Two blog posts this week caught my eye and lingered in my brain.  They were Jessica Lifshitz’s “A Different Kind of PD (AKA Thank You Kate Roberts and Chris Lehman)” linked here and Lisa Saldivar’s “Assigning vs. Teaching” here.  Jessica is a 5th grade teacher in Chicago and Lisa is an Elementary ELA Coordinator in Los Angeles.

How do I know Jessica and Lisa?  I follow them on Twitter and they participated in online chats last week.

How did I find out about their blogs?  The links were both tweeted out on Twitter.

Have I ever met them? No, not YET!

 Stop for a second.  

What was the content of the  last Professional Development session where you left energized, inspired and ready to move forward with implementing the learning?

Energy, enthusiasm and excitement were present in both their posts.   The three presenters referenced above, Kate Roberts, Chris Lehman (Falling in Love with Close Reading), and Cornelius Minor, are awe-inspiring and passionate about increasing literacy learning for students without drudgery.  They are also FUN to listen to in a PD setting!  You can hear Cornelius Minor in a podcast here.  If you haven’t yet seen them in person, you need to add them to your “must do” list!

 

Focus:  What is professional learning?

I shared this model back in September because the work of Joyce and Showers is embedded in the thinking and development of this model that has “Student learning – at the center of school improvement and staff development”!  (Research-based, YES! and a model of how good things can be!)

You can read more about the model here and also about CCSS.Writing Anchors 1-3 here for content of a two hour PD session with absolutely 0 power point slides but a lot of talk and “studying of texts”. Teachers had the opportunity to read new/revisit familiar texts to deepen their understanding of writing techniques and build a common language, K-5, across argument, informational and narrative texts.

 Where can you find joyful and inspiring PD on your own?

There are many quality sources of PD.  I encourage you to leisurely explore the following resources until you find one that you cannot live without!  Additional details are listed for:  blogs, twitter hash tags, twitter book chats, twitter blog chats, scheduled Twitter chats, and face-to-face presentations.

1. Blogs

Reading a steady diet of blogs can inform your work.  Leaving comments on the blogs can also lead to conversations and even other blogs you might want or need to follow!

Must read literacy blogs include:

• Vicki Vinton’s blog “To Make a Prairie” – Of interest to you might be this specific post “Learning vs Training – The Power of Real Professional Development“
• Melanie Meehan’s blog – one of the two authors of “Two Reflective Teachers” and this post “Exploring a Fabulous Mentor Text”
• Tammy Mulligan  and Clare Landrigan’s blog, “Teachers for Teachers”, where they describe themselves as “… staff developers who are still teachers at heart. We believe that effective professional development includes side by side teaching; discussions of current research; analysis of student work; and mutual trust and respect.” A post that may be of interest is “Applying Some ‘Brain Rules’ to Professional Development“
•  Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris’s blog, “Burkins & Yaris Think Tank for 21st Century Literacy” and a favorite post, “The Power of Job-Embedded Coaching” that contains additional references to the work of Joyce and Showers
• Two Writing Teachers  (and that will also lead you to the amazing blogs written by the SIX authors!)
• and many great teacher blogs like Julieanne’s “To Read, To Write, To Be“; Mary Lee’s “A Year of Reading“;  Steve’s “Inside the Dog“; Christina’s “The Teacher Triathlete“.

 

 2. Twitter hashtags

Twitter hashtags begin with the “#” sign and can be real or made up. Some hashtags exist for a long time (not saying forever because who REALLY  knows what “forever” means in the “TwitterVerse”) or they can be hashtags created for a specific event (and possibly linger after through posts/discussions).

Examples for meetings / conferences:

#NatRRConf  – National Reading Recovery Conference

#WSRA15  – Wisconsin Reading Association 2015 Conference

#NCTE14  – National Council of Teachers of English 2014 Conference

Examples of enduring hashtags (may want to have a dedicated column in Tweetdeck or Tweetchums):

#tcrwp – Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

#wonderchat – Wonder Chat

#tlap – Teach Like a Pirate

3. Twitter Book Chats

Twitter Book Chats are on line discussions of books (often with questions posted in advance in a google document) where readers and lurkers meet to answer questions and grow their own knowledge.  Powerful twitter book chats often include the authors responding to the questions as well!

#filwclosereading – Falling in Love with Close Reading (book and presentations by @teachkate and @ichrislehman linked above)

#wrrdchat – What Readers Really Do by Dorothy Barnhouse and Vicki Vinton

#NNNchat – Notice and Note @kylenebeers and @bobprobst

#wildreading – Donalyn Books

#booklove – Penny Kittle

#G2Great – Good to Great  @DrMaryHoward

4. Twitter Blog Chats

Twitter Blog Chats are often used to introduce an upcoming series of blog posts or to even wrap up a series of blog posts where the readers can interact with the blog authors.

Examples:

#TWTBlog – Aim Higher:  Outgrow old goals  and set new ones with the chat archive here

#T4Tchat – sponsored by Teachers for Teachers with the last chat storified here – Mid-Year Assessments Got You Down?

5.  Scheduled Twitter Chats

#tcrwp – Teachers College Reading and Writing Project  (Wed. 7:30 pm EST)

#educoach –  Educational Coaches (Wed. 9:00 pm CST)

#titletalk –  Promote reading and book titles that engage students (Last Sunday of each month from 8-9 pm EST)

#iaedchat – Iowa Educators (Sundays 8 am and 8 pm CST)

Many content areas and grade levels host their own chats – check out this list! (36  chats on the list last night between 5:30 and 10:00 pm!)

6.  Face to Face Presentations

Face to Face Presentations are often jazzed up to include a hashtag so participants can follow along or a back channel like “Today’s Meet” where participants can be posting favorite quotes or questions in real time while the session is taking place.  Today’s Meet is often used when there are multiple presenters so the non-presenter is monitoring the channel to feed to other partners/panel members or to address /build purposeful connections for all parts of the presentation.

Which of these 6 have you used to find your own joyful and inspiring professional development?  

What about your peers?  Where do they find joyful and inspiring PD?

(If you didn’t answer these questions in three seconds or less, click on a link above and find something you are interested in . . . NOW!!!)

 

Tuesday is the day to share a “Slice of Life” with Two Writing Teachers. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. Thanks to Stacey, Anna, Beth, Tara, Dana and Betsy for creating a place for us to share our work.