TEACHERS AS LEARNERS:
Educators soak up lessons of Professional Development Day.
Professional development, a catchall for the hours of learning teachers need to keep their licenses, used to be a sleepfest of speakers and courses all educators took, regardless of what they taught.
“We used to call it ‘in-service’,” said Lee-Ann Kight, head of teaching and learning in Bartlett City Schools.
“It was the day I got to have lunch in a restaurant with adults,” she said with a chortle. “Now, I’m excited to be learning.”
Across Shelby County on Friday, thousands of public school teachers were in jeans and in class, learning mostly from their peers in small classes, chairs pulled together in small knots.
“I had a great day, No. 1, because we got to choose what we wanted to do, and those things we chose are relevant to us,” said Marianne Lenahan, who teaches 11th- and 12-grade English for special education students at Bartlett High. “All the things I chose were relevant to the technology, changes in the classroom, TN Ready and all that,” she said.
She learned to use Kahoot! to give quick quizzes on daily lessons “to see if the kids have got it,” and Apple applications to amp up the interest in class.
“You have to keep them engaged,” Lenahan said. Her teachers were all faculty members in the Bartlett City Schools, which meant the schoolwide Professional Leaning Day had a budget of zero.
Teachers are always learning because performance reviews require they study in areas where they need improvement. All districts have instructional coaches and assessment coaches, staff members who have
a teaching load but are free a few hours a week to help colleagues with teaching technique and improving the effectiveness of the quizzes and tests teachers write themselves.
But what happens on days when the students are off is entirely different. Germantown Municipa l School Dist rict had gia nt Professiona l Day selfie board, created by a student to capture the essence of a TED talk and inspire the teachers to engage in social media. It greeted them in the lobby at Houston High. Teachers tweeted the images under #gmsdPDexpo. By the end of the day, dozens had posted comments and photos, some thanking the district for the day.
“We had around 360 ver y i nspi red teachers that are ready to go out there and push the boundaries of innovation in the classroom — t hat has been the coolest part of my day,” said ShaMira Davis, head of the district’s professional development and evaluation office.
More than 600 teachers were in class in Bartlett’s Bon Lin campuses on Germantown Road.
Every class on the roster (enti rely paperless) was based on what teachers said they wanted in a survey shortly before fall break, including 30 sessions on technology in the classroom.
“The pressure is that teachers want to do a great job,” Kight said. “As the landscape is changing, for some of them, making these changes is hard. The reality is, the students will know more about it and figure out the ins and outs more quickly. Being comfortable with that is whole different thing.”
In t he 10:45 section of “Instr uctional Shift,” Spanish teacher Meredith White handed out door prize tickets every time someone came up with a phrase that substituted “shift” for an expletive — such as “up shift creek without a paddle.” The exercise seemed to activate a part of teachers’ brains not often noticed in class.
When co -i n st r uc tor Bla i r Lynch asked t he teachers which g roup of students looked more harmonious, those work- ing away in class or those stretched out in the hallway with their laptops, everyone chose the hall scene.
“My worry is, just about then some administrators come along and say ‘What’s going on,’ ” Lynch said.
“Shift will hit the fan,” came a voice from the back.
“Lea rn i ng is ta k i ng place here,” Lynch said, laughing with the rest of t he room. “Your classroom is not some precise cookie-cutter sort of thing. Technology allows you to expand that, break down walls, even t he boundaries of Tennessee.”
“If we can get students thinking out of the box, instead of teacher trying to control the box, I find it is powerful,” said a teacher sitting off to one side.
“They may be the one who discovers a cure for cancer,” she said, noting that she sometimes gives “crazy” assignments like having students list 25 uses for leaves.
“They come up with t hese c re at ive , cr a z y t hi ngs,” she said . “You never know what we are fostering. It could be powerful.”