Sunday, January 30, 2011

"It's a journey"

This is a really short article about the Iowa Teacher of the Year. I like what she has to say about the need for teachers to keep learning. I also think her use of journey as a metaphor to describe the process of learning how to be be better teacher is right on the money.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110125/NEWS02/101250322/Top-teacher-Molly-Boyle-shares-her-expertise&community=Waukee

"A good old-fashioned school"

This is a letter to the editor addressing some of the concerns surrounding a charter school in California. I was struck by the writer's position regarding the use of teachers' expertise in designing a school that will improve educational outcomes, and the common sense approach that the writer takes to explaining why this school should work.
http://www.timesheraldonline.com/opinion/ci_17242589

Friday, January 14, 2011

Long time, no post

Hello, everyone. It's been a while since my last post (the holidays got the better of me!) I have just started a class on HRD and imagine my posts for the next few months will be influenced by that. In fact, I have been working on a literature review of scholarly articles on professional development in EFL teachers in public schools. The paper reviews professional development programs in 7 different nations, and I am using an HRD lens to look at issues common to the programs. I started this work as part of an HRD course I took last year. I find that HRD's focus on performance improvement, training and development, organizational development, and expertise is really helping me gain a clearer understanding of issues, particularly expertise, in professional development in EFL. If anyone is interested in finding out more, please post a comment and we can take it from there.