The New Professional Development

I feel like this blog is becoming entirely about how much things have changed in education during my 16 years.  So be it.  This post is about how much professional development has changed.

I started teaching in Oklahoma in 1998.  At that time, you had one day each semester, called Professional Development Day.  I was in a large and well funded district, so our development days happened on campus.  You picked a topic or speaker you wanted to see.  I think there were four sessions per day.  If you found out there was a seminar you might like to attend, that could happen; but that was all the development you were going to get.  I'm not criticizing this.  It was the only way to do it.  The internet hadn't blown up yet into what it is today.

When I started teaching at GRACE, one of the negatives on my end of year evaluation was that I didn't seek out professional development.  I couldn't disagree.  It never occurred to me to seek it out.  Both schools I had taught in before said, "It is professional development day.  Go over there and learn."

Now, there is development opportunity EVERYWHERE!  As I write this, I am listening to a podcast about teaching.  I subscribe to TED talks.  Many of our teachers follow the blogs of other teachers.  My Twitter account doesn't follow the posts of friends.  It follows Fermilab and CERN, Scientific American and Stephen Hawking (He doesn't post much), even astronauts currently on the Space Station.  Our amazing IT people have created professional development for the use of technology tools by giving us missions to fulfill (for which we earn badges) and meeting with every teacher once per quarter to talk about goals.  Even the writing of this blog is part of my professional development because we were encouraged to share as much as possible and talk to strangers.  Some of our teachers follow the blogs of teachers around the world or subscribe to educational hashtags.  Professional development is now a 24/7 experience.

This is a great thing.  The world is changing too fast to expect that you can implement something you learned at a conference without need for constant modification.  The world is changing too fast to only develop two days a year.  The conferences still exist; our faculty will all be attending one this Thursday and Friday.  I was kind of dreading that one until I learned that Harry Wong would be speaking!  For those who don't know, he is Awesome Sauce.  That's not a term I use often, but it just applies to him better than any other word.  The conferences are fine, but they just kind of get me thinking.  The real development happens when I come home from the conference, have a stray thought, and go to Google or YouTube or Free Tech for Teachers or some other great resource.

Develop professionally all the time, every day.  Let your kids develop you.  I have learned about more great tools from them than any workshop.