Developing Effective Professional Learning

Our Proffessional Learning Challenge

As educators, we must be willing to stand at the forefront of new ideas to provide us learner-based skills to empower our student learners. Who is the “learner” in this sense? YOU! The teacher. What are your skills as a teacher? What is your learning philosophy? When you can answer this question, you can challenge the very idea of how you teach. Teaching starts with your WHY! Why do you get up every morning to empower the next generation? This question is a crucial step in learning more about the teacher you want to become.

Let’s Have a Crucial Conversation

Current professional development (PD) is lifeless and ineffective! PD adheres to the same “stand-and-lecture” format that most teachers still practice to this day. Does this make us ineffective as educators? Certainly not! However, this teaching method has proved that student-learners have evolved from the time when this was effective. Student learners want to be challenged and feel as if what their learning truly matters to them. Does this sound familiar? Eductors are no different from their student-learners and therefore, their learning must be handled differently. We must not be afraid to discuss this issue and the future of education depends on this discussion.

What Can We Do Differently?

Like former President, Abraham Lincoln, our educators’ skills must be sharpened. We have been Called to Action to change the way we provide learning to educators. By focussing on the 5 Principles of Effective Professional Learning we can design PD that encourages teacher-learners by valuing their time, providing ongoing support, active engagement, modeling and focused to the needs of the educators

Alternative PL Plan

My Professional Learning Plan provides ongoing support to educators as we navigate the world of Mobile Application Development. Teacher-Learners will have countless opportunities to learn, grow and meditate on methodologies to incorporate application design and by extension, programming and computational thinking in their teaching subject areas.

Computational Thinking

Take a look at this brief video overview of Computational Thinking:

Project Based Learning

Take a look at this brief video overview of Project Based Learning:

Swift Lessons – YouTube Playlist

This YouTube playlist will serve as basis of our lessons as we dive deeper into our learning of the iOS Swift programming language.

References

Experiential Learning: How We All Learn Naturally. (2015, October 12). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF63HHVbpQ8

Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development in an Era of High Stakes Accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/system/files/2013-176_ProfessionalDevlopment.pdf

Heather Hill. (2015). Review of The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth about Our Quest for Teacher Development. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved from http://www.greatlakescenter.org/docs/Think_Twice/TT-Hill-TNTP.pdf

Videojugsport. (2011, April 06). How To Perform Bas Rutten’s Rear Naked Choke. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LppnEfRoFIM&t=89s