Today’s Agenda

http://plpiu13.wikispaces.com/

Let’s Meet our Community

Community Leader- Brian Crosby (10:45am)

PLP Fellows

Team Leaders

How will education be different tomorrow because of our meeting today?

How will you contextualize and mobilize what you learn?

How will you leverage, how will you enable your faculty or students to leverage- collective intelligence?

“Direction-not intention-determines our destination.”

Andy Stanley

Are your daily choices as a 21st Century Administrator taking you and your school in the direction you want to go?

Principle of the Path

Define Community

Define Networks

A Definition of Community

Communities are quite simply, collections of individuals who are bound together by natural will and a set of shared ideas and ideals.

“A system in which people can enter into relations that are determined by problems or shared ambitions rather than by rules or structure.”

(Heckscher, 1994, p. 24).

The process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations. (Wikipedia)

A Definition of NetworksFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Networks are created through publishing and sharing ideas and connecting with others who share passions around those ideas who learn from each other. Networked learning is a process of developing and maintaining connections with people and information, and communicating in such a way so as to support one another's learning.

Connectivism (theory of learning in networks) is the use of a network with nodes and connections as a central metaphor for learning. In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node: information, data, feelings, images. Learning is the process of creating connections and developing a network.

PLP takes a 3-pronged approach to PD

- Professional Learning Communities- Global Communities of Practice or Inquiry- Personal Learning Networks

PLCs = local, f2f, collectiveCoPs = online, deep, collectivePLNs= online, nodes, individual

The driving engine of the collaborative culture of a PLC is the team. They work together in an ongoing effort to discover best practices and to expand their professional expertise.

PLCs are our best hope for reculturing schools. We want to focus on shifting from a culture of teacher isolation to a culture of deep and meaningful collaboration.

Professional Learning Communities

Communities of Practice

Personal Learning Networks

Community is the New Professional Development

Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) describe three ways of knowing and constructing knowledge that align closely with PLP's philosophy and are worth mentioning here.

Knowledge for Practice is often reflected in traditional PD efforts when a trainer shares with teachers information produced by educational researchers. This knowledge presumes a commonly accepted degree of correctness about what is being shared. The learner is typically passive in this kind of "sit and get" experience. This kind of knowledge is difficult for teachers to transfer to classrooms without support and follow through. After a workshop, much of what was useful gets lost in the daily grind, pressures and isolation of teaching.

Knowledge in Practice recognizes the importance of teacher experience and practical knowledge in improving classroom practice. As a teacher tests out new strategies and assimilates them into teaching routines they construct knowledge in practice. They learn by doing. This knowledge is strengthened when teachers reflect and share with one another lessons learned during specific teaching sessions and describe the tacit knowledge embedded in their experiences. 

Community is the New Professional Development

Knowledge of Practice believes that systematic inquiry where teachers create knowledge as they focus on raising questions about and systematically studying their own classroom teaching practices collaboratively, allows educators to construct knowledge of practice in ways that move beyond the basics of classroom practice to a more systemic view of learning.

We believe that by attending to the development of knowledge for, in and of practice, we can enhance professional growth that leads to real change.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (1999a). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teaching learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249-305.

Passive, active, and reflective knowledge building in local (PLC), global (CoP) and contextual (PLN) learning spaces.

http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf

Learning will be—

learner directed and collaborative through: Passive, active, and reflective experiences in these settings.(PLCs, CoPs, and PLNs)

Characteristics of a healthy community

What is PLP?YEAR 1: Learning in the 21st Century: Networks and Communities Focus: Understanding the global changes created by online social technologies and the implications for teaching and learning; provoking deep thinking about professional and personal learning practice; understanding practical and pedagogical implications for classrooms; conducting action research that is aligned to school improvement goals; initiating district-wide conversations and planning around long-term change and the scaling of these ideas and technologies.

Lots of PLP Experiences Available

SupportPowerful Learning Practice is designed as a self-evolving system• loose governance of scaffolded leadership • natural leaders emerge • in the launch phase a number of people involved in supporting and

coaching community members. (See Page 5 of the handbook)

Two all day workshops that build capacity, community and develop 21st Century skills.

WorkshopsLive meetings where teams meet, listen and then reflect in small groups.

ElluminateWhere we deepen understanding, network, share resources and grow as a community of practice.

VLC

Professional Learning Teams

Job embedded teams who meet f2f and work towards scale and alignment of 21st C skills with school improvement goals

Powerful Learning Practice Delivery Model

The ScheduleFace-to-Face Meetings Kickoff: September 15, 2010 Culminating: May 10, 2011

Elluminate Sessions:Calendar is on your wiki

Optional Live EventsAnnounced throughout the year

Virtual Learning CommunityOngoing in NING

Organic Curriculum and Collaboration• School Teams meet f2f during the co-creation of a

school project. (Opportunities for cohort specific small team meetings in Elluminate.)

• Experienced Voices from around the globe come visit and share from their experience.

• Various optional PLP Live Events throughout the year with all PLP cohorts attending. (interviews, focus group sessions, cross cohort meetings, Open mic, PLP Live, TPACK Thusdays, and more.)

• Year 2 Team’s PBL Units

• Virtual Institutes (higher ed and digital citizenship)

• PLP’s Virtual Symposium 5/26-5/28

“I enjoyed meeting with other schools from around the world, hearing and sharing what they are doing in their districts and regions. It opened my eyes to what we are not doing in my buildings and what needs to be done in the future.”

WNY District Superintendent

Collaborative Tools

• Wikispaces

• Delicious or Diigo

•Twitter

• Elluminate

• NING (our VLC)

“Collaboration with others in my district and learning new tools was the best part of PLP.Connecting with other teachers in my district for new ideas and connecting with other schools for new ideas made PLP the best PD ever!”

- Science teacher in WNY

TEAM PROJECTS• Your team will work in a

Professional Learning Team to co-create an action research project:

1) Develop a creative PD plan to share what you have learned over the past few years with the rest of your school or district. Preferably tied to implementation of your strategic plan.

2) Develop a 21st Century curriculum project that is constructivist in nature and leverages the potential of emerging technologies. Preferably tied to your curriculum goals and objectives.

“The project allowed me to work closely with other people in my district in order to accomplish a common goal. Discussing projects from the other districts was very informative!”- school level technology coordinator

Powerful Learning Practice Team Building Activity

1. Individually- Write at least 3-5 assumptions (1 per card) you have about how your team will operate as a 21st Century Learning team and any team learning goals you have . 5 min.

2. Place all the cards in the center of the table: Stack and shuffle.

3. In turn, each person picks a card to read aloud to the table. Engage in dialogue and discussion about the assumptions. 15 min.

4. Someone needs to share these assumptions on the wiki or later in NING.

PLP Community Activity

Do a round-robin style introducing yourself and then answer the following prompt.

1: What about the world and society has changed since you went to school?

2: What about students has changed since you went to school?

3: What about schools has changed since you went to school?

4. What should School 2.0 look like in order to meet the needs of the 21st Century learner?

In light of the changes that have taken place in our society in the last twenty years, what will it mean to be an educated adult in the twenty-first century? What do graduates need to know and be able to do to be well-prepared for college, careers, and citizenship?