Tene Gray's List: Professional Development

• three structural features that set the context for professional development.
•   Form. Was the activity structured as a "reform" activity (study group, teacher network, mentoring relationship, committee or task force, internship, individual research project, or teacher resource center, for example) or as a traditional workshop or conference?
      Duration. How many hours did participants spend in the activity and over what span of time did the activity take place?
      Participation. Did groups of teachers from the same school, department, or grade level participate collectively, or did teachers from different schools participate individually?
• three core features
• Content focus
•  Active learning
• Coherence.
• e hypothesized that by focusing on specific mathematics and science content, by engaging teachers in active work, and by fostering a coherent set of learning experiences, a professional development activity is likely to enhance the knowledge and skills of participating teachers and improve their classroom teaching practice. This, of course, serves the ultimate goal of improved student learning.
• Effective staff development can be traditional workshops or can be innovative teacher immersion or network activities as long as it has appropriate duration, subject-matter content, active learning, and coherence.
• Our research indicates that activities of longer duration have more subject-area content focus, more opportunities for active learning, and more coherence with teachers' other experiences than do shorter activities.
• Our study shows that professional development activities that include collective participation--that is, the participation of teachers from the same department, subject, or grade--are more likely to afford opportunities for active learning and are more likely to be coherent with teachers' other experiences.
• Collective participation has a number of advantages. It enables teachers to discuss concepts and problems that arise during the staff development activity. In addition, collective participation gives teachers the opportunity to integrate what they learn with other aspects of their instructional content, because teachers from the same school, department, or grade are likely to share common curriculum materials, course offerings, and assessment requirements.
• Collective participation also may contribute to a shared professional culture in which teachers in a school or teachers who teach the same grade or subject develop a common understanding of instructional goals, methods, problems, and solutions (Ball, 1996; Newmann & Associates, 1996).
• In our study, the degree to which professional development focuses on content knowledge is directly related to teachers' reported increases in knowledge and skills.
•  Focusing on content means targeting a staff development activity on a specific subject area or on a subject-specific teaching method, such as increasing teachers' understanding of motion in physics or of the way elementary students solve story problems in mathematics. It avoids general teaching methods, such as lesson planning or grouping methods.
• In our national study, teachers whose professional development includes opportunities for active learning report increased knowledge and skills and changed classroom practice. Active learning encourages teachers to become engaged in meaningful discussion, planning, and practice as part of the professional development activity (Lieberman, 1996; Loucks-Horsley et al., 1998). Active learning includes opportunities to observe and be observed teaching; to plan classroom implementation, such as practicing in simulated conditions and developing lesson plans; to review student work; and to present, lead, and write--for example, present a demonstration, lead a discussion, or write a report.
• In our study, the coherence of professional development with policies and other professional experiences is directly related to increased teacher learning and improved classroom practice.
• an activity is more likely to be effective in improving teachers' knowledge and skills if it forms a coherent part of a wider set of opportunities for teacher learning and development.
• Coherence indicates the extent to which professional development experiences are part of an integrated program of teacher learning--activities that are consistent with teacher goals, build on earlier activities, are followed by additional activities, and involve teachers in discussing their experiences with other teachers and administrators in the school. Activities are also coherent when they support national, state, and district standards and assessments.

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• Many of the ways we have of talking about learning and education are based on  the assumption that learning is something that individuals do. Furthermore, we  often assume that  learning 'has a beginning and an end; that it is best separated from the  rest of our activities; and that it is the result of teaching' (Wenger 1998: 3).
• Their model of situated learning proposed that learning  involved a process of engagement in a 'community of practice'. 
• When looking closely at everyday  activity, she has argued, it is clear that 'learning is ubiquitous in ongoing  activity, though often unrecognized as such' (Lave 1993: 5).

• Etienne Wenger was later to write:

   

  Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in  a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavour: a tribe  learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group  of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their  identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a  gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope. In a nutshell:  Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion  for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.  (Wenger circa 2007)
• Over time, this collective learning results in  practices that reflect both the pursuit of our enterprises and the attendant  social relations. These practices are thus the property of a kind of community  created over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. It makes  sense, therefore to call these kinds of communities communities of practice.  (Wenger 1998: 45)
• members are brought  together by joining in common activities and by 'what they have learned through  their mutual engagement in these activities' (Wenger 1998). In this respect, a  community of practice is different from a community of interest or a  geographical community in that it involves a shared practice.

