New Jersey cohort wraps things up
By Mary Worrell
Teams from the New Jersey PLP Cohort celebrated the culmination of a year’s worth of professional development last month with a project showcase.
Sarah Mendoza of the Carteret Public Schools team, an English teacher, said she found the PLP experience to be very enriching.
“I can speak for all of us – it was an eye-opener. One of the most memorable moments was when we were discussing effective use of technology in the classroom,” Mendoza said. “People operate under the notion that they know technology, but we realized we really don’t in many cases.
The Carteret team experimented with some of the things they were learning through PLP with a class wiki.
“We received lots of student participation – they weren’t hesitant at all – and they demonstrated higher order thinking skills,” Mendoza said. “They were actually learning and engaging in conversations on their own. We understood that when we let go a little bit of the traditional methods, students engage more in the learning.”
Scott Godshalk of the Quakertown Community School District found the expansion of his professional learning network to be one of the most beneficial perks of his PLP experience.
“Just being exposed to these conversations had the biggest impact on me,” Godshalk said. “I’m used to the conversations being within our four walls.”
The Quakertown team is launching their professional development project with something teachers are familiar – a professional booktalk – before moving into virtual conversations.
“I think a way of summarizing my shift is that I have always been one of those technology people,” Godshalk said. “But through PLP and the initial face-to-face, I had to sit back and say ‘good grief – I don’t know what they’re talking about.’ It has really expanded my thinking.”
The team at Hoptacong experienced a similar shift in their thinking.
“For me, PLP fostered a thought provoking question, namely what impact will Web 2.0 social networking tools have on instruction and learning?” said Joanne Mullane, curriculum supervisor.
Colin Wells said the process gave him “the tools to help broaden the spectrum in which [he] presents content to students.”
And Douglas From can better see the future of education.
“During this past school year, I was exposed to and at times felt bombarded by the massive explosion of how information is being shared in society,” From said. “As an educator, I will need to blend the traditional educational experience with new technology.”
Please visit each team’s wiki page to learn more about their projects.
Union City School District
Read about Union City Board of Education’s team project here.
Springfield Public Schools
Read about the Springfield team’s project here.
Quakertown Community School District
The team at Quakertown combined the familiarity of a professional book club with Web 2.0 professional development and documented their journey every step of the way. Read more about the project here.
Sayreville Public Schools
Read about Team Sayreville’s project here.
Jersey City Public Schools – Curriculum & Instruction
Read about the Curriculum & Instruction team of Jersey City’s project here.
Jersey City Public Schools – Special Education
Read about the Special Education team of Jersey City’s project here.
Pascack Valley Reg. H.S. District
The team at Pascack is developing an ongoing professional development plan that includes a number of Web 2.0 learning and communication elements. Read more about their project here.
Bound Brook School District
Read more about Bound Brook’s project here.
Vineland BOE
Read more about the Vineland BOE’s project here.
Keansburg School District
The team at Keansburg is developing a professional learning community for teachers, and ultimately students. Read more about their project here.
Kean University
Read about Kean University’s project here.
Perth Amboy (Middle Schools)
The team at Perth Amboy Middle developed a virtual learning community for students to communicate with Holocaust survivors and students from other schools that have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Read more about their project here.
Perth Amboy (High School)
Read about Perth Amboy High’s project here.
Long Branch School District
The team at Long Branch created a professional development wiki for educators to collaborate and share course content and ideas. Read more about their project here.
Carteret Public Schools
Read about the Carteret team’s project here.
Hopatcong Public Schools
The team at Hoptacong is addressing instruction and professional development through their project. Read more about it here.
State Leadership Team
Read about the State Leadership team’s project here.
New Jersey Team Finds Inspiration
By Mary Worrell
Teams from the New Jersey Cohort recently highlighted their culminating project plans during a webinar meeting. One team, from Perth Amboy Middle Schools, shared that they had a project in mind and plans in the works, but suggested it lacked a true spark – something that would motivate everyone involved.
