Continuing the asking of "why" and "what if"

In reading Ronald Barth's article The Culture Builder I had a question I am wondering about. Barth argues that the most important goal that we should have for our graduates "is some evidence that that this youngster is becoming or has become an independent learner." And that more so is that each of us in our community are independent lifelong learners. My question is then, does it matter what our teachers are choosing as their continued professional development or is it enough that they are simply continuing their learning?

To me it seems that I would be as much better an educator for choosing to learn a musical instrument or a foreign language as I would be taking mastery classes on say differentiation. Some of the teachers would still choose to focus on differentiation or assessment. What if the professional development goal for each of your teachers was to learn something new and present their growth at the end of the term, given the one hour a week (?) allotted development time during working hours?

Would this develop a more passionate community of learners?

Comments

Negotiation Final Project: Apple v. Samsung

Negotiation in the Smartphone Battles: Apple v. Samsung Maria Voicu Tim Wilson Kelsey Giroux Ross Ferris Endicott College For the past four years, Apple and Samsung have been the key players of an unprecedented legal war. It started in 2010 with Samsung’s launch of Galaxy S smartphone, which to Steve Job’s disbelief resembled and used similar technology to the iPhone, the breakthrough phone that his company launched three years before. Disputes over patents, technology, and innovation cost both companies tens of millions, spanned four continents, and five years later has seen little resolution. Background Samsung and Apple are both goliaths in the personal computing industry. Apple is an American prominent hardware and software company founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Stephen Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. It designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics. Apple enjoys a high level of brand loyalty and is the one of the world's most valuable brand. Throughout the...

Personal Work Negotiation Plan

Personal Work Negotiation Plan Tim Wilson At my school, St. Francis College in São Paulo Brazil, I am currently the educational technology integration specialist. I have been asked, by the heads of school, to provide some professional development sessions on technology, namely Google Apps, for teaching staff. We have traditionally not done a whole lot of professional development for our staff and more so have never tracked professional development other than who has completed the required IB training. What I am proposing is that I become the person in charge of all professional development. I think it would be beneficial to centralize the listing of what professional development individual teachers have attended or undertaken so that t he rest of the teaching community can benefit from their learning. The school is also pushing hard for teachers to work in transdisciplinary units. With the overview of the teachers’ interests and str...

Learning Process Blogs for Student Led Conferences

Edutopia article about Student Led Conferences This document is my final project for MIEA 580 Innovative Practices course at Endicott. The project outlines an innovation and the process for the implementation of it within my school. I have included the entire text within the the body of this post. Rooting of the innovation itself The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) has a shifted approach toward learning than that of traditional models. One of the tenants of this shift is the focus on students understanding the process of how they learn and reflecting upon this process. Summative assessments in the Middle Years Program (MYP) fall under four different criteria categories: knowing and understanding, investigating, communicating, and thinking critically. Each of these criterion are broken down into specific strands and the MYP requires that each strand is assessed at ...

Tim Wilson Blog ePortfolio

Search This Blog