Punctuated Professional Development

By Tony Baldasaro

Punctuated Equilibrium
In 1972, paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge developed the theory ofpunctuated equilibrium, which provided an alternative view of evolution.  Unlike Darwin’s theory of evolution, which requires millions of years of constant, gradual change to create a new species, their theory postulated that species actually change very little over millions of years and evolution occurs in rapid, relatively rare events that result in two distinct species.  Both theories result in divergent species, but the processes needed to result in those species are different.

The Aha! Moment
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Perrin Chick.  Perrin is the Education Director at the Seacoast Science Center.  Located on New Hampshire’s coast in the town of Rye, the Seacoast Science Center’s mission statement proclaims that the Center, “provides exceptional learning experiences in the natural sciences through dynamic and innovative programs and exhibits”.  In my new role at the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS), I have been meeting with Perrin for about a month trying to iron out the details of providing an experiential learning opportunity for New Hampshire high school students.  Through our new partnership with the Seacoast Science Center, VLACS students will be able to earn a high school credit in Marine Science through a blend of experiences gained through volunteering at the Seacoast Science Center and online coursework through VLACS.

We were in the Center’s incredible distance learning facility, (the Gregg Interactive Learning Studio) and thinking back to our last meeting when Perrin expressed some concern over the commitment the Center would have to make to VLACS when she said, “We already have 50 student volunteers here at the Center,  I’m not sure we can commit to having more kids here.”  The words weren’t out of her mouth when we both realized that we had the chance to make an impact on those 50 kids.  That instead of creating a new program, we could provide more value to an existing one.

As we laughed about that earlier concerns and our simultaneous enlightenment, our excitement over not only what this program could mean for students already volunteering at the Center, but also for the possibilities it may open up for other students involved in similar programs grew.  Perrin then turned to me and said, “We are changing education one aha! moment at a time.”

Punctuated Professional Development
I complain about the pace of change in education all the time.  I’ve been known to refer to it as “glacial”.   But, what if education only changes (transforms?) in rapid, but rare “aha!” moments similar to the one that Perrin and I had?  Perhaps instead of looking for schools to change, we should be looking for new “species” of schools to evolve.  Is Christensen’s and Horn’s notion of disruptive innovation really the educational equivalent topunctuated equilibrium?

If it is indeed the case that change in education is rare, rapid and dramatic, are we not doing professional development wrong?  Instead of creating PD that allows for comfortable, gradual (glacial?) change, should we look to develop PD that demands rapid change knowing not all will transform, but those that do will create new species of schooling more evolved than the species we currently have?  Change is hard and traditionally it requires time to grieve.  But if real, transformative change does occur rapidly, how do educational leaders encourage other educators to embrace those “aha!” moments?

Cross-posted to TransLeadership

Are you ready to go global?

By Nancy Flanagan

Did you ever let yourself dream about what schools would be like if all teachers were familiar with high and rigorous standards for professional teaching–or spent time every week gathering consistent and convincing evidence of student learning in their classrooms? What if all teachers developed the habit of daily reflection about their practice– and kept collaboration and continuous personal learning on the front burners? How can you inspire

Powerful Learning Practice is now forming its first National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) Global Cohort, a rich opportunity for NBCTs and those interested in National Board Certification as a teacher quality initiative to meet, learn together and generate new programs, materials and ideas, using the tools and lenses of National Board Certification. We see the NBCT Global cohort as one answer to the proverbial question:

Now that I’m an NBCT, what’s next?

We envision the experience as a collective “deep dive” into the standards and  protocols that make up the National Board experience, as well as the issues surrounding the concept of professional standards and evaluating teaching. The journey will include work with the big ideas  and tools of 21st century learning and examining our ideas about teacher leadership. There will be guest speakers, provocative case studies, video clips, research (including conflicting research) and opinion. We will be digging deeper into our assumptions about the National Board process and how it changes practice.

Each  small group or team will create a useful product or program, sharing their development process with the greater global cohort as they fine-tune ideas and materials. Here are some of the ideas generated by NBCTs who attended information sessions:

• Developing a candidate support program that can be delivered entirely on-line–PPTs, handouts, discussion thread protocols–using a virtual meeting platform.
• Creating a statewide teacher leadership organization using social media tools.
• Building a set of professional development workshops using National Board standards.
• Designing a “reflection” module for pre-service teachers.
• Using the Five Core Propositions to develop a districtwide teacher evaluation model that works for all K-12 subjects and disciplines
• Establishing an on-line policy academy for NBCTs who want to use their expertise to influence decision-making at the state level.
• Creating a workshop for NBCTs who want to blog.

