Week 13 Reading: Professional Development on the Job

Our final bout of readings told tales of teachers and library employees learning important skills beyond graduation. This has a history of being accomplished at conferences and courses outside of professionals' paid hours, costing them plenty of extra money and time beyond an already-full work week.

Teachers in Wyoming enjoy a forward-thinking program that allows them to develop new techniques for teaching during contract hours. The program is run by teachers and perpetuated by teachers, and there are monetary incentives for mastering new abilities. There is strength in this program because of the ability for learners to see the skills they are hoping to acquire in action in others' classes, and because teachers are able to see improvement in their own students as they come to master a technique in their own classroom.

Blowers and Reed describe a two-part program for keeping library staff on the up-and-up of modern technology. Reed's core competencies in four tiers utilizes in-person workshops with library staff to teach them the basics necessary to keep working through routine technical issues at work. Blowers takes the education on through to web 2.0 technologies with a more relaxed, fun approach through blogging in "Learning 2.0." Those working through the weekly lessons have the option of completing bonus tasks and get the nice incentive of an MP3 player if they complete/learn all 23 "things" covered throughout the course.

Our own Prof. Fontichiaro effected an overhaul of Blowers' Learning 2.0 in order to introduce her own school's teachers to web 2.0. Her aim was to re-engineer the tasks for elementary teachers, incorporating appropriate services and ways in which her students could incorporate their new skills into their own classrooms. Kristein noted that some teachers were interested in taking a second stab at her course during a slower time of the year, or during a semester when they felt more refreshed (as opposed to beginning in the middle of the schol year).

I found that the first article sounded overwhelming to me, but perhaps this is because I have not been training to be a teacher. The second two readings presented a much more interesting concept to me; while I found none of the "things" or "explorations" beyond my own knowledge or capability, it was very good to see plans laid out for houw to teach the knowledge to others en masse. I have some experience showing others how to do this or that through my student job as a consultant, but long-term lesson plans are still new territory to me.