Education Week - Calendar of Events & Professional Development Directory - August 22, 2012 - S5

skills and material, some observers
say.
Wayne Hartschuh, the executive
director of the Delaware Center for
Educational Technology, a Doverbased
resource that aims to improve
the use of technology in the
state’s public schools, agrees that
it’s often not easy to prove that a
teacher watched an on-demand
webinar all the way through, or
that a teacher spent time absorbing
the material in a training module
that should take a few hours.
“Is there a concern? Yes,” Mr.
Hartschuh says, but he hopes to
use quizzes and assessments to
help substantiate PD when necessary.
And he believes self-certification
has potential.
Tim Taylor, the director of business
planning and operations at
PBS Education, which oversees
PBS TeacherLine, a nonprofit online
professional-development
company affiliated with the Public
Broadcasting Service, says the company
has now broken down some
of its 70 graduate-level courses into
smaller segments, ranging from a
few minutes of video or interactive
activities to lightly facilitated fivehour
modules. Though Mr. Taylor
says these small modules are in
fashion, they’re not always the
right way to provide the best professional
development.
“Just because something’s in
demand, it doesn’t mean it’s
pedagogically sound,” he says.
“Somebody might want a one-hour
thing, but if the concept can’t be
taught in an hour, we’re not going
to do it.”
Mr. Eubanks of the NEA agrees.
“As much as we want our teachers
to continuously learn,” he says,
“the idea of randomly taking professional
development because you
need the credits or because it’s interesting,
but isn’t applicable, is not
something we want.”
But teachers will continue to
seek professional development
that truly helps them because they
want to improve their skills, Mr.
Eubanks says, whether or not they
get credit for their efforts.
Ms. Butler, the Spanish
teacher from Hershey Middle
School, agrees, and cautions
that teachers shouldn’t view
these professional-development
opportunities as an easy
way to check a box.
“Teachers have to be genuinely
learning from what they seek out.
They can’t just be glancing over
it,” she says. “If teachers are really
showing growth from what they
seek out on their own, districts will
realize there’s value to it.”
This article originally appeared, in
a different form, in Education Week
Digital Directions.
are really
showing growth
from what they
seek on their
own, districtcs
will realize
there’s value
to it.
“
LISA BUTLER
Spanish Teacher
Hershey Middle School
Hershey, Pa.
If teachers
PERSPECTIVE
The ‘Networked’ Teacher
By Jennifer Barnett
ficult—it’s 26 years of habit.”
Some teacher educators believe
that conversation will need to begin
at the preservice level, especially
for elementary teachers, who tend
to enter with a weaker initial grasp
of mathematics, says Jonathan N.
Thomas, an assistant professor of
mathematics education at Northern
Kentucky University, in Highland
Heights, Ky.
“It’s a great opportunity to say,
‘Let’s just take some time to think
about the mathematics and set the
teaching strategies aside for a moment,’
“ Mr. Thomas says. “It’s imperative
we don’t send people out
the door with just strategies, tips,
and tricks to teach fractions. We
have to make sure they understand
fractions deeply.”
Closer Reading
Meanwhile, the English/language
arts standards demand a focus on
the “close reading” of texts, a literary-analysis
skill that has been
thus far mainly reserved for college
English classes. And they call for
expansion of nonfiction materials
into even the earliest grades.
“We haven’t worked deeply or
strategically with informational
text, and as the teachers are learning
about the standards, they are
finding their own instructional
gaps there,” says Sydnee Dixon, the
director of teaching and learning
for Utah’s state office of education.
“That’s a huge area for us.”
Kaci L. Phipps, an instructional
coach in the Springdale, Ark.,
school district, says those changes
also require teachers to pay more
attention to teaching the varied
purposes behind writing—some-
thing not as emphasized when
most reading materials are fictional
and students are asked
merely for their responses.
“We keep having to say to these
kids, ‘Remember, it’s not what you
think, it’s what’s in the text,’” she
says. “‘What is the author doing?
What is his or her purpose in writing?
How can you support that conclusion
with details from the text?’”
Pedagogical Shifts
Pedagogical challenges lurk, too,
because teachers need updated
skills to teach in ways that emphasize
the standards’ focus on
problem-solving, according to professional-development
scholars.
“Teachers will teach as they were
taught, and if they are going to incorporate
these ideas in their teaching,
they need to experience them as
students,” says Thomas R. Guskey, a
professor of educational psychology
at the University of Kentucky’s college
of education, in Lexington. “The
PD will have to model very clearly
the kinds of activities we want
teachers to carry forward and use
in their classrooms.”
Moreover, Mr. Guskey warns,
many teachers won’t be inclined
to actually change what they are
doing until they become familiar
with the assessments aligned to the
new standards.
Some districts don’t want to wait
that long and have found other
ways to help teachers begin working
with the practices outlined in the
standards. In the Durand, Mich.,
school district, for example, Superintendent
Cindy Weber has used a
state-required overhaul of teacher
evaluations as a springboard.
The district’s new professional-
growth and -evaluation system
draws key indicators of teacher
practice directly from the common
core—in essence closing the oftenwide
gap between expectations for
student and teachers.
Principals observing teachers
are trained to look, for example, at
whether a teacher “uses multiple
sources of information” when teaching
new content, and “challenges
students to present and defend
ideas” in the strand on applying
learning.
To gauge changes in student
growth across the year, as part of
the new evaluation system, the district
has settled on growth in academic
vocabulary as an indicator.
In every grade and content area,
teams of teachers have come up
with those words and related concepts
all students must master by
the end of the year.
Ms. Weber’s reasoning is that
teachers will feel the new standards
really matter if instructing to them
is part of their professional expectations.