You can sign up for an information session here.

Or you can ask for your own small informational conversation in one of PLP’s Elluminate virtual meeting rooms. Use the contact form on the left. Join us!

Archdiocese of Philadelphia Cohort wraps things up

By Mary Worrell

The teams from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia cohort gathered to celebrate at a culminating event last month and share their projects.

Nancy Caramanico, director of technology for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Catholic Schools, said having full participation from all of the district’s high schools enhanced the experience for all the teams involved.

“We have 20 high schools in our system and I was looking for something that would be able to impact the schools,” she said. The district formed their own cohort and invited six people from each school, including teachers, administrators and high school technicians.”We were interested in professional development that harnesses both innovative technology and sound and rigorous pedagogy.

“It was a perfect blend of important parts of the puzzle,” she said. “Having every school involved allowed them to collaborate and connect with one another and share resources and best practices on a broad scale.”

Jim Meredith from Archbishop Ryan High School was initially skeptical when told his school would be participating in PLP.

“When the Archdiocese told us about this, I thought ‘great, something else we have to do,’” he said. “But I got into it and to make a long story short, after teaching AP Government for a few years, I’d never done anything new until this year.”

Meredith decided to take a chance with social networking in his class, but didn’t dive in head first. If he was going to use Facebook in his class, he wanted to do it right. He shared his experiences and ideas with other teams on the PLP Archdiocese of Philadelphia cohort virtual learning community.

“Will and Sheryl talked about Web 2.0 tools and going where the students are. Many adults have such a negative feeling about it like I did, but I thought, if I can just get my students on Facebook and do it educationally and ethically,” he said.

Meredith decided to include his AP Government students in discussions about considering Facebook and his reservations.

“They went crazy in a positive way and I knew I needed to go forward and strike while the iron was hot,” he said. “I had two lessons about what to do on the Internet and use Facebook ethically. I talked about their digital fingerprints. I don’t they ever had an educator talk to them like that.”

Meredith’s class created a Facebook group where they posted discussion topics. The class plans to keep the group going after graduation, Meredith said.

Members of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia cohort shared their projects at a recent culminating event.

Caramanico said Meredith put plenty of time and thought into utilizing Facebook.

“The best part about Jim’s story is that he really thought it through, the ethics and responsibility, the use policy. Everything he did was within the parameters of our existing policy,” Caramanico said. “He talked to the students about the safety piece and conducting themselves online – really modeling safe and ethical activity online.”

While Meredith pursued Facebook on his own, his team focused on cultivating professional development within the school walls.

“We always have the professional development where people come in, they leave, and nothing happens,” he said. “If we showed them success in the building it’s more effective than sending them somewhere. We got some buzz from our presentation.”

Nancy Summers of J.W. Hallahan High School said her team focused its project efforts on promoting collaboration among the teachers and taking small steps.

“At each of our in-services, we discussed things that came up in PLP – changing our approaches, getting away from lectures, interactive work with students, embracing social technology,” Summers said.

The team from J.W. Hallahan decided to focus their final project on professional development for teachers so that the skills and tools could be passed onto students. The team developed a virtual learning community for teachers to collaborate and share ideas.

“The main focus is collaboration and teachers have shared lesson plans and ways to deal with struggling students,” Summers said. “Everybody is definitely more confident with their tech skills. I think that’s the best change -everyone is more open and not afraid to try something new.”

You can read more about each team’s project by visiting their wiki pages below.

Conwell-Egan Catholic High School
The team at Conwell-Egan took an international approach with their project. The school set up communications with another school in Beunos Aires, Argentina using a wiki and Skype. One of the many goals of the project is to give students real-world practice of a foreign language. You can read more about their project here.

Archbishop Wood High School
The team at Archbishop Wood developed a faculty wiki and a faculty virtual learning community. You can read more about their project here.

Bishop Shanahan High School
The Bishop Shanahan team developed a school-wide, virtual learning community involving administration and department chairs as a way to share ideas and information and to lay the groundwork for the rollout of the social network to the faculty. You can read more about their project here.

Kennedy-Kenrick Catholic High School
You can read more about the Kennedy-Kenrick’s team project here.

Lansdale Catholic High School
You can read more about Lansdale’s team project here.

