The Changing Nature of Professional Development

One of the cool things that I have seen in the few months of my new role is how social tools have the potential to cause an amazing change in the nature of how Professional Development is accessed and delivered. And the really cool thing for me in this new position, is I get to see others come to a new understanding of this shift in professional learning.

The first instance was almost a month ago when I partnered up a new teacher at our school with a teacher at a private school 1000 kilometers away. While this in itself is interesting, what really struck me was the fact that these two teachers were both teaching grade 8 philosophy.

Why does the subject matter?

It struck me that this is an application of the “long tail” theory applied to Professional Development. If you’re not familiar with the notion of the long tail, it is an idea related to internet business models put forth in 2004 by Chris Anderson. The basic idea is that due to a number of innovations in technology, niche markets (in books, music, PD, etc) now have a voice and a demand that was impossible even 10 years ago.

Here’s a typical graph demonstrating the frequency of distribution of a particular item. Let’s say for discussion that the graph demonstrates the number of teachers of a particular subject matter. At the far left of the graph are high numbers of teachers, teaching the few number of core subjects (math for example). This means that accessing math PD is not that hard – there’s a wide range of books, workshops, conferences, etc on math education. (Right now I’m not judging the quality of the PD opportunities, just the quantity).

But what happens if you teach a ‘niche’ subject – like grade 8 philosophy? How many grade 8 philosophy teachers are there? Is there a conference you can go to in order to meet other grade 8 philosophy teachers? In the past, these niche subjects would have been beyond the line between green and yellow on the graph – where there was not enough of a market to drive professional development materials.

However, now due to social tools, teachers in niche subject can find other like minded niche teachers, and begin to build networks around their interests. This is where my grade 8 philosophy teacher comes back in. Dave knew no one who taught philosophy. This was his first time trying, and he was struggling to find resources – wanting desperately to find someone to help him build the course program and support with resources.

Luckily one day on twitter I begin chatting with Brad. Brad has taught philosophy at a private school for a number of years, and has built up expert knowledge and great resources over that time. I set up Dave and Brad on Skype – and before long – Dave has a mentor in teaching philosophy and the students in both schools are sharing their philosophical writing on a shared Ning site.

I see this as a great example of how the ‘long tail’ can have a significant impact on professional development. No longer are we tied to large, homogeneous, subject-matter conferences. Through social tools we can find, collaborate, mentor and be mentored by other teachers in the niche subjects we are about.

Here’s another example from the other side of the tail.

One day I see kids in our school doing a really cool looking art project. I ask the teacher what they’re doing, and it turns into a great blog post. Some teachers in another school read the blog post, and would love to know how the project is put together. Through Skype, we’re able to have the three teachers have a 15 minute chat, and everyone goes away amazed by the possibilities of these new tools.

Five minutes after the Skype chat, our art teacher sends me an email. She’s amazed by the possibilities. She’s amazed that someone would read her blog post. She’s amazed that other teachers would want to try her project. And most of all, she’s amazed that she was able to mentor and provide support to other teachers in ways she had never dreamed.

Here’s the last few lines of her email:

I’m still totally amazed that people are reading about my project and doing it….so cool. Now I’m really curious about who is out there that I could connect with for my First Nations art class. The world just got a bit smaller and the potential larger….hmmmmm.

The Long Tail. Teachers able to meet up – share project ideas and mentor each other on specific projects.

I love my job.