• According to Etienne Wenger (c 2007), three elements are crucial in  distinguishing a community of practice from other groups and communities:

   

  The domain. A community of practice is is something more  than a club of friends or a network of connections between people. 'It has an  identity defined by a shared domain of interest. Membership therefore implies a  commitment to the domain, and therefore a shared competence that distinguishes  members from other people' (op. cit.).

   

  The community. 'In pursuing their interest in their  domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and  share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each  other' (op. cit.).

   

  The practice. 'Members of a community of practice are  practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences,  stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared  practice. This takes time and sustained interaction' (op. cit.).
• A community of practice involves, thus, much more than the technical knowledge or skill  associated with undertaking some task. Members are involved in a set of  relationships over time (Lave and Wenger 1991: 98) and communities develop  around things that matter to people (Wenger 1998).
• The fact that they are  organizing around some particular area of knowledge and activity gives members a  sense of joint enterprise and identity.
• For a community of practice to function  it needs to generate and appropriate a shared repertoire of ideas, commitments  and memories. It also needs to develop various resources such as tools,  documents, routines, vocabulary and symbols that in some way carry the  accumulated knowledge of the community. In other words, it involves practice  (see praxis): ways of doing and approaching things  that are shared to some significant extent among members.
• ‘Rather than asking what kind of cognitive  processes and conceptual structures are involved, they ask what kinds of social  engagements provide the proper context for learning to take place’
• It not so much that learners acquire structures or models to understand the  world, but they participate in frameworks that that have structure. Learning  involves participation in a community of practice. And that participation  'refers not just to local events of engagement in certain activities with  certain people, but to a more encompassing process of being active participants  in the practices of social communities and constructing identities  in relation to these communities' (Wenger 1999: 4).
• Initially  people have to join communities and learn at the periphery.
• As they become more  competent they become more involved in the main processes of the particular community.  They move from legitimate peripheral participation to into 'full participation  (Lave and Wenger 1991: 37). Learning  is, thus, not seen as the acquisition of knowledge by individuals so much as a  process of social participation. The nature of the situation  impacts significantly on the process.
• Learners inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and… the  mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move toward full  participation in the socio-cultural practices of a community. "Legitimate  peripheral participation" provides a way to speak about the relations between  newcomers and old-timers, and about activities, identities, artefacts, and  communities of knowledge and practice. A person’s intentions to learn are  engaged and the meaning of learning is configured through the process of  becoming a full participant in a socio-cultural practice. This social process,  includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills. (Lave and  Wenger 1991: 29)
• ean Lave's and Etienne Wenger's concept of  situatedness involves people being full participants in the world and in  generating meaning.

• owever, situated learning depends on two claims:

   
   
  • It makes no sense to talk of knowledge that is decontextualized, abstract or  general.
   
   
   
  • New knowledge and learning are properly conceived as being located in  communities of practice (Tennant 1997: 77).
• Etienne Wenger acknowledge, of romanticizing  communities of practice. However, there has been a tendency in their earlier  work of falling into this trap. 'In their eagerness to debunk testing, formal  education and formal accreditation, they do not analyse how their omission [of a  range of questions and issues] affects power relations, access, public knowledge  and public accountability' (Tennant 1997: 79).
• For obvious reasons, formal education institutions have been less  ready to embrace these ideas. There was a very real sense in which the direction  of the analysis undermined their reason for being and many of their practices.
• Perhaps the most helpful of these explorations is that of Barbara Rogoff and her  colleagues (2001). They examine the work of an innovative school in Salt Lake  City and how teachers, students and parents were able to work together to  develop an approach to schooling based around the principle that learning  'occurs through interested participation with other learners'.
• Learning is in the relationships between people. 
• Educators work so that people can become participants in communities of  practice.
• One of the implications for schools, as Barbara Rogoff and her  colleagues suggest is that they must prioritize 'instruction that builds on  children's interests in a collaborative way'. Such schools need also to be  places where 'learning activities are planned by children as well as adults, and  where parents and teachers not only foster children's learning but also learn  from their own involvement with children' (2001: 3)
• There is an intimate connection between knowledge and activity.
• Problem solving and learning from experience are central  processes (although, as we have seen, situated learning is not the same as  ‘learning by doing’ – see Tennant 1997: 73). Educators need to reflect on their  understanding of what constitutes knowledge and practice
• Allee, V. (2000) 'Knowledge networks and communities of learning', OD  Practitioner 32( 4),   http://www.odnetwork.org/odponline/vol32n4/knowledgenets.html. Accessed  December 30, 2002.
• Lave, Jean 'Teaching, as learning, in practice', Mind, Culture, and  Activity (3)3: 149-164
• Lave, Jean (forthcoming) Changing Practice: The Politics of Learning and  Everyday Life
• Lave, Jean and Chaiklin, Seth (eds.) (1993) Understanding Practice:  Perspectives on Activity and Context, Cambridge: University of Cambridge  Press.
• Lesser, E. L. and Storck, J. (2001) 'Communities of practice and  organizational performance', IBM Systems Journal 40(4),  http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/lesser.html. Accessed December  30, 2002.
• Rogoff, Barbara and Lave, Jean (eds.) (1984) Everyday Cognition: Its  Development in Social Context. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Smith, M. K. (1999) 'The social/situational orientation to learning',  the encyclopedia of informal education,  www.infed.org/biblio/learning-social.htm.

