Individually Unique, Together Amazing!
The Wodonga CRT Support Network is a community for CRTs who teach in schools in the upper Hume region of Victoria, Australia. Part educational, part social, all about making ourselves better. If you don't have something like this in your area we invite you to join in with us through this blog!
Did either of these, or any articles from others teacher blogs we have in the side bar, make you reflect on your role as a teacher? Did it change your
attitudes towards or approach to teaching in some way? Did it reaffirm your core beliefs about
teaching? Can you put these thoughts in writing and show how it is
going to make you a better teacher?
Then this is PD.
You
don't have to be sitting in a room in front of a speaker, with other
teachers, for it to be PD.
So why should teacher blogs be a valid place to find PD? They are online to be sure but the fact doesn't change that it's one teacher imparting ideas onto another. At it's core this is collegial learning which is a valid form of PD. Teacher blogs often contain alternative perspectives from which to view a topic, helpful advice to deal with common or uncommon classroom issues and new strategies to delivering the same old content in ways which students find new, exciting and engaging.
If you go out and search for long enough you'll find hundreds of teacher blogs out there. The internet gives you direct access to ideas and concepts world-wide. Not only this but you can often go back to the start of a blog and start reading from the old to the new. You can see the evolution of a teacher and how they have incorporated new ideas into their practices, which they are still talking about after a year and which they thought was fabulous at the time but seem to have fallen by the wayside.
Not only can you get access to new ideas but you can also draw parallels to your own evolution as a teacher. See the areas that you are still struggling with where they have excelled, areas where they still struggle but you excell. You can see what they have held onto that is making their lives easier or harder and use that as a reflection point. This allows you to evaluate your practices against a world-wide stage full of regular teachers trying to do right by their students.
Nola Firth and Erica Frydenberg with Wedge Park Pupils
PRIMARY school teachers will be trained to support and
empower students with dyslexia by building their resilience and coping
skills while helping them become their own advocates.
The "Success and Dyslexia" program, said to be the first
school-based dyslexia resilience program of its type, could change the
way the learning disability is treated in Victorian schools.
Developed by Nola Firth and University of Melbourne
educational psychologist Erica Frydenberg, it highlights the importance
of coping strategies, assertiveness and positive thinking in dealing
with the learning disability. Based on research showing resilience as a more powerful
predictor of success than the extent of dyslexia, the program is the
result of 14 years of work for Dr Firth, a senior researcher at the
Royal Children's Hospital's Centre for Adolescent Health and Murdoch
Children's Research Institute. Dr Firth, who has spent three years in trials of the
program at Wedge Park and Darley Primary schools, says successful adults
with dyslexia have a positive approach and display persistence and
determination. "It's so well documented that these kids suffer from
learned helplessness because they've failed so often . . . we know that
it is not the extent of dyslexia, it is how they handle it that is the
predictor of success in life and that's powerful because we can change
how people deal with it," she says. Dyslexia is an inherited condition that causes people to
have significant difficulty with reading, spelling and mathematics. It
is estimated two to three children in every classroom have dyslexia,
including some of the brightest, yet many go undiagnosed and struggle
through school. Experts say teachers have limited training to identify
dyslexia and are generally unaware that it is genetic and lifelong.
Despite dedicated literacy intervention, such as reading recovery, it
can be resistant to improvement — a reason some students reach high
school still struggling to read or write. Dr Firth has heard countless accounts from undiagnosed
adults about the intense shame and stress they felt at school. "They
didn't understand what was happening to them and some of them are really
quite angry because they really felt they should have had more
support," she says. Research shows that without intervention such students
risk developing behavioural problems at school — they are likely to give
up, withdraw socially, misbehave and eventually drop out. "That can snowball into negative outcomes in school and life," she says. The program is written as a manual and is designed to be
incorporated into the curriculum to help schools address the emotional
needs of struggling students. Wedge Park Primary School principal Ron Shadbolt says
students who took part in the program had a greater understanding of
their condition. "They displayed a greater degree of confidence and also
persistence in the work they achieved in the classroom," he says. "The
most important thing is that the students became very resilient
regarding their condition." Dr Firth is also buoyed by the change in students who
were initially confused, afraid or even angry about having dyslexia. "By
the end of it, most of them carry themselves with more assurance, more
self-regard, firmer voices . . . they appear happier and that's quite
wonderful to see."
