Sunday 24 September 2017

Professional Development Through Twitter

What:
Here I sit on another wet weekend afternoon - I say 'another' because, in the first fifteen days of September, it has rained on 13 days - officially over it.  As I sit here, my thinking has turned to Twitter, and what a powerful place it is for my professional development. I love the learning I am presented, and the change it makes to me and my teaching practice. 

So What:
Through Twitter, I gain both practical and theoretical ideas for my work. Here are some ideas from today's foray through the people I follow:

Theoretical
7 Habits of Innovative Thinkers - I enjoyed this because it is written for all workplaces, not just schools - a reminder to not be so insular. It reminded me of the importance of emotional intelligence, and that this is an area I can develop in personally as well as supporting my students to develop in.

  Phil Macoun is attending a conference in Sydney, where he is learning about Mentor/Mentee relationships. Here are his notes so far:

This has caused me to reflect on my past Mentor/Mentee relationships, particularly where I have been a mentor teacher for beginning teachers. It is interesting that the person who credits me the most influential factor in them 'surviving' as a teacher, is the person I actually think I did the poorest job for. This is because I think I did too much for him, and as a result, he went on to rely on other people and their resources, being quite lazy himself. Looking at the above table, I think that our partnership was too unbalanced with me doing the bulk of the work, and he taking my offerings. I also think I helped him survive, rather than focusing as much on future development as I should have. Today's learning will make me a more effective mentor in the future. 

Practical Ideas
Shared photographs of sketch-noting he'd done with his students. These blew me away and made me think of a group of students that I'd like to do this with. Here were some of his photographs (https://twitter.com/mralibudbud)







#PYPexhibition - this week we are starting our PYP Exhibition for the year. I am excited to be working leading it for my team, working with a teacher who is new to Exhibition. Our theme is "How We Express Ourselves".  I turned to Twitter to gain inspiration with new ideas. I enjoyed looking at new photos which inspired me for this years' effort. This photo gave me new ideas of how our team can express themselves as a whole:




What now:
I get guilty of getting too busy to explore Twitter, yet whenever I do, I come away feeling inspired with new ideas for my class and new ideas to challenge my thinking. I will make regular to time to learn from my colleagues across the world.

No comments:

Post a Comment