Last week, I attended a workshop presented by Darren Wilson from Guthrie ISD (@thedarrenwilson). My interest was piqued by the session title: Visionary Staff Development. Invite Your Students! (see his Prezi below for more information) In Guthrie ISD, students attend the same professional learning sessions their teachers attend and it counts as an instructional day. Genius! These kids are surely learning things from their educators most kids never know exist: Marzano Teaching Strategies, How to use Khan Academy in the Classroom, Building a Professional Learning Network with Twitter All these topics teachers might be learning alongside their students.
How powerful?! Instead of my 8th graders complaining that I was asking them to draw pictures and make sentences with the new vocabulary words we learned, I could have just looked at them and said "Use your Marzano strategies to learn the words from this chapter". They would have understood the process a little better and probably would have given me such less grief. Man, talk about a #missedopportunity
Something I had to seriously reflect upon was how I deliver PD to teachers in my district. We have so much need for professional growth, I sometimes am guilty of trying to force all my teachers along for the ride. I forget sometimes that not everyone finds learning instructional tech as exciting as I. In Darren's preso, he asks some pointed questions: What if professional development was more like a choose your own adventure story? What if professional development was less like a prescription and more like a gift card? He is right. We have to bring them in willingly. We must engage their minds!
What you might not know from this presentation is just how SMALL Guthrie school district is. It's TINY. I think Darren said there were something like 92 people in the entire school! I can't imagine working in such a small school setting, and I am certainly aware of what he called "scaling-up" issues...but I was so inspired by their model. I can't wait to incorporate some of Darren's direction in my larger district.
Go to Darren's website to learn more: www.darrenwilson.net or follow him on Twitter (@thedarrenwilson) and ask him questions yourself. This school district is making it work with what they've got...and I am excited to follow them on their journey. We can all take a page from their book and make good things happen!
No comments:
Post a Comment