that flight attendants ask us to put our own oxygen masks on before we help others…
I certainly agree with LaWanda. I am also a practicing teacher pursuing my masters degree. I feel similarly in that the technology knowledge I gain is required by my classes to be put forth into the classroom. The arenas that teachers learn technology are tied to its implementation in the classroom. An teachers classes are typically are education classes with the intention of utilizing the content to improve student learning. If an educator is at a conference the same is true.
I am a strong believer that technology should be used to stimulate the mind of the educator for several reasons. First, it is always good to have a reminder that learning is exciting and worthwhile. Additionally, if educators took the time to be more “selfish” and explore their own interests, teachers would have the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding and learn more about the subjects that they are teaching.
I would like to say that teachers professionally developing on their own will be a coming trend in the future. Unfortunately, with the stringent certificate renewal requirements and the pay scale structure increase for a masters, I feel that teachers will solely focus on learning related to the classroom.
Will-
I continue to enjoy reading your blog on almost a daily basis, despite having left the classroom a year and a half ago. It is because of your blog that I continue to remain engaged in educational technology, and continue to think about a future in schools doing this kind of work.
As a result, when I was awarded the Kreativ Blogger this morning and asked to award 7 other blogs, I couldn’t help but pass one along to you. You can check it out here (along with your shout out), http://rateyourworld.wordpress.com/ , and know that I appreciate all that you do!
Janice
Teachers should always try to look for the best in their teaching and this doesn’t occur if they don’t keep up learning. Because to be a good educator you should be a good learner.
I think you what we run into as technology leaders is the same frustration that is faced by immigrants working hard to assimilate to a new culture. Tech natives have no problem integrating the various technologies, because they do so throughout their life. Tech immigrants are working hard to integrate technology into one part of their life (the professional part). It’s the same struggle that eludes teachers of English as a second language, attempting to help students assimilate to language and culture at school, only to have the student (and often family) revert to their comfort at home. I think both are only evidence of human nature to feel secure. It’s a tough hurdle, because it goes against natural instinct.
Teachers have to have the talent of giving and accepting critisism (within limits) to upgrade themselves, also to accept the fact they can be learners regardless age & time.
Teachers have to constantly update themselves with the latest technolgy tools in teaching to be dynamic in the profession. So teachers are always learners
If there was one part of your personal learning practice that you wanted to focus on today, what would it be? What questions would you seek to answer?
I would like to find a way to motivate my fellow faculty members to increase their use of technologies in the classroom. We have many great resources at school and there is appears to be a disconnect with some of the “dinosaurs.” I have been able to reach out to an individual few which I am thankful, but I was wondering if anyone has had success in reaching out to an entire faculty all at once. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
I finished my undergraduate degree two and a half years ago, and I was itching to get back into the student seat ever since. I have had a passion for filmmaking since I was a junior in high school, and have taken this time off from being a student to read more than thirty books on the subject ranging from screenwriting to post-production. I did create a filmmaking club at the high school where I teach mathematics, but I have to admit that I wanted to have more hands-on experience making films. I started my master’s program in educational technology this fall due to my need to study something I am very interested in. I fell behind of the current generation of technology as soon as I left college. I knew that I needed better structure to focus my learning of these technology tools. I am learning to use these tools in an educational manner, but am interested in learning these tools just to provide myself with new knowledge.
As a matter of fact, if we recall, there are always a lot of interesting experiences which can give us some hint. One of those was a professor who announced his final exam to be a project where students do literature search on an assigned topic and make presentations in front of the class. The very first thing he said about this project was that he hoped that he could also learn something from the students’ work. I am not sure how you guys think about such an approach. I noticed two types of response, one being, “wow, this professor thinks that we can do something valuable to him. That’s very nice of him and we should do our best”; the other being, “come on, he just wants us to do some labor work for his research”.