New Course at A, New Excitement

Yesterday I opened course number 2 for the present school year, close to home, at A. I heard, ahead of time, that they had closed the enrollment (at 30) because there were too many teachers but in fact there were only 26 in the group. I was so worried that there would be a large group that I planned the session a bit differently.

My main problem in planning the opening session was that I knew that a few of the teachers had been present when I did a session for DK last year in her course at the same centre. When I stood in for her and did some introductory activities and a lecture on writing, I knew I would have a problem if the same teachers enrolled in my course. On the one hand I knew the taste of the course would encourage them to enrol but on the other hand, I wouldn’t be able to return to the introductory activities.

The group is very different to that in Z in that many of these teachers have been in contact with me in the past. At least 3 have studied in my courses on inclusion and four are from my school. At least 10 others teach at schools in which my professional learning colleagues work.

I haven’t had time to read their questionnaires yet but it will be interesting. I particularly want to read why they chose this course.

When I arrived at the centre I saw something that worried me greatly. There were teachers standing in a line and the receptionist was handing them a big folder (binder) of pages advertising courses and the teachers were choosing according to categories like “Oh, for this one I don’t need to use a computer” or “Great, this one finishes by…”. Is that how educators should be choosing their professional learning? Is that what happens when teachers are coerced into taking two 30 hr courses in a year? I want to hope that nobody chose my course for those kinds of reasons.

When we got to the stage when I asked the teachers to try out “looping” there was all over agreement and cooperation. Maybe the timer I brought did the trick? I asked them to free write on the topic of “Difficulties in Teaching Writing”, a topic they can all relate to. I put the clock on for three minutes and asked them to write quietly without stopping. Then I asked them to stop, to circle the 5 most important words they had written. I then gave them another three minutes on the clock to continue writing, this time concentrating on those five central terms. Apart from the teacher who corrected maths exams throughout the whole session (3 hours!), they were all quiet and did quite a bit of writing.

This wider participation may have been due to several reasons:

  • The teachers were trying out a strategy to be used in the classroom
  • I wrote on the program for the course that teachers would be expected to write
  • It is that kind of group…

I told them that the discussion on how they felt during the writing and how they reacted to the task would be in the virtual campus so I better set up the discussion group quickly. There is no doubt that I will find the 30 hour time limit frustrating. I need to be careful that it isn’t always the collaborative work and the discussions that I skip.

This week I have my second session at Z – I had a few email responses which were very positive.

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