Category Archives: Professional Learning Conceptions

Book Review: On Your Mark

The district I serve in moved to “standards-based report cards” a few years before I arrived in 2007 and I can honestly say they have created heartburn and lively debate three times each year.  These have been revised and re-aligned … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Power of Positive Deviance

Here’s another book that I read, two pages at a time for more than a year.  I found it while researching for my own work on collaborative professional learning.  Positive Deviance is the concept of coaching a community (social or … Continue reading

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EdCamp Lansing 2014

I spent last Saturday at a great professional learning event, called Edcamp Lansing at MSU College of Education.  Last spring I blogged about my virgin experience at Edcamp Detroit, so of course I was thrilled that a local version had … Continue reading

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Drop I, Add THEY

Back when Garth Brooks was an international musical star, he gave part of an interview from the nosebleed section of Cowboy Stadium in Dallas, TX. He explained how he likes to make the trek up to those seats to get … Continue reading

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Twitter: My Newest PLC

I’ve bemoaned Facebook for all providing more information than anyone needs to know about each other. I’ve realized why the Me Generation is, after hearing about celebrities tweet their every pathetic thought for tweens to gush over. High school reunions … Continue reading

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EdCamp Detroit

On May 4, a friend and I went to a dynamic professional learning called EdCamp Detroit. The premise of EdCamp.org is grassroots professional learning among educators in a vendor-free environment (“Edcamps should be about learning, not selling.”) Picture this, we … Continue reading

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Subtract Pride, Multiply Learning

Most times I will let something simmer before writing on it.  Perhaps it wasn’t as inspirational as at first glance, perhaps the inspiration needs to grow as I process the event.  Today, there was no mistaking the inspiration I received … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception #8 – Creation

For the final post in my series on Professional Learning Conceptions, I want to echo off of the first one (Professional Learning Conception #1 – Managing Curriculum) where I wrote of either massaging a purchased curriculum into instructional shape or … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception #7 – Online Collaborative Learning

Online learning is pounding on the doors of public education.  There are still lots of question, such as: are we using technology to merely economize or make the same procedures more efficient; or are we using it as a tool … Continue reading

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Professional Learning Conception #6 – Lesson Study

In a former life, I was a quality manager where my job was to study things like kaizen, a Japanese methodology of “gradual continuous improvement”.  In my current life, a form of kaizen, also from Japanese culture is the structure … Continue reading

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