Does it matter if teachers are professionally networked?

[Sarah Hanawald]

Tomorrow, I have 5 minutes to present a research base for my contention that teachers need help learning how to work collaboratively and develop more collegiality. I feel stumped. It seems, well, obvious. To me anyway, but I know that doesn't cut it as an explanation. Why does it matter if teachers are professionally connected?

Here's what I think I'm going to do. First, I'm going to re-tell in a shortened way the story with which Clay Shirky opens his book Here Comes Everybody. (Which I highly recommend). You can read an interview that serves better than a review here. Then I want to quote somebody (Alan November?) who said a while back that we are the first generation of educators who have to prepare all of our children to lose their careers, not just their jobs. And maybe more than once.

Then, on to the skill set we are going to need.

From the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website. Disclaimer, I'm not crazy about their "we need American students to be competitive in business approach" to education. However, there's some interesting stuff on the site. These are traits the partnership identifies as essential for students to have in the future. How many teachers have these traits as a part of their skill set? I would argue that, like students, we all display some variation. How then, do we teach these "skills" especially since none of them are tested until after graduation when students encounter the "real world."

How are teachers going to build that skill set? It sure isn't going to happen at an inservice. It will happen if teachers become part of building a learning community. The fact that ed tech jumped into the listserv, Ning, Wiki world first is just well, first. Techies don't necessarily "get" this stuff better than other teachers.

The great artists, writers, and thinkers of the past gathered in cultural centers and met in salons. There was a reason Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas went to Paris! Is it impossibly elitist to draw a parallel with educators? Aren't we supposed to be fighting the anti-intellectual trend that seems to be "All American?"

Here's the "skill set" our students will need. Are we ready to learn it with them?

What do you think?

* Flexibility & Adaptability
o Adapting to varied roles and responsibilities
o Working effectively in a climate of ambiguity and changing priorities

* Initiative & Self-Direction
o Monitoring one’s own understanding and learning needs
o Going beyond basic mastery of skills and/or curriculum to explore and expand one’s own learning and opportunities to gain expertise
o Demonstrating initiative to advance skill levels towards a professional level
o Defining, prioritizing and completing tasks without direct oversight
o Utilizing time efficiently and managing workload
o Demonstrating commitment to learning as a lifelong process

* Social & Cross-Cultural Skills
o Working appropriately and productively with others
o Leveraging the collective intelligence of groups when appropriate
o Bridging cultural differences and using differing perspectives to increase innovation and the quality of work

* Productivity & Accountability
o Setting and meeting high standards and goals for delivering quality work on time
o Demonstrating diligence and a positive work ethic (e.g., being punctual and reliable)

* Leadership & Responsibility
o Using interpersonal and problem-solving skills to influence and guide others toward a goal
o Leveraging strengths of others to accomplish a common goal
o Demonstrating integrity and ethical behavior
o Acting responsibly with the interests of the larger community in mind

[Alex Ragone]

Great post, Sarah -- I hope that the presentation went well.

I've had this conversation with numerous veteran teachers who are content experts and use a few specific assessments to build much of their students' grades. I believe that they might be too close to see what's happening outside our doors.

To truly change, we need to start with a big picture idea of what we want students to be when they graduate and reverse design school. If we started with your list above, what would school look like? Hmmm. I don't think it would look like what we are doing now, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Susan Carter Morgan]

Love your list, Sarah. As I watch my own twenty-something children (egad, one almost 30) make their way in this world, I see this new skill set they need. And, yes, I agree, we teachers need to be right there with them. I have found Sheryl and Will's Powerful Learning Practice (which our school is involved in this year) to embody all of what you've said. I am watching our teachers (not techies) embrace the networking and sharing happening in this program. This has been a chance to use the tools, have a chance to engage online, share ideas, and learn to work with our students in the same way. They are being forced to find time to share and learn in new ways, but it is changing them. Very exciting!

[Sarah Hanawald]

like endlessly programming an extraordinarily complex VCR

That's one version of hell, isn't it?!

[Peter Gow]

Nice list, and a compelling issue. Good luck with your faculty tomorrow. Perhaps a starting exercise another time would be put them in task groups each of whose job would be to define one of these qualities--what does it look like in practice; what would be evidence of its presence; what would levels of mastery/achievement/internalization look like? It might be that people are just overwhelmed by what they perceive as the magnitude of the challenge--that in their minds, whatever this 21st-century-collaboration thing is, it must look like having to learn to build their computer from scratch or to engage in some other similarly unimaginable feat--like endlessly programming an extraordinarily complex VCR ("I'm no good with all this technology!") rather than just teaching kids using some new tools.

Anyhow, let us know how it goes, please--PG