-Professional+Development

=Professional Development=

====Professional development is the key to teachers keeping current and well rounded in their practice. Teachers need to learn new skills, strategies, and technology in order to give their students the best educational experiences possible. So much changes year to year in education, so professional development is key to keeping education current with the changing world. In the 2025 classroom, professional development for teachers will involve utilizing their PLNs and collaborating with teachers and educators, just like the students will be collaborating.====

PLNs and PLEs as Professional Development
====One thing that many administrators expect of their teachers is for them to be self reflective about their teaching, practices, and knowledge. Teachers should be able to identify their weaknesses, and think of ways to fix and grow in those weak areas. In the classroom of 2025, teachers will use their self created PLNs and PLEs in order to work on their weaknesses. Blogs an wikis are one part of a person's PLN. The following presentation shows how they can be used for professional development.====

media type="custom" key="11559034" ====Huff, Dana. (2009). "Using Blogs and Wikis for Professional Development." Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/danahuff/using-blogs-and-wikis-for-professional-development ====

====As discussed previously, a PLN (Personal Learning Network) is the network of people and information a person uses to learn and gain information. Many PLNs are formed around web 2.0 tools because they facilitate collaboration and sharing. The following is a presentation that discusses how to use web 2.0 tools for professional development.====

media type="custom" key="11558944" ====Fawzi, Hala. (2007). "Out of Isolation Circles: Web 2.0 for Teacher Professional Development." Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/halafawzi/out-of-isolation-circlesweb-20-for-teacher-professional-development ====

Collaboration as Professional Development
====Many teachers will tell you that the most effective and meaningful professional developments tend to come from their peers or other teachers. This tends to be because there are shared experiences between teachers and educators and they tend to have solutions and ideas to help the problems and struggles that arise in a classroom. In the future, professional development will be teacher run in order for teachers to learn from one another and improve upon their practices. In order for these professional developments to be effective, teachers need to make sure there is a shared mission to every professional development, and have goals that support that mission. They should also make sure these goals are submitted to the appropriate administration as well, to calm any fears of lack of direction and validity in a professional development ("Giving Teachers..." 2007).====

====Another way teachers will help one another grow professional is through peer observation. Teams can watch and observe one another on a regular basis and give feedback to their teammates in order to better their instruction. Some teachers find it hard to find areas to improve in, so peer observation is one way to accomplish this. Also teacher observation is helpful because teachers can see models of other teacher's effective teaching. So if a teacher has trouble with classroom management, they can observe a teacher who has effective management in the classroom. It is also "key to supporting a new vision for professional development", and this new development involves team teachers that meet daily to plan lessons, look at student works, and solve problems ("Teachers Observing Teachers...").====

Resources
"Giving Teachers the Reins." (October 24, 2007). Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2007/10/25/01chat.h01.html

"Teachers Observing Teachers: A Professional Development Tool for Every School." (No Date). Education World. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin297.shtml