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• Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people  ha d to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to  do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling:  from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and  on later occasion s this coded information serves as a guide for action. (Bandura  1977: 22)

• Webinars are typically a one-way presentation over the Internet, from an instructor to students with little or no interaction. However, live webinars can be interactive with polling or question and answer sessions that allow full participation between the instructor and students.
• Webinars are stored on the schools server for viewing anytime by students. This eliminates the need to watch Webinars in real-time.
• Supporting course materials are downloadable from the Webinar site as PDF files.
• Because the Web is based on hyperlinks, Webinars include links to real-world examples, which are far more effective than the often used static screen shots of PowerPoint presentations
• The ability to archive Webinars means that they are available anytime and anywhere.
• Webinars are used for every type of continuing education program.
• Podcasts are downloadable files that are stored on a students’ computer or other MP3 device for listening or viewing when convenient.
• These files are downloadable to a personal computer for viewing or listening.
• • The offer of portability by transferring a Podcast to an iPod or MP3 player.
   
  • Accessibility through RSS feeds for selection of desired Podcasts.
  • The ability to learn a foreign language through podcasting or anything a student wants to learn on their own time.

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• Diigo - is an online tool for saving online resources of interest by searching for people by name or user name, import friends, invite friends via emails, and make friend lists to build a personal learning network. People can highlight information in articles or blogs for sharing with other members of their network.
• Diigo - is an online tool for saving online resources of interest by searching for people by name or user name, import friends, invite friends via emails, and make friend lists to build a personal learning network. People can highlight information in articles or blogs for sharing with other members of their network.
• Blogging – use the free versions of WordPress or Blogger to create a blog for sharing information and communicating with others. Blogs are great for learning from others, reflection, story sharing, facilitating connections among people, philosophizing, and much more.
• Blogging – use the free versions of WordPress or Blogger to create a blog for sharing information and communicating with others. Blogs are great for learning from others, reflection, story sharing, facilitating connections among people, philosophizing, and much more.
• Open Course Ware – is a term applied to course materials in an online learning environment created by universities and shared freely with the world via the Internet. These free courses are ideal for lifelong learners and are offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale, Tufts University, and other universities in over 20 countries.
• Google Books - allows viewing of public-domain books and out-of-copyright books that can be downloaded in PDF format.
• Google Reader – use the RSS feeds from blogs or websites that post information related to topics or issues of interest. This ensures that information is readily available for learning about these topics or issues.

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• A learning network is a collection of free, widely distributed, web-based tools, RSS feeds, and typically located within a blog or wiki that is controlled by the adult learner. These
• Blog – is used to create and maintain open discussions other adults regarding the focus of the learning network. Blogs foster the growth of learning communities, collaborative filtering, and provide methods for storing and gathering information. Blogs typically contain links to other blogs, webpages, RSS feeds, and other online media for gathering information. Free blogs are available from WordPress and Blogger.
• Elgg - open source software combines a number of social media tools such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogging, file upload and sharing, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, and social networking for a building a personal learning environment.
• Delicious - simple bookmarking tool for websites, articles, videos, and more that support a learning network.
• Diigo – is a bookmarking tool for articles and more to support personal learning and research
• Twitter – is another social network that allows adult learners to collect and share information with others who are part of their personal learning network. Information shared on twitter includes links to articles, videos, webinars, podcasts, and more that can be added to a blog or wiki.
• Flickr – is an image and video hosting website that is used to collect or store pictures and videos related to purpose of the learning network.
• Google Docs – is a set of online word processing, spreadsheet, forms, or presentation tools for preparing academic work and other documents. Also, provides the ability for real-time collaboration with others.
• Bubblus – is mind mapping tool useful for organizing information in flowcharts or graphic organizers.
• FreeMind – is another mind mapping tool used to organize and process information gathered in learning network.

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