About 5 years ago, I took my first flight in professional development with Van De Walle’s book study. This district wide initiative introduced Math teachers to student l
earning based in constructivist principles and gave us a taste of the limitless possibilities of process based learning, something we, Math teachers, love.
This introductory flight ignited my passion for constructivist principles and led me to future journeys in constructivist thinking. My second flight was in lesson study, a constructivist professional development strategy that enables teachers to collaboratively experiment, analyze and revise the teaching and learning process. Through the process of iterative and active experimentation on a single lesson over months and years, teachers actively construct meaning and connections between teaching processes and student’s learning (Lewis, Perry, Murata, 2005). Throughout the process of lesson study, teachers publically discuss their thinking, prior knowledge, rationale, observations, conclusions, gaps in knowledge, anticipated student responses etc., resulting in perturbations that, if attended to, can lead to greater understanding of the knowledge of teaching and learning (Lewis, Perry, Murata, 2005).
After studying and practicing lesson study within seminars and courses, it was time for me to do my first solo flight as a facilitator within my own school. Like any great facilitator, I didn’t give my math colleagues a chance to say no. So we started a lesson study group and began discussing, creating, experimenting and revising lessons based on improving student learning.
When I began to look for ways of expanding the group, an online community of lesson study enthusiasts was a logical step and, I soon realized, was not a unique idea. With the growing popularity and challenging nature of lesson study, online communities of lesson study practitioners are popping up all across North America. Using forums, blog, chat, video conferencing and other collaborative tools, an online community can facilitate the sharing and researching of lessons at any time with anyone from anyplace in the community.
Unfortunately, I know nothing about developing an online community and am looking to the MET program for instruction. My educational flight plan for this course is to gain key skills in LMS platforms, communication, community and collaboration tools and multimedia that will enable me to create an online professional development community. I estimate, based on my previous experience in MET courses and readings, including NETS and SECTIONS framework, that planning a learning management system will require knowledge in assessing the purpose of the online platform, assessing the students, understanding the gap between where the learner is and where you want them to be, creating the resources needed to fill the gap between, and building, monitoring and refining the system. Successful implementation of social networking software will require hands on experience and knowledge of the essential elements of successful online collaboration. Although creating an online community of teachers presents a significant challenge, I “guesstimate” that ETEC 565 will be an instrumental course in my journey. In order to manage the site and disseminate information and media, like video of lessons, my specific goals in this course is to become familiar with HTML code and video editing, hosting and embedding.
Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.
Lewis, C., Perry, R., & Murata, Aki. (2006) How should research contribute to instructional improvement? The case of lesson study. Educational Researcher, 35, 3-15.
National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm