Teachers are some of the busiest and most tired people I know! Unless you have been a teacher, and experienced the daily energy required to prepare for and manage a class full of kids, then it’s hard to understand what teachers get to feel like – especially towards the end of the term! And then there’s the marking, the paperwork, the parents, your team…..extra-curriculum activities, school fairs….. The list is endless.
This huge workload makes taking on personal new learning really difficult. First of all you need the time to actually reflect on what you need to learn, then the time to investigate, explore, take on board and experiment with new ideas.
Learning takes TIME!
However, I feel it’s really important to take that time, perhaps at lower stress times of the term, and focus on our own personal professional development. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just insert a memory chip in our brain, and the knowledge we need would be there, integrated with what we already know!
In Learning Pathways, we are wanting children to take more responsibility for their learning, to identify what their learning needs are, and to follow these up. This is partly based on the belief that children learn more if they follow their own interests and curiosities, but also with the intent to teach children HOW to learn. We know about information overload, and the fact that there is more knowledge out there than any of us can ever process, therefore while we attempt to drill some small holes in this giant ball of knowledge, we want to teach children how to wield the pneumatic drill in order to get to the guts of it, so they can do it without us at the helm!
My feeling is, that we first of all need to develop our own skills in this area! Many of us have been taught with chalk and talk, and being fed the small bits of knowledge that someone else has decided are important for us. The truth is, of course, that we are the ones that know best what we need to learn! It’s really no good expecting others to drip feed us with the bits they think are best, because you actually need the whole picture and a deeper understanding to be able to make use of those bits in a way that will maximise the benefit to children’s learning.
Modelling learning for children is another way of giving that pneumatic drill a bit of oomph. I think it’s good to share the Learning Pathway that you’re taking personally, with the children. For example, if you are trialling a new Thinking Skill with students, there’s no harm in letting them know this. Teaching children consciously HOW to learn is important. When I introduce a Thinking Skill that’s new to me, I would tell the children up front, that this is a new Thinking Skill I read about, and that we’re going to try, and that I’d like their feedback at the end, about how helpful it was for them. This gives you valuable information about how well it works, enabling you to adjust and adapt your teaching of it, and also helps the students reflect on how they are going about the learning process. They are also learning that you are learning and trying new things too.
Which brings us back to TIME!!
Not only do students need the TIME to reflect about their learning, but so do teachers.
So how do we do this??
I read some research (can’t quote the source, but suspect it was John Hattie on ICT PD in NZ) which says that TIME is often quoted as an issue for teachers, but that in fact, this is often indicative of another sort of block, and once teachers get over that block, then the issue of TIME disappears. So what can we do? First of all, reflect on what is blocking you! Maybe it really IS time. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe you don’t think you need to learn or change, after all, you’re an experienced successful teacher already, right? Maybe this is a direction you don’t really believe can make a difference to children’s learning. – Whatever it is, try to identify it, and in this way you may be able to overcome it! Then – plan your time!!!!
a) School Time – difficult but possible – This needs school management to designate meeting times to professional learning. eg Time for professional readings at meeting time, syndicates or teams devoting a meeting to learning something the team needs to focus on, and whole staff PD. Most schools do this now. Some schools have Quality Learning Circles, where teachers get together to share what they’re trialling, the difficulties and the successes. Use your CRT time!
b) Personal Time – plan yourself an hour a week (or more!) to focus on something you need to learn about. It might mean getting up an hour earlier one day a week, or it might mean switching off the TV and reading instead. Do your own personal homework while your kids do THEIR homework…. It’s different for each person, but PLANNING it in, makes all the difference.
c) Share with your colleagues – Make your conversations meaningful – share what you’ve been reading about, and discuss the outcomes. Reflection is crucial to your learning!
d) Decide to take personal responsibility for your own learning. Take the time to explore what your colleagues are doing and saying on the internet, both nationally and globally. There’s a lot of research and exploration going on out there!
e) Weekly Implementation – USE your new learning every week. Plan to implement a new strategy in your planning for your classroom every week, whether it’s for an individual, a group or the whole class. Ask them for feedback about how it helped their learning. Think about how you could change or adapt it for another purpose.
If I only had TIME……..ONLY TIME!!!!!