That all changed when Janet Greve, a Language Arts Teacher from McGinnis Middle School, and her students took a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in March.
“The project found us,” Greve said.
Fifty students from Perth Amboy were able to take a bus down to D.C. along with two holocaust survivors and Mike Rubell, founder of the Rubell Holocaust Foundation, which funded the trip thanks to a dedicated email, phone and letter-writing campaign by Greve. Rubell started the foundation named for his father Morris Rubell and uses it to fund a number of trips each year for students to visit the museum in D.C. Survivors talk with students during the bus trip there and visit the museum with them.
Cesi, an eighth grader student, went on the Holocost Museum trip.
“It was a life-changing experience,” Cesi said about the museum. ” There are simple, everyday things you look at differently – no longer take things for granted.”
For David, another eighth grade student, the trip gave him real perspective on the Holocaust.
“It made me realize that of the 12 million people that died, each story was different,” he said. “They weren’t all the same.”
Kay McNulty, Middle School Technology Coordinator and Perth Amboy Middle Schools Team Leader, said it was clear on the trip that students developed strong connections with some of the survivors.
“As we walked back to the bus, Mike said he brings kids on several of these school trips each year,” McNulty said. “I said let’s have them connect with other kids and other survivors to keep the conversations going. Mike was very interested in the whole community building idea.”
McNulty realized after the trip was winding down with a moving visit to the Lincoln Memorial that this could be the PLP team’s project. Not only would students benefit from keeping in touch with the survivors they met on the trip, but students could benefit from communicating with one another about their experiences. She decided, after sharing the idea with Rubell, that a virtual learning community (VLC) would be the best platform for something like this.
That same night McNulty started a VLC using NING for the Rubell Remembrance Journeys bus trip. She was so excited to get started and move things along and quickly realized this was the spark her team needed for their culminating PLP project.
Perth Amboy is a very busy public school, and this time of the year finds then focused on standardized testing, McNulty said, so it was difficult at first to get team members engaged and excited about the project.
“Now that we have been lucky enough to start a project together, the team is energized,” she said. “So, yes, maybe it happened backwards, but the point is that as a team they see that connecting through digital tools can engage kids in learning. And as we move forward and this project grows, the teacher and administrators will all hopefully make that connection.”
Right now the Rubell Remembrance Journeys NING has nearly 60 members, including Holocaust survivors and students from Perth Amboy Middle School. As the project grows, the Perth Amboy team hopes to involve students from other schools that visit the museum with Rubell.
For team member Greve, the PLP experience has been “eye-opening.”
“I have laptops in my classroom and the kids can research whatever they want,” Greve said. “I know they can make those personal connections. When they’re reading Night by Elie Weisel they can get on the NING site they created and ask a survivor about it.”
Greve said students area also learning to keep a level of professionalism in their VLC.
“They’re learning a lesson that this is not their Myspace – not a place for silly pictures,” Greve said. “We want them to have a level of respect for the subject matter and be aware of who’s reading it. It’s a forum where they can really reflect what went on in our history.”
The students are very important for the Perth Amboy team, McNulty said.
“I came to realize after talking with David and Cesi that they are excited to have a social place that is populated with their teachers and growing in membership with some other adults who they can stay connected with throughout high school,” McNulty said. “I see PLP as a professional development experience by way of students. The kids are enriching the PLP experience in surprising ways.”
Read more about Perth Amboy Middle Schools’ team project here.
Self Directed Learning Teams
By Robin Ellis
In the November issue of Educational Leadership there was an interesting article, Students at Bat, as I read it I saw a correlation between the article and conversations about self-directed learning, both for students and adults. The article used an analogy of how playing neighborhood baseball taught many skills to children, for example: they chose teams, picked positions, decided where bases were located, what was considered a home run, and determined batting orders. Older children taught younger children how to bat, run the bases, and how to field the ball. Children resolved their disagreements through conversation, compromise and consensus.
