The Connected Educator: Professional Learning in a Digital Age

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach Co-Founder & CEO Powerful Learning Practice, LLChttp://plpnetwork.comsheryl@plpnetwork.com

President21st Century Collaborative, LLChttp://21stcenturycollaborative.com

AuthorThe Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age

Follow me on Twitter@snbeach

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Housekeeping

Get close to someone

Paperless handoutshttp://plpwiki.com

Back Channel Chat https://todaysmeet.com/lp

Mantra for today’s keynote…

We are stronger together than apart.

None of us is as smart, creative, good or interesting as all of us.

Learner First—Educator Second

1. Introduce yourselves and what you do.

2. What have you been thinking about lately in terms of change in your school/district? What is becoming clearer?

3. If you could change one thing …

Emerson and Thoreau reunited would ask-

“What has become clearer to you since we last met?”

The world is changing...

6 Trends for the digital age

Analogue Digital

Tethered Mobile

Closed Open

Isolated Connected

Generic Personal

Consuming Creating

Source: David Wiley: Openness and the disaggregated future of higher education

“We are tethered to our always on/ always on us communication devices and the people and things we reach through them.”

~ Sherry Turkle

Shifting From Shifting To

Learning at school Learning anytime/anywhere

Teaching as a private event Teaching as a public collaborative practice

Learning as passiveparticipant

Learning in a participatory culture

Learning as individuals

Linear knowledge

Learning in a networked community

Distributed knowledge

Are you Ready for Learning and Leading in the 21st

Century?

It isn’t just “coming”… it has arrived! And schools who aren’t redefining themselves, risk becoming irrelevant in preparing students for the future.

dangeuslyirrelevant.org

Our kids have tasted the honey.

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Free range learnersFree-range learners choose how and what they learn. Self-service is less expensive and more timely than the alternative. Informal learning has no need for the busywork, chrome, and bureaucracy that accompany typical classroom instruction.

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

The Disconnect“Every time I go to school, I have to power down.” --a high school student

The pace of change is accelerating

It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year.

That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

Knowledge Creation

For students starting a four-year education degree, this means that . . .

half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

Shift in Learning = New Possibilities

Shift from emphasis on teaching…

To an emphasis on co-learning

In Phillip Schlechty's book

Leading for Learning: How to Transform Schools into Learning Organizations

He makes a case for transformation of schools.

Reform- installing innovations that will work within the context of the existing culture and structure of schools. It usually means changing procedures, processes, and technologies with the intent of improving performance of existing operation systems.

It involves repositioning and reorienting action by putting an organization into a new business or adopting radically different means of doing the work traditionally done.

Transformation includes altering the beliefs, values, meanings- the culture- in which programs are embedded, as well as changing the current system of rules, roles, and relationship- social structure-so that the innovations needed will be supported.

Transformation- is intended to make it possible to do things that have never been done by the organization undergoing the transformation.

Different than

So as we develop our change agent vision for learning -- How do you see it- should you be a reformer or a transformer and why?

Make your case for using one or the other as a change strategy in your school.

Professional development needs to change. We know this.

-----Do it Yourself PD

A revolution in technology has transformed the way we can find each other, interact, and collaborate to create knowledge as connected

learners.

Learners who collaborate online; learners who use social media to connect with others around the globe; learners who engage in conversations in safe online spaces; learners who bring what they learn online back to their classrooms, schools, and districts. They are DIY, self-directed learners.

What are connected learners?

What is Do -It- Yourself Learning ?

• Letting go of control• Willing to unlearn & relearn• Mindset of discovery• Reversed mentorship• Co-learning and co-creating• Messy, ground zero, risk taking

Image: http://flic.kr/p/ch6kp3

http://bit.ly/QSqfjI

Maybe a first change step could be developing your own Manifesto around changed practice in your school.

What strong assertions do you and others who serve there feel (believe) about the culture?

Photo Credit: http://www.consciousaging.com/

Wonder is both a sense of awe and capacity for contemplation.

