K-12 Online Conference

On Thursday, December 17, 2009, I viewed the archived K-12 Online Conference presentation "Self-Driven and Classroom-Based: Professional Development in the 21st Century" (http://k12onlineconference.org). Two things about the title caught my attention, first the professional development part since this is why we are all taking this course and the 21st Century part of the title since it ia also part of the course title. I thought, perfect! The presentation lasted about 30 minutes during which I dutifully took notes. I think that the idea of these conferences and presentations is pretty cool since it is an effective way to bring educators from all over the world together, to find out how educators in the next town, state, country, or continent teach, what tools they use to do the teaching, and how they formulate and evaluate their ideas and practices. Also, the conference presentations are archived which allows for viewing at any time. Another benefit is that the presentations, in addition to being worldwide, are multicultural. Sure, it isn't face-to-face communication which is probably what we all prefer, but live conferencing with all of these educators would be a horrendous financial burden. So the online conferencing is the "next best thing to being there."

The presenter was Konrad Glogowski from Toronto. He based his presentation on Guy Claxton's statement that "schools become communities of practice where...the 'elders' of the community are themselves exemplary learners" (Claxton, 2002). To cite the presentation description/abstract:

"If students today are to benefit from schools where they can acquire the learning dispositions that will allow them to build and transform future societies and address global challenges, teacher professional development must be reconfigured to allow teachers to focus on examining and learning from their own professional contexts. The 21st Century demands that teachers investigate their practices on a regular basis, learn to design new approaches, and quickly and effectively respond to the ever-changing knowledge society. Classrooms must...become sites of inquiry where teachers engage in practice that is perpetually experimental."

In Glogowski's presentation he states that teachers need to establish a "personal learning network" because connecting with other educators is necessary and meaningful. Teachers should learn *with* rather than learning solely *from* other teachers. "Learning with" means building knowledge by working with colleagues (contextual learning), rather than learning from colleagues in an observation-delivered mode (de-contextualized learning). "Learning with" allows teachers to focus and reflect on themselves and the contexts in which they teach while "learning from" teachers simply follow their colleagues' practices. In the "learning with" approach, the focus is on knowledge-building and helping students to become inquirers of knowledge as well as critical thinkers.

In classroom-based professional development, teachers reflect upon their practices which in turn leads to professional growth and meaningful development. Classroom-based professional development foocuses on who we are as individuals and what we do in our classrooms on a daily basis. In this particular 21st Century course, we are doing exactly that. We are learning abour different technologies, sharing them with our students, incorporating them into our practice, and reflecting upon those changes primarily using our blogs, therefore making our experiences meaningful and contextualizing what we learn and share. Ultimately, teachers are not providers of information, but we are learners ourselves along with our students.

Classroom-based professional development has a democratic engagement component as well. Students can give feedback to teachers and critique teaching so that the teacher may change whatever practices necessary. I have done this numerous times in the past, especially when teaching a new course or teaching from a new textbook. I ask for students' feedback on activities, pace, et cetera, and change if the students and I believe the change is essential to maximize their time and learning experience. An important part of reflective practice (which is an essential part of classroom-based professional development) is for teachers to ask themselves questions such as "how can I improve?" and "why am I teaching this way?". Only when we discover what limits us as teachers can we then work to effect the change necessary. Reflective practice allows teachers to be able to identify areas of weakness and improve those areas with the assistance of colleagues and students. After all, as Claxton stated, schools are *communities* of learning.