Professional development

Professional development is a big part of a teachers responsibilities. It is explicitly one of the registered teacher criteria. Schools like to provide their teachers with opportunities, often involving bring in guests for staff meetings and teacher only days.Principals think hard, and can spend big bucks trying to bring us great minds, to motivate and empower us, or utilise talented staff to lead our growth. This is all good, and I understand the concept that it has to be a best fit for the majority, but what I start to become more frustrated with, is the feeling when one walks away, without a single morsel to take themselves forward. 

I had the great opportunity to participate in a teacher only day recently - even to present.

It was based around ICT and creativity. Awesome. I was ready to be inspired, to see some creativity... Unfortunately for me I spent 6 1/2 hours and came away fairly empty handed. So was left feeling a little disappointed. 

Now this is not to say that other teachers weren't inspired, and had many takeaways. The presenters did share some great things. My problem was a very personal one - being a lead ICT teacher and more prolific online I had seen and heard most of it before, and found myself unchallenged. And I do seem to be one of those children who when unchallenged I am quickly bored.

Next time perhaps I need to negotiate my PD with my principal more. I could easily have spend the day working on the google apps for education online course, or surfing my favourite teacher bloggers, googling daily 5 and other personal goals I am working on this year. I could have led my own learning and come away motivated and moving forward. Shouldn't I be able to drive my own learning as an adult?

If I link this back to my classroom, I have to also keep this in mind. Do I offer this ability to my students. Are they able to negotiate and extend themselves when the classes learning is something they've seen before? How do I build that into the culture of my classroom, so children feel it is OK to request independent  learning?

I will ponder this moving forward. How are my learners having a say in what they are learning?