Bishop McDevitt High School
You can read more about the Bishop McDevitt team’s project here.

Saint Pius X High School
The team at Saint Pius X developed a faculty network to enhance communication among faculty members and between schools. You can read more about their project here.

Monsignor Bonner / Archbishop Prendergast High School
The team at Minsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast surveyed administration, faculty and students on their use of technology in an effort to identify experts that can communicate their knowledge to the rest of the campus community. You can read more about their project here.

Archbishop Carroll High School
You can read more about Archbishop Carroll’s team project here.

Cardinal O’Hara High School
The team at Cardinal O’Hara developed a virtual learning community for thair faculty to share ideas and new Web 2.0 tools. You can read more about their project here.

John W. Hallahan High School
The John W. Hallahan team’s project involved developing a virtual learning community for the faculty and in-service where faculty members were asked to create profiles on the community and collaborate on a Google document. You can read more about their project here.

Saints John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School
You can read more about the Saints John Neumann and Maria Goretti team’s project here.

Roman Catholic High School
You can read more about the Roman Catholic’s team here.

West Philadelphia Catholic High School
The team at West Philadelphia helped team leader Gina Joceville develop a virtual learning community for her honors biology class. You can read more about the project here.

Cardinal Dougherty High School
Cardinal Dougherty’s team developed a school-wide wiki. You can read more about their project here.

Father Judge High School
The team at Father Judge is working to develop a professional digital learning community for the next year. Red more about their project here.

Saint Hubert High School
You can read more about Saint Hubert’s team project here.

Little Flower High School
The team at Little Flower has a detailed plan for implementing school-wide usage of Web 2.0 tools next year. Red more about their plan here.

Mercy Vocational High School
The team at Mercy Vocational developed a cross-curricular learning project for students on Greece. You can read more about their project “It’s All Greek to Me!” here.

Northeast Catholic High School
The team at Northeast Catholic is working on a virtual learning community to immerse teachers in Web 2.0 tools. You can read more about their project here.

Archbishop Ryan High School
You can read about Archbishop Ryan’s project here.

Office of Catholic Education
You can read about the OCE’s team project here.

What Makes PLP Work

By Dean Shareski

Being part of 3 cohorts and witnessing and hearing the work of 4 others I’m trying to get a feel for these geographically diverse communities.

As someone who is charged with a leadership position in my own district and trying to achieve much of the same kind of work as PLP, it’s a wonderful learning experience for me.

It seems questions like, “How do we systematically move our teachers forward?” “What do we do with resistance teachers?” “How do we sustain momentum?” “How do we get momentum?” and you can add a few more standard questions are ones that leadership deal with all the time.

What’s exciting is the model of online communities that is now gaining validity among these districts. I don’t think all districts are ready to invest in online communities as an integral part of teachers’ professional learning. That’s because most of our leaders have never experience it. Fortunately with at least the leadership in these 7 cohorts somebody gets it.

I’ve been teaching pre-service teachers online for the past few years and while I still long for face to face experiences, it’s what happens online that make face to face experiences rich and meaningful. Teachers and students are busy people. Spending even 3 hours a week in a class usually offers little time to engage with each other. That’s the power of these communities. They provide an opportunity not only to learn beyond face to face experiences, but provide a space for people to get to know one another. I love this quote from one of my students as she reflected on our class experience.

…this is my only university class that I know every student by name, and know at least one important thing about them. This is really weird, because I wouldn’t have been able to do that even in high school.

PLP is based upon building communities and building communities doesn’t happen in the limited times we gather face to face. Inside many of the NING communities, I’ve enjoyed looking at people’s pictures, seeing them challenge one another and asking good questions and even having a little fun. You come and go as you please, you choose topics and conversations that engage you and you decide when you’re ready to jump in. Many of these things are not easily replicated in face to face settings for many reasons. Getting to know people is often overlooked as people jump into an online learning experience. If learning is truly social, then these spaces must allow people to be themselves and be social.

So as I reflect on what’s working here, I know that ultimately sustainability and change only occurs with a culture that values risk taking and innovation combined with strong support. PLP is providing this with the use of expert voices and the constant activity within each group.

One thing I do know. When I have discussions with teachers about change, many understand we should change but complain about the lack of time to do it. Meaningful change will never occur if teachers only want to invest in a few PD experiences throughout the year. Meaningful change does occur when strong communities are developed and that takes time. The online experience of the PLP cohorts is creating this exact environment. I’m just happy to be part of it all.