Wonderment begins with curiosity but then goes deeper beyond the surface to a place of possibility. A place we look for patterns and testing of ideas we had closed to our more reasonable mind.

Wonder is to leave aside our taken-for-granted assumptions, peel away our biases, and to willing explore aspects and angles we wouldn't have seen before.

What do you wonder?

• About connected learning?

• How do you define the terms?

• Let’s build a common language in our back channel chat.

It also helps to ask yourself questions like:

1) Why am I planning to do this? 2) How will I initiate this change? 3) Who can I connect with online in my network that can help me? 4) How will I measure my progress? Or how will I know if I am learning?5) Am I using various social media tools for different purposes?

Networks are very “me” oriented. You intentionally with purpose pick and choose who is in your network to learn from and why.

Learning with networks happens through BOTH social and cognitive presence.

“Understanding how networks work is one of the most important literacies of the 21st Century.”

- Howard Rheingold

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu

Connected Learning has the potential to takes us deeper

“The interconnected, interactive nature of social learning exponentially amplifies the rate at which critical content can be shared and questions can be answered.”

From:  Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age in The Chronicle of Higher Education 

Cathy Davidson, professor at Duke University

Connected sometimes trumps F2F with deep learning…

Via Marc Andreessen’s blog, the findings of researchers as related by Frans Johansson in The Medici Effect:

Diversity of thoughtAllows for Greater Innovation

Frans Johansson explores one simple yet profound insight about innovation: in the intersection of different fields, disciplines and cultures, there’s an abundance of extraordinary new ideas to be explored.

• Collaboration and teamwork allow us control our environment• Reciprocal and trusting relationships create effective

collaboration• Social validation and social identity maintain emotional

engagement and enhance attachment to our mates and our group

• Competence contributes to the survival of our group and our sense of security and safety . ~  P. Rutledge

The amplification ability of social tools provides the possibility for a more diverse, purposeful tribe from which to connect, leverage and learn.

Photo Credit: http://flic.kr/p/8vn7B5

Developing Your Tribe

A group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, connected to an idea

Need two things:

1) Shared interest (mission)

2) A way to communicate

Personal Learning Networks (building of your tribe)

Are you mobilizing and contextualizing what you are learning? Can I find you and learn from you?

It’s out of networks that community falls. ~ Nancy White

Whatis community, really?

Very “we” oriented. We do not choose who is part of our community. We make a commitment to grow together and improve at the art and science of teaching and learning. It is more collegial than congenial. It is more collaborative than cooperative.

A Place to Build Trust and Relationships

A Domain of Interest

A Place to Meet

A Place to Construct Knowledge Collaboratively

CelebrationCelebration

A Community of Practice is a network of individuals with common problems or interests who get together to explore ways of working, identify common solutions, and share good practice and ideas.

• puts you in touch with like-minded colleagues and peers

• allows you to share your experiences and learn from others

• allows you to collaborate and achieve common outcomes

• accelerates your learning

• Improves student achievement

• validates and builds on existing knowledge and good practice

• provides the opportunity to innovate and create new ideas

Dedication to the ongoing development of expertise

Shares and contributes

Engages in strength-based approachesand appreciative inquiry

Demonstrates mindfulness

Willingness to leaving one's comfort zone to experiment with new strategies and taking on new responsibilities

Dispositions and ValuesCommitment to understanding asking good questions

Explores ideas and concepts, rethinking, revising, and continuously repacks and unpacks, resisting urges to finish prematurely

Co-learner, Co-leader, Co-creator

Self directed, open minded

Commits to deep reflection

Transparent in thinking

Values and engages in a culture of collegiality

Use a 3-pronged Approach

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Meet the new model for professional development:

Connected Learning CommunitiesIn CLCs educators have several ways to connect and collaborate:• F2F learning communities (PLCs)• Personal learning networks (PLNs)• Communities of practice or inquiry (CoPs)

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

1. Local community: Purposeful, face-to-face connections among members of a committed group—a professional learning community (PLC)