Today most children don’t have the chance to play neighborhood baseball, their leagues are structured and run by adults who pick the teams, determine who plays what position, and create the batting order and the schedule of when games are played. Organized sports today are much like school, kids are told where to sit, who they will work with, when to eat, when to get up, when they can talk, what they will learn, and how they will be measured on their learning. As students move up in grade levels their choices become fewer and fewer, schedules are more structured, and course requirements make their time in school more restrictive. They have fewer opportunities to learn about sharing, resolving disputes through compromise and consensus. They are rarely asked to participate in conversations to decide about their learning goals, rules of conduct, or classroom procedures. In some instances these same structures apply to educational professional development as well.
Yet, we talk of self-directed learning and its importance in education today. Usually the conversations are centered on students being self directed learners and the difficulties they seem to have understanding this concept, but this is a new experience for many teachers as well. I believe most people are used to menu option of professional development sessions offered through their employer. Many chose to attend sessions that fit into the time constraints of their lives, whether they are the most relevant or not. Through PLP it has been my pleasure to watch throughout all of the cohorts; strong, self directed learners emerge. For many this was a new experience, a yearlong job embedded personal learning opportunity, in which all participants had choice, not only of where and when they would participate, but also choice in topics of interest they wanted to learn more about, have collegial conversations with others, ask questions to clarify understanding, dig deeper, and grow personally and professionally. It was not an easy journey for everyone, the reality everyone was responsible for their own learning was a shift, and a revealing one. I remember last fall one day Scott Godshalk, a teammate of mine said,
“I’m just not sure what I should be doing, I keep waiting for someone to tell me what to do”. Once the words were out of his mouth, he seemed to realize he was in charge of what he was doing, and ultimately of what he would learn throughout the year. The benefits he would gain would stem from the time and energy he invested in the experience and conversations he felt were relevant to his learning.
As all cohorts participate in their last Elluminate session, a time designated to sharing their projects before coming together face to face for final celebrations, there is overwhelming evidence teams of strong, self-directed learners have formed within the communities of cohorts. The projects for sustaining and scaling the learning which has taken place this year are varied in scope and delivery methods. Most importantly, all are rooted in change and evidence of the collaborative learning environments we have been immersed in.
Evolving Conversations.
By Dean Shareski
Having been involved in many emerging communities in the past 5 years I always smile when the conversations move from the WOW factor to the deep questions of teaching and learning. Education technology is full of “WOWs” and shiny objects. I like them both and no one should ever have to apologize over the excitement of a new tool. The great thing about technology is there’s always something new and exciting. The bad thing about technology is that there’s always something new and exciting. Many people get excited about using technology because of the WOW factor. From what I’ve witnessed over the past several years is that many of these teachers use technology but revert to teaching methods that they always used. Not that all traditional teaching is bad but technology offers us the opportunity to find new pedagogies that weren’t possible in the past.
What I’ve enjoyed most about the work of PLP is the observing and participating in great conversations about learning. Discussions like the folks from New Jersey are having around grading. In Philadelphia they are talking about cheating. While these are age old issues, we think about them differently and have to rethink our stances. There’s been some challenging questions, a few disagreements but lots of learning. I learn each time someone adds their own perspectives, resources and ideas to the topic.
Sharon from New Jersey writes,
If teachers knew about their students’ progress and learning abilities, they can adapt their own work to meet their students’ unpredictable and various needs. With progress scales, rubrics as a frame of reference, and electronic PORTFOLIOS I think the grading process can be transformed.
Ed in Philadephia on cheating,
We are in an era when it will become increasingly more important to redefine cheating. We will need to decide what is cheating, and what is resourcefulness using tools that exist. And indeed, we may need to ask different types of questions.