Did this make you reflect on your role as a teacher? Did it change your attitudes towards teaching? Did it reaffirm your core beliefs about teaching? Can you put these thoughts in writing and show how it is going to make you a better teacher?
Then this is PD.
You don't have to be sitting in a room in front of a speaker, with other teachers, for it to be PD. PD can come from many unlikely sources. Keep an eye out for them!
Teachers have been using Newspaper articles as PD submissions for as long as I can remember. It is a simple sideways step to use online editions of newspapers as a valid source of PD. Unlike a physical newspaper, online it is often easier to target the articles that are relevant to you.
and bookmarking it. No searching through the paper for articles on Education, there they all are, segregated for you! Many reputable newspapers do the same for their online versions and this gives you access to international newspapers daily!
Did this make you reflect on your role as a teacher? It certainly made me stop and think about expectations in the classroom being a 2 way street. I've always known that I expected certain things of students but how deep do their expectations of me run and am I living up to those expectations?
Did this make you reassess the way you think about your students too? Did this reaffirm your beliefs on what you should be doing as a teacher? Can you explain these thoughts and how they will effect how you teach?
Then this is PD.
You don't have to be sitting in a room in front of a presenter, with other teachers, for it to be PD.
But how do we know that VIT accepts online video as an effective source of PD? This one is fairly easy to answer!
I will give you three guesses where this video is from. That's right, it's from VIT's Youtube channel. It's the first part of a 6-segment section on their first "Twilight Seminar" in 2011. They started their Youtube channel about a year ago and have added 3 Twilight Seminars and a few other videos.
Using the medium to deliver their message is a public statement that they understand online video is a valid and constructive way to deliver and receive information.
Make sure you include video in your Pd submissions if you find them informative, inspirational and thought provoking and have a positive effect on your role as a teacher!
Last week I attended the DEECD Network Coordinator's meeting in Melbourne. As usual a lot of the meeting was about us as Coordinators rather than CRTs. However there's a few interesting things that came out of it for everyone.
More Maths Professional Development workshops.
Abbey, Coordinator of the Point Cook Network has taken on the task of speaking to the Maths Association of Victoria and organizing some Maths PD workshops on behalf of all the networks. She is going to try to negotiate both half and full day Workshops/Seminars, content suitable for both Primary and Secondary CRTs and be a hands-on experience for those attending. We have every faith that she will do an excellent job!
Thanks Abbey for taking this one on!
Local Presenters.
Some criteria were discussed for using Regional presenters for DEECD funded PDs and Workshops. It's demystified the process a little so it should see some more of our 2.5 hour PD. It's given us a MUCH clearer definition on who we can get in meaning that some things we thought we couldn't get, we can.
Be on the lookout for these in the future!
Survey Results.
The DEECD surveys you all did back in December 2011 were collated and we received the results for our region. There is an issue in that only a small number of CRT's responded making the results statistically irrelevant in a lot of ways. While most of it mirrored the results of our February inquiries there were a few surprising results.
Although the number responding was statistically small we have taken the information on board and we will be making an effort in the future to find out more about what local CRTs are after. Keep an eye on the blog to find out how we are going to do this!
As Victorian teachers we all know we need 20 hours of "Professional Development" a year. That is fine and dandy of course. It's just one more aspect of our jobs where we have to dot the "I"s and cross the "T"s.
If you hold this view I'd like you to set it aside for 20 minutes. Just 20 minutes. Start a timer, start a stopwatch, check the clock. 20 minutes.
Professional Development is YOUR opportunity to learn about the aspects of teaching YOU want to learn about. To seek out the areas of knowledge and training to make your own life easier. Treating it like this is a self-governing system.
