💬 Emily and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Professional Development Session

Replied to Emily and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Professional Development Session (Mrs Fintelman Teaches)

I’ve tried to come up with answers to the question “What makes good professional learning?”. My answers are questions.

  • I believe I know how children learn. Do I know how adults learn? If I don’t, should I be in charge of running this session?
  • What is the point of the session? What do teachers REALLY need to leave with? Answers? Questions? Skills? Content? Attitudes? Enthusiasm?
  • Do I want to teach them what I know? If I do, what do I know that is so important that 30 adult professionals all need to hear it, in the same way, at the same time? Is me putting it on slides and talking about it the best way for them to learn it?
  • I believe people learn by meaningfully doing. Will people be learning by doing or will they be passive? How can I remove that tendency for the presenter to do all the doing?
  • Is my ego involved? How can I remove it if it is?
I really enjoyed your reflection Emily. I wonder if there are times when we learn as much from failed experiences as we do from those that truly succeed? It reminds me of riff I once made on something Douglas Rushkoff once said about solving riddles or posing new ones:

For me, what matters is not necessarily the content, but the conditions created that provide the possibility for personal problem solving. To reword Rushkoff’s question, is professional development meant to solve our riddles or pose new ones?

I was intrigued by your statement about being an ‘expert on learning’:

I really believe that people educating room full of experts on learning should be absolute masters of learning – otherwise they’re hardly qualified to be doing that job.

I wonder if all learning is the same and with that if all professional development is the same?

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  • 💬 Stephen Downes

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