Why Modeling?
It’s hard to disrupt the systems that we have in place. For starters, the system follows the Industrial Era model with the intent to supply a standardized workforce. Also, the systems are entrenched in our lives to the point where schools are necessary to support life as we know it. Finally, as Dr. H says, “we do what was done to us – we teach in the way that we were taught” (Harapnuik et al., 2018, p. 108). Either way, we must admit that education the system barely moved, if at all (Harapnuik et al., 2018).
The best way to make any change is to teach by modeling.
This is because modeling is the main way that humans learn. In the video, Mother Nature’s Pedagogy, Peter Gray (2015) says, “Children are biologically designed to educate themselves through play and exploration. All we need to do is provide the conditions that would allow them to educate themselves.” Moreover, he observes that mixed-age children learn by observing and interacting with one another.
In What Babies Know About Physics and Foreign Languages, Gopnik (2016) notes that babies don’t just copy mindlessly, “they take note of who you are and why you act.” In other words – they make sense of the context of their learning.
Since modeling is such a pervasive learning method, it makes sense that we would model best practices in teaching as well.
How do we model self-directed learning?
Modeling-Based (Flipped) Professional Development at Rutgers University (McCammon, 2015) provided an “efficient and active learning environment.” To begin, the teachers recorded video lectures ahead of time that included all of the sit-and-get content (McCammon, 2015). Because they were not interactive, they were “60-80% shorter than live lectures” (McCammon, 2015). Some of the advantages of this include a self-paced learning environment and the ability of participants to review the information (McCammon, 2015). Another advantage is that because so much less time was devoted to lecturing, there was more time for active learning (McCammon, 2015). Instructors could use class time to ask and answer questions, encourage collaboration, and engage students in activities to demonstrate artifacts of their learning (McCammon, 2015). Finally, through modeling these activities, teachers had the opportunity to experience, observe, and interact with the material. Not only that but they now had a context for an engaging, authentic learning environment.
Modeling, COVA, and my PL
What I enjoy the most about my experience in ADL is that the program is authentic to me. Nothing that we do in ADL is “make work” as Dr. H frequently says. What he means by that is that we are doing work that is meaningful to our current job. Likewise, teachers need to be responsible for their own professional growth. That is, they need to grow in ways that are meaningful for their job.
In my Professional Learning, I intend to guide administrators and admin assistants to create an authentic, cross-department, professional goal. Then, they will use this goal to create an action plan to improve digital systems within and across departments. Finally, my team will coach them throughout the year as they work to meet their goal and make meaningful systemic changes. The ultimate goal is to devise systems that we can use to model a blended learning environment for teachers and students.
Ecosystems over Industrialization
“We must take our metaphor for leadership not from the machine but from the ways living systems organize. In living systems, growth is found in disequilibrium, not in balance. As leaders in educational transformation, our role is not to control but to enable the order to emerge naturally – and we are still learning how to do this well” (“Teachers Leading Their Own Professional Growth: Self-Directed Reflection and Collaboration and Changes in Perception of Self and Work in Secondary School Teachers,” 2006, p. 77).
References
Gopnik, A. (2016, July 30). Opinion | What Babies Know About Physics and Foreign Languages (Published 2016). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/opinion/sunday/what-babies-know-about-physics-and-foreign-languages.html
Gray, P. (2015, January 30). Peter Gray: Mother Nature’s Pedagogy: Insights from Evolutionary Psychology. YouTube. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://youtu.be/G2BAJ_svbhA
Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T., & Cummings, C. (2018, January 9). Dwayne Harapnuik Tilisa Thibodeaux Cynthia Cummings Lamar University. Learner’s Mindset….. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from http://tilisathibodeaux.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/COVA_eBook_Jan_2018.pdfMcCammon, L. (2015, April 15). Modeling-Based (Flipped) Professional Development at Rutgers University – Dr. Lodge McCammon. YouTube. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from