As an administrator, my professional development/learning goals are driven by asking - what can I do to make our school the BEST learning environment for our students and teachers?

It has always been my philosophy as an administrator to lead by example, and not ask teachers or students to do anything I have not done, or am willing to do.  One of my goals as an administrator has been to always maintain a presence in the classroom as a teacher/learner and not forget where I came from!  I have attempted to do this through having our new teachers evaluate my teaching (Supporting New Teachers), visiting classrooms (Hunger Games, What I learned from Kids Today) and becoming a student for a day (Back to School).  

Most recently I had the opportunity to teach a college level course to professional educators.  Our school district has an outstanding partnership with Endicott College, MA that allows educators in the district to teach approved courses to other educators for college credit.  I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to sharpen my skills as a teacher, share my experiences and model my teaching methods and philosophies.  The course was titled "Building your Professional Learning Network" and the syllabus can be found here Building your PLN Syllabus. 

Although the major goal of this class was to share the power of Social Media with other educators, this blog post will focus on my attempt to model the teacher as facilitator.  My teacher as facilitator model had a few basic premises, which I shared with the students on day 1:

I believe the days of the teacher as sole knowledge provider are over.  Students have access to unlimited content via the Internet and through online collaboration.  Let's be honest with our students and admit day one that we don't have all the answers, but will provide important questions and guide them in finding answers.  In our class I surrounded myself with SuperStar educators to assist me.  Acknowledging I was not an expert, I reached out to other educators on twitter to assist me in facilitating our class.  The response was outstanding!  I would like to personally thank each one our guests for taking the time to make us BETTER! I also highly recommend following each of them on twitter.

    

It is important to me that students have time to explore, innovate and to have fun in school!  The concept of FedEx time first came to me after reading @DanielPink's book Drive.  For an in depth understanding of FedEx time and how it can be used in education check out @Mrwejr's excellent post Fed Ex Time.  I substituted the concept of "FedEx" time with "Play" time because I think students, no matter their age, associate play with fun.  It was amazing to me how well the class responded to play time.  Allowing students time in class to work on something they are passionate about produces higher quality work. 

The issue of homework is complex and controversial.  I love discussing it with educators, parents and students.  I believe that we should rename homework "homelearning" and that our goal should be to make it optional, but so interesting to students that they all do it.  That was my goal for this class.  I never once assigned homework, but am happy to report that students in our class admitted that they did more work from home in this class than any previous class they took that assigned it :)

Assessment is an integral part of education.  It helps educators identify where each student is with their learning and allows us opportunities to adjust and improve our teaching.  My goal for our class was to give each student the opportunity to chose their own final project and share it with their classmates.  The only requirements were that it was something that would stretch their learning and improve their professional practice.  In my previous classes I had very structured criteria for final projects and found that it limited autonomy.  To alleviate any anxiety that is associated with the terms "final" and "project", I substituted "final project" with "shared learning".  The final student presentations were nothing short of remarkable!  They shared with me at our final meeting that the success of their presentations was due to their ability to play, exposure to a variety of professional perspectives and the autonomy to direct their own learning.  

 I would be interested in your response to the following questions:

    

It is important to note that the 12 educators taking this course had little or no experience with Twitter or social media.  There growth has motivated and inspired me.  I commend them for their bravery to challenge themselves and taking risks.  I would highly recommend you follow these educators on twitter and make them part of your PLN.  The ultimate compliment I can give them is that I have learned as much from them as they have from me.  

@rufus1152 Teacher Valuation  "This course has the potential to tap into the richest treasures the staff of Plymouth educators can offer, sharing and learning from each other, as well as the world - resulting in tremendous benefits to our students"

@ringdom206 Math Love  "This course has given me the tools to share ideas from like-minded professionals from all over the world, not just from across the hall.  Harnessing the power of social media will re-energize your practice in ways you can not yet imagine.  You'll be so relieved to hear this is a "no homework" class, but believe me, you'll be doing homework because you want to, not because you have to!"

@jm28soccer Worldly View  Building My PLN Prezi  "I enjoyed the exposure to new ideas in technology and the time to be creative and productive."  

@pach226 Glogster Presentation  "I was amazed at the skype sessions we had during this course.  They provided so much material to explore and grow personally and professionally.  I also enjoyed all the new tools that I may use in my classroom - livebinder, twitter, tubechop, etc."