Having a problem in class? That is what you will WANT to learn about.
So you go and research the topic, learn about it, and arm yourself with the knowledge to solve your problem in class.
Because you have solved the problem YOU have a happier time in class, YOUR STUDENTS have a happier time in class and YOUR students achieve better outcomes.
You then go back to the start of the cycle and solve the next problem.
This is why VIT places such an emphasis on "Teacher Identified PD". VIT recognizes that Teachers are intelligent professionals and able to identify the areas they need to fill to be better teachers. They also realize that you can't just walk out and find workshops on that specific topic and you will need to use other sources to get the knowledge you need to be a happier, more effective teacher in a happier, high achieving class. Whether this be speaking to other teachers to gain strategies and advice, searching out professional articles, the blog of another teacher, newspaper articles, books, even relevent Youtube/Teachertube videos.
VIT understands that simply attending 20 hours worth of workshops isn't going to necessarily arm you with the tools you need to improve the outcomes of your students.
"Teacher Identified PD" is the way in which you can tailor your own learning to make it 100% interesting to YOU and 100% purposeful to YOU and still have a 100% positive outcome for your students. We cannot stress strongly enough that Teacher Identified PD is the gateway between PD as "work" and PD as "a journey of discovery and self improvement".
Now think of a problem you are having in class. A problem with the whole class. A problem with an individual student. Something you think you could be doing better. Take the rest of the 20 minutes and look online. Just for today, stay away from "traditional" sources of PD like professional documents and government websites. Use this blog's links in the sidebar. Search other teacher blogs. Search Youtube. Teachertube. Classroom resource sites. Search. Go.
I all but guarantee you that by the end of this 20 minutes you found SOMETHING that grabbed your attention. A blog with helpful advice. An inspirational video that renews your faith in your ability as a teacher. An engaging set of classroom resources. A classroom behaviour strategy that is going to get little Johnny engaged and working. Now take another 10 minutes and reflect on what you found. How did it change how you view your classroom and your role as a teacher? What positive effects will it have on your students?
You now have 30 minutes of "teacher identified PD" to satisfy your VIT requirements. 30 minutes of PD that is relevant. 30 minutes of PD that will improve the way you teach and give your students a better opportunity to learn.
This won't change everyone's mind of course. Some of you will still just want the workshops. THAT IS PERFECTLY OK. I don't think you are giving yourself enough credit, but it's ok.
As an idea here's what I found in 20 minutes;
I chose Behaviour Management because I know that after the holidays I'll be dealing with a somewhat difficult class behaviour wise. I just skimmed videos and articles until I found helpful and "fun" preventative strategies. To a lesser extent I was also looking for information on why students become behaviour issues in the first place so I can more easily identify when trouble is brewing. While I consider that I have a reasonable handle on that second part, it never hurts to see the situation from someone else's perspective!
I didn't get to watch/read it all in that 20 minutes but I certainly found enough items to grab my attention and give me ideas to use in the classroom.
PD is partly about maintaining your VIT registration, that much is common sense. There is no reason that it's ALL it should be though. Above and beyond that? "Teacher Identified PD" is an ideal way to make sure that your PD hours advance your understanding of how to make your OWN life in the classroom easier and more enjoyable for everyone concerned. To solve the specific problems that you face every day which slowly erodes your enthusiasm.
To get you back to those grass roots you started in the profession with, the true desire to make a differecne in the lives of children.
So what are your feelings on Professional Development? I obviously have a view to put forward here. I believe a good balance between Workshop and self-identified PD is the best approach. What is your opinion? What issues are you facing in finding PD whether it be Workshops or another source? If you prefer the workshop option and what are the main benefits you see in those sorts of PD? Most important, do you feel that PD is a worthwhile pursuit or is it just a "target" for you to achieve that's set by VIT? Comments are open and you can either comment using a variety of accounts, by entering your name or do it anonymously. We, and others reading this blog, are genuinely interested in your ideas on the subject!