2. Global network: Individually chosen, online connections with a diverse collection of people and resources from around the world—a personal learning network (PLN)

3. Bounded community: A committed, collective, and often global group of individuals who have overlapping interests and recognize a need for connections that go deeper than the personal learning network or the professional learning community can provide—a community of practice or inquiry (CoP)

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Professional Learning Communities

Personal Learning Networks

Communities of Practice

Method Often organized for teachers

Do-it-yourself Educators organize it themselves

Purpose To collaborate in subject area or grade leverl teams around tasks

For individuals to gather info for personal knowledge construction and to bring back info to the community

Collective knowledge building around shared interests and goals.

Structure Team/groupF2f

Individual, face to face, and online

Collective, face to face, or online

Focus Student achievement

Personal growth Systemic improvement

Community is the New Professional Development

Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) describe three ways of knowing and constructing knowledge…

Knowledge for Practice is often reflected in traditional PD efforts when a trainer shares with teachers information produced by educational researchers. This knowledge presumes a commonly accepted degree of correctness about what is being shared. The learner is typically passive in this kind of "sit and get" experience. This kind of knowledge is difficult for teachers to transfer to classrooms without support and follow through. After a workshop, much of what was useful gets lost in the daily grind, pressures and isolation of teaching.

Knowledge in Practice recognizes the importance of teacher experience and practical knowledge in improving classroom practice. As a teacher tests out new strategies and assimilates them into teaching routines they construct knowledge in practice. They learn by doing. This knowledge is strengthened when teachers reflect and share with one another lessons learned during specific teaching sessions and describe the tacit knowledge embedded in their experiences. 

Community is the New Professional Development

Knowledge of Practice believes that systematic inquiry where teachers create knowledge as they focus on raising questions about and systematically studying their own classroom teaching practices collaboratively, allows educators to construct knowledge of practice in ways that move beyond the basics of classroom practice to a more systemic view of learning.

I believe that by attending to the development of knowledge for, in and of practice, we can enhance professional growth that leads to real change.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (1999a). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teaching learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249-305.

Passive, active, and reflective knowledge building in local (PLC), global (CoP) and contextual (PLN) learning spaces.

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“ Do you know what who you know knows?” H. Rheingold

Critical friends: Form a professional learning team who come together voluntarily at least once a month. Have members commit to improving their practice through collaborative learning. Use protocols to examine each other’s teaching or leadership activities and share both warm and cool feedback in respectful ways.

Curriculum review or mapping groups: Meet regularly in teams to review what team members are teaching, to reflect together on the impact of assumptions that underlie the curriculum, and to make collaborative decisions. Teams often study lesson plans together.

Action research groups: Do active, collaborative research focused on improvement around a possibility or problem in a classroom, school, district, or state.

Book study groups: Collaboratively read and discuss a book in an online space.

Case studies: Analyze in detail specific situations and their relationship to current thinking and pedagogy. Write, discuss, and reflect on cases using a 21st century lens to produce collaborative reflection and improve practice.

Instructional rounds: Adopt a process through which educators develop a shared practice of observing each other, analyzing learning and teaching from a research perspective, and sharing expertise.

Connected coaching: Assign a connected coach to individuals on teams who will discuss and share teaching practices in order to promote collegiality and help educators think about how the new literacies inform current teaching practices.

"Imagine an organization with an employee who can accurately see the truth, understand the situation, and understand the potential outcomes of various decisions. And now imagine that this person is able to make something happen." ~ Seth Godin.

Change is hard

Connected learners are more effective change agents

Real Question is this:Are we willing to change- to risk change- to meet the needs of the precious folks we serve?

Can you accept that Change (with a “big” C) is sometimes a messy process and that learning new things together is going to require some tolerance for ambiguity.

We have a choice: A choice to be powerful or pitiful. A choice to allow ourselves to become victims of all that is wrong in education or activists. Activists who set their own course. Who resist the urge to quit prematurely. DIY change agents who choose to be powerful learners on behalf of the children they serve.

Last Generation