I am working with a small group of educators who believe the culture of professional development can be improved. For the most part, the rhetoric tied to professional development is negative. Many are constrained to a short time period, provide no support or modeling for teachers, while content presented is generic and passive. It doesn’t have to be this way.
We have begun to implement changes that make our classrooms more significant learning environments and are encouraged by the response we see in our students. They have been given more opportunities to take ownership and make choices in their learning and exercise their voice in an authentic way.
How might we create this culture of inquiry for the educators we work with as well? We can start with a simple shift in rhetoric. As teachers, are we not in fact professional learners?
Professional learning recognizes that teachers are learning and growing just like their students. While the term “development” indicates a process that has an end point, “learning”recognizes that professional growth is a never-ending, lifelong process.
The biggest effect in our business is the expertise of teachers. It’s teachers who work together, collectively, collaboratively, to understand their impact.
John Hattie
We believe we can improve the effectiveness of teachers and create a culture of inquiry with improved professional learning, and we believe using ePortfolios is the best way to achieve this vision. Below is the Why, How, & What to our mission.