“You look back over the course of
education, and there are so many
things tried, yet somehow many
classrooms still look the same
across the country,” Ms. Weber says.
“I felt that with our evaluation process,
we needed to look at teacher
commitment to this model and type
of delivery—or teachers may give
us lip service and go back to doing
what they’ve done in the past.”
Direct Contact
States, the first stop on the professional-development
train, are
PAGE 6 >
I work in a district that is fervently dedicated to implementing
a project-based-learning curriculum, using technology
to facilitate the learning process, and practicing daily
strategic teaching and formative assessment. I’ve witnessed
the dramatic impact that our efforts have had on students’
abilities to research, analyze, discuss, collaborate, and reflect
on their learning. They use digital tools in focused ways on a
daily basis. They are active learners.
Not too surprisingly, the best professional development
I’ve experienced is pretty similar to my students’ learning. I
find teamwork invigorating, research revealing, thinking and
writing liberating, and discussion necessary for formulating
plans and solutions.
And my professional growth dramatically changed my practice
when I began using technology for these purposes. Teachers
now have access to a mind-boggling range of digital tools for
learning.
But my absolute best 24/7 PD provider is my personal learning
network (PLN)—an evolving group of colleagues past
and present, online contacts, and professional-association
co-members. Connected through a variety of online venues
(from email to video-conferencing platforms), these associates
expose me to research, push my thinking, engage me in
meaningful discussions, and collaborate with me. I turn to
my network for news, advice, perspective, expertise, solutions,
and support.
This year I will assume a position as a technology-integration
specialist in a school that is transitioning to a one-to-one
student-to-computer ratio with a curriculum oriented around
project-based learning. Though the PD for this shift has been
ongoing for some time, a variety of initiatives await my attention.
For example, I am responsible for the selection, training,
and implementation of the best digital-portfolio tool for our students.
I cannot imagine how I could do this without my PLN.
Their advice and expertise has provided me not only with answers,
but also with the confidence I need to lead my school
(and likely, my district) in the adoption of digital portfolios
for students. Although I am on my own in this work, I am not
alone.
The more I invest in my PLN (time, effort, willingness to
share successes and setbacks), the more I receive. I end
nearly every day energized by the power of my network to
meet the challenges ahead. I wish that more teachers had
PLNs—and that more administrators understood and valued
PLNs—and incorporated them as options for required professional
development.
JENNIFER BARNETT is a teacher and a technology specialist in
Talladega County, Ala. This essay originally appeared in Education
Week Teacher’s online forum Teaching Ahead: A Roundtable.
EDUCATION WEEK 2012 CALENDAR OF EVENTS & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORY 5
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Education Week - Calendar of Events & Professional Development Directory - August 22, 2012

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