21st Century Professional Learning – Powerful Learning Practice
April 6, 2009
The following guest post was written by Lani Ritter Hall, an instructional designer for online professional development, and former teacher for 35 years.
We hope you can join Sheryl and Will for an informational webinar session on April 14, 2009 at 10 AM, or, April 23, 2009 at 2 PM.
Contact Lani Ritter Hall, lanihall [at] windstream [dot] net or Abby Kelton, akelton [at] smartsolutionsonline [dot] com, at Smart Solutions for additional information.
Please also check out this Webinar!
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21st century learners: connected, social, engaged, collaborating outside of school. Schools: isolated, competitive, irrelevant to many of those learners. This chasm grows wider daily, requiring leaps and “shifts” in our beliefs about learning to embrace tenets of networked learning that facilitates students reaching their full potential. For many educators, those shifts and leaps are intimidating and foreign as previous professional and personal learning experiences were disjointed and unrelated to the real world.
“Many teachers receive professional development that is episodic and disconnected from real problems and practice, said Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommon Professor of Teaching and Teacher Education at Stanford University. But research tells us that teachers need to learn the way other professionals do: continually, collaboratively and on the job.”
“Research shows that professional learning can have a powerful effect on teacher skills and knowledge and on student learning. To be effective, however, it must be sustained, focused on important content, and embedded in the work of collaborative professional learning teams that support ongoing improvements in teachers’ practice and student achievement.” National Staff Development Council
Aligned with Ohio Professional Development Standards and current research, Powerful Learning Practice (PLP), co founded by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson, offers a unique opportunity for educators to participate in a long-term, job-embedded professional development program through immersion in learning environments that allow them to learn and own the literacies of 21st Century learning and teaching.
During the initial 8 month cycle PLP participants learn together as part of a cohort composed of 20 school or district teams with 5 educators on each team and 10 “21st Century Fellows” selected from participating districts. Educators experience:
* Two full-day face to face workshops for cohort participants held at a regional site
* Five, two hour synchronous online 21st Century curriculum modules:
1. Setting the Stage: Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century – What is 21st Century learning? Why is it important? This session introduces the context, research and trends shaping the current shifts.
2. Network Literacy: Sharing, Cooperation and Collective Action – This session moves team members from talking about 21st century learning to examining some specific tools and how they are used to promote the building of Personal Learning Networks for sharing, cooperation, and collective action.
3. Network Driven Inquiry: Technological Pedagogy in Action – This session takes a closer look at the pedagogy involved in using web- based strategies to support passion-based and inquiry-driven approaches to learning.
4. Project Workshop – School teams have an opportunity to get feedback on their emerging team projects as well as showcase, reflect, and celebrate the success and outcomes of their learning
5. Long Range Planning and Implementation Workshop – Working with school teams to develop a collective vision and implementation plan to build momentum for change in their schools and districts.
* Immersion in an asynchronous Virtual Learning Community
* Ongoing capacity building with 21st Century Fellows
As educators build these communities of learning that exist outside of traditional time and place, vastly different from schools they attended as children, they find the connections and opportunities they can build with the new emerging medias are key to powerful learning. Powerful Learning Practice understands these connections and understands that the tools are easy; it’s the connections that are hard.
Over 1000 educators worldwide have found PLP energizing, and transformative. Lisa, from the ADVIS cohort reflects upon her experience:
Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said this would be powerful! From the very first, I’ve done nothing but learn. I would admit, though, that a lot of what I’ve learned I had not expected to . . .
What I’ve come to realize is that, through PLP, we are gaining exposure to the world that our kids already inhabit easily – and learning in that environment is not neat and tidy. I wrote my first Ning post about ambiguity and how learning to live – and learn – in an ambiguous world is not easy. It requires openness to new experiences and letting-go of my tradition-based ideas of what schooling is. Learning is not linear, and while I’ve espoused that for years, it wasn’t until this experience of PLP that I was able to live the non-linear, sometimes frustrating, always interesting world of a 21st century learner . . .
Learn more about the current cohort activities from this newsletter and from the PLP website.
Then consider the chasm, consider the challenge, consider PLP! Can you afford not to? Participate in the upcoming 2009-10 Ohio cohort.
We hope you can join Sheryl and Will for an informational webinar session on April 14, 2009 at 10 AM, or, April 23, 2009 at 2 PM.
Contact Lani Ritter Hall, lanihall [at] windstream [dot] net or Abby Kelton, akelton [at] smartsolutionsonline [dot] com, at Smart Solutions for additional information.
2009 Chagrin Falls Education Technology Day
March 9, 2009
The 2009 Chagrin Falls Education Technology Day was a home run! We had a wonderful group of speakers from across the State come speak to us about how technology is transforming teaching and learning at their districts.
We learned about Web 2.0, Personal Productivity, Personal Learning Networks, Course Management Systems, 21st Century Skills, and just about every other important ed tech topic.
All of the materials are being shared on the Chagrin Falls wiki and 21st Century Learning wiki. If you want to read other great debriefs about this event, check out Lani Ritter Hall‘s blog, or Doug Jones “Jones’n”, Director of our education division.
There were two other elements of this day that have stuck with me.
1) This day created dialogue across the district and beyond about 21st Century Skills. I do not believe it would have been possible to attend this one-day event without shifting your outlook about the role of technology in education. Every teacher, administrators, and staff member was touched by something at this conference.
2) Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach remains one of the most inspirational figures in my life. Her energy and vision are contagious. She bravely asserts her point of view and pushes the envelope to extend everyone’s thinking. Here is an excerpt of an e-mail that I sent to her:
I strongly felt that your message was clear to every person in the auditorium. I heard MULTIPLE Superintendents say that they were totally on board with your message. I loved the quotes about technology at the end of your presentation. Everything you spoke about was extremely powerful, persuasive, and mind-changing.
I thought your workshop facilitation was one of the most mind-opening, fascinating, productive “work shops” that I have ever been a part of. We need more Sheryl’s in the world. You were dynamite. That event at Chagrin Falls certainly galvanized my interest in the role of technology in education. Since the first time I met you and stumbled around your blog, you have helped ignite a passion for 21st Century Learning and Personal Learning Networks in me as well. I will be forever grateful to you for this.
The Superintendent of Chardon Schools, Joe Bergant, has joined twitter and is driving change at his district as a result of this wonderful day!
Thank you to all the speakers and attendees for organizing a wonderful event. It is exciting and humbling to be part of a business that is helping drive so much positive change in our community.
21st Century Learning and Student Achievement
January 18, 2009
Click here to register.
