What is PD?

tracyrosen on February 18, 2015

Short answer: it’s professional development.

Unpack that, though. What is it?

Questions
Is it something I do because there are days in the school’s calendar that are identified as such?
Is it something I look forward to or something I tolerate?

Does it usually represent my specific needs or those of my students – subject matter, classroom configurations, background, culture, role in the school system (if you are not a teacher or wear many hats)…?

Do I consider it as an important part of my teaching (or consulting, or administrative, or insert role in education here) practice? Read More

Principles of Learning: Boiling it down

tracyrosen on February 16, 2015

I could have called this post the principles of adult learning. But I’d be doing ourselves a disservice.

learning_principles_wordle Learning is learning. As people get older, their learning experiences are bigger – their mental models about what learning is and how learning happens have been in place for longer so this experience folds into every new one. But really, learning is learning. Do you agree? Keep reading…

Must see, according to me: Rita Pierson

tracyrosen on February 7, 2015

I can watch this video over and over again. There is a something about the stories she tells that signals a strong connection for me…and obviously to a few others – as of this morning, this video has had 4,010,353 views. And so, I call this a ‘Must See, According to Me‘** video for professional development!

Last week I published a blog post over at the LEARN blog called The Connection Between Learning & Passion. In it, I talk a little about why I connect so well with what Rita Pierson had to say and how she said it. Read More

Underlining the fact that ICT is not the goal

tracyrosen on January 19, 2015

Here is a little video I wrote a couple of years ago, called ICT is Not the Goal*.

As I wrote in my first post, sometimes technology is still seen as a solution. When really technology is a fantastic set of tools that can be chosen from (or not) depending on the context, subject, student, goals, etc…

The solution? Being present for our learners, demonstrating passion for learning, and providing options for how our learners show us what they know.

Sounds pretty human to me. I like that.

*I wrote it for a project called DevPro, where we look at flipping professional development. You can see other videos (in both English and French) at its YouTube channel here –> DevPro – PD Flipped

Technology, Engagement, and Modeling

tracyrosen on January 10, 2015

Engagement.

We have all heard the catch phrases before – engaged learners, student engagement. We need to keep our students engaged…as if that could ‘trick’ them into learning what it is we need want to teach them.

Very often we look to technology to do just that – get students engaged.

But, today I’m asking myself, what does engagement mean? Keep Reading…