These types of discussion illustrate how technology is pushing our thinking. Not about the technology but about the teaching and and learning. While we might be seeing some of this happening in our schools as a result of some advancement in terms of Professional Learning Communities, I’ve seen many of them sputter and fail for three reasons.
- There is never enough time. The hard questions about teaching and learning requires time. The asynchronous aspect of PLP allows teachers to weigh in after some time and thought.
- There is never enough choice. Often teams are developed based on subject or grade levels. Most prefer that but most of the issues regarding shifts are not subject or grade specific. Being able to join the groups that interest you is a powerful feature.
- There is never enough diversity. When the issues of assessment or cheating arise, most discussions revolve around current practices, culture and policies. These discussions are greatly enhanced by voices who are removed from the specific school or district setting. PLP includes voices from all over and adds important diversity to issues.
The best part about PLP is watching and observing caring, dedicated teachers connecting with each other to ask the hard questions about education.
Teaching & Team Leading
By Bud Hunt
I wouldn’t know Chad Evans if he passed me on the street, but I know his brain, and he’s a valuable member of my learning community. That’s shifty, and something that I’m experiencing more and more through my work with and time in communities like the NJPLP.
I had the opportunity to sit down recently with Chad and talk with him about his work as a team leader in the NJPLP. We discussed what he’s learning as he works with his team to think strategically about what technologies should inform his practice. I also was able to hear more about what he and his teammates are thinking about as they begin to prepare their project for this year’s PLP culmination.
I think you’ll enjoy learning from Chad, too. Do you regularly learn from and with folks whom you wouldn’t recognize in a crowded room? I hope that you do.
Listen to the podcast.
What’s Your Story?
By Dean Shareski
One of my favourite lines from the Cisco video “The Human Network” is
Welcome to world where people subscribe to people, not magazines.
There so much about the sentence that rings true everyday for me. The ability we have to connect with each other, not simply as learners but as humans is what is so completely revolutionary that is changing the world. As we connect and share, learning often takes care of itself.
The New Jersey PLP network has been talking about the personal side of learning in a discussion called “What’s your story?” The idea was to have folks share there personal stories of technology; not necessarily as educators but as everyday people with families, friends and and interests the go way beyond school. Here are a few examples of how people have used technology to share and connect in personal ways.
We use a family Christmas wiki where we all share wish lists. It is fun to watch what my nieces add – it gives me insight into who they are becoming and their interests. My friend doesnt live near her grandchild so they use Skype for bedtime stories….Sheryl
Earlier this year, my wife and I traveled to San Francisco with her parents to attend a family wedding. Several weeks before we left, I began placemarking famous San Francisco sites in GE on my laptop, knowing that I would have my laptop there. A few days before the trip, my in laws were at our house and we began talking about our upcoming trip. I turned to my laptop, and we began planning out our day, virtually. My in laws could not get over how “virtual” GE was. We searched for restaurants near the hotel, placemarked them, and noted what other sites were close to that restaurant. Knowing that my parents were staying at my house babysitting my kids while we were on the trip, I also saved the placemarks on my home computer. I gave my dad a quick tutorial with this before we left. While we were in SF, we called home frequently to report our location. Dad ‘flew’ around SF and found our location, sharing the exacts sights with my kids. Really neat stuff!…Scott
Our families are spread out all over and rather than emailing pictures individually to each family, and writing a note we decided to create a space for all of us to share what was going on in our lives. It has been great! Not only for my husband and I, but for our children, their cousins, aunts, uncles and everyone else. It has been wonderful for all of us to share our lives, in real time, with one another, more so than we have done in years, and a wonderful way for my 83 year old mom to be connected to everyone far and near….Robin
I’m reminded of a blog post by a grandmother, (Ewan Mcintosh’s mother) who was so thrilled to be able to see her grandaughter and stay a part of her life even though she lived far away. It’s been my experience that when people begin to understand how and when to use a technology to enrich their personal lives, it’s not long before they begin to see how it will enrich the lives of their students.
