One: Professional development is a FUN, EVERYDAY affair; and for me, is best done with an inspiring TEAM of enthusiastic educators!
It is fun to learn and grow in the company of other professionals. Whether it be online through blogging or recent Twitter connections, or communities of practice like Learning with Computers or Webheads, I am learning new things every day. For instance, I'm discovering new tools to try out, like Tumblr and YouAre. Also, through face-to-face attendance at professional organization meetings, presentations, and conferences, I revisited some classroom activities, like K-W-L, self-assessment, and vocabulary learning. Through these experiences, I found that I could learn about many new tools and activities to use in the traditional classroom setting, and on our class blog.
Two: Taking risks to grow professionally is a good thing.
Risk: And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to Blossom. Anais Nin
This year, I learned that I needed to take some more risks professionally. I developed articles, chapters, lesson plans, presentations, and workshops, and I challenged myself to take on some different learning opportunities.
One of the biggest challenges is yet to come in the new year, as I join a fabulous group of moderators to lead the Blogging for Educators EVO session. Although not all of this year's endeavors were successful (I never did come close to learning to webcast), I feel that learning to share my ideas with a wider audience was the biggest step. As a teacher, I find that I'm often coaching students to share their thoughts and that what they have to contribute is important, but I needed to take my own advice!
This post was inspired by Larry Ferlazzo's What did you learn in 2007 post, and an abbreviated version was sent to be included on his upcoming blog post. Also, I have posted a link at The Learning Circuit blog for December's Big Question.
