depends on professional development.
Our school district recently decided that it was time to join the 21st Century. Sanger ISD, a small to medium sized rural public school district in Texas charged with educating the minds of about 2600 students. Similar to many districts our size, we have always done an excellent job teaching the core subjects. Recent administration decided that teaching the core is no longer sufficient to help kids succeed in the future. It was time that Sanger made the transition from analog teaching and embrace the digital age.
“Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.” -Will Rogers
From humble beginnings a colossal mess was made. We were excited; one could even say we were inspired. We knew the kinds of things we wanted to see happening in the classroom. We knew what kinds of things were already happening in classrooms. The road ahead lay before us, but the map is not the territory.
Just like learning to ride a bike, teaching others how to integrate 21st Century Learning into their classrooms is accompanied by its own set of bumps and scrapes.
A few fundamental insights came out of these painful first attempts at district wide training.
- You have to teach the buttons and clicks
- Teachers under 30 generally get technology quicker than teachers over 40
- Make handouts if anyone in your audience is over 40
- Elementary teachers speak a different language than Secondary teachers
- Elementary teachers want to process and want you to see what a great job they are doing.
- Secondary teachers want the same thing, but pretend they don’t.
- Lather – Rinse – Repeat: Repetition is key for skill acquisition
“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know ain’t so.” -Will Rogers
Anytime you move people’s cheese by promoting systemic change, you have to take the time to help them open to the possibility that there might be a better way.
Education changes all the time. Veteran teachers know that if they wait long enough, the newest, greatest innovations in education will go away. Then we can all get back to what we were doing before. The classic whole language versus phonics debate is an excellent example. There is another fundamental truth: if you give a cookie to one kid in the class, all the others are going to want one too. We gambled on this and it paid off.
A core group of teachers with representatives from each campus was selected to participate in professional development from Apple. Apple generally only teaches 16 people in a session, so it created a VIP Only type of scenario. We chose teachers who were respected on their campuses, but not necessarily the most tech savvy. After training, this core group returned to their campuses, passionate about bringing some new innovative tools into their classrooms.
Other teachers noticed, and overnight interest in our program went through the roof.
“Always leave them wanting more.” -P.T. Barnum
Apple has mastered this concept. Whether you know it or not, iOS 6 and Mountain Lion will so significantly improve your quality of life, you will literally self-actualize from the moment you swipe your debit card. This concept is a basic tenet of showmanship. Let’s face it, there has to be a little razzle-dazzle in your teaching and professional development if you want to truly engage your audience. We designed our trainings in 50-minute sessions where teachers could work on or complete a really quick project to take back to their classrooms. Woven through each of the sessions were little teasers of what was to come in other trainings. Just enough to wet their appetite for the next session.
“The main thing, is to keep the main thing the main thing.” -Steven Covey
Teachers have to know how to take the skills they learn and put them into effective use in the classroom. They also have to know how to tie these skills to curriculum based performance indicators in order to see any gains in student achievement. The next article in this series will explore some very practical tools that help teachers do just that. So until next time, “stay thirsty my friends!”
