A colleague sent me a valuable podcast to listen to today. It was from the popular education blog, Cult of Pedagogy. Then I reviewed the Massachusetts Department of Education's "Teachers' Top Three,"which had some great ideas about community building. As I thought about this share, I realized there are a number of wonderful educators stepping up to lead the profession all around me. Then I thought about the fact that I need to change some of my routines in order to stay up to date with this wonderful new information.
Some routines that might help include the following:
Walk and Learn
Following my colleagues' lead, it may be a good idea to walk and listen to podcasts as one way to get some exercise and update my pedagogical knowledge at the same time.
Keep a Running List of Professional Learning Blogs, Books, and More
This is my main list as I look ahead.
Include Regular Surface and Deep Learning in the Weekly Schedule
I typically do a good job with the surface learning each morning for about an hour, and the best deep learning I do usually involves a course or professional collegial group. It's a good idea to sign on to one or two collegial deep learning events each year to develop your practice--deep learning profits from learning that occurs over time and includes both individual and collective effort.
Share
Work as a collegial group to determine the best ways to share the learning. I believe that systems will support professionals by creating a place such as a well organized website and structure for collective share. The best way might be to set up a website and then invite a structure of a short share with links to deeper information for those interested.
Alone we can't learn all, but together we can learn and share a lot to forward our professional work and organizations.
