Reason #5: Let Me Use My PLN

I had coffee with a friend who works for another district.  At some point, we got into a discussion about blended reading and the question of balancing student autonomy with state standards.

"I wish I could run my classroom closer to a PLN," he explained.

"I know.  It would be cool if we could have a totally customized learning experience."

"Maybe that's our journey.  Maybe that's the next step past differentiated instruction."

The conversation trailed off into the boring professional development he had attended the day before.  "It's not that it was awful, but it was irrelevant.  It was, verbatim, the exact same training I went to last year."

"On what topic?"

"Online safety."

The Solution

Why does professional development need to be limited by district-controlled mandates?  Why does it have to be a rigid track of pre-planned lessons?  What if teachers could customize what they learn?  What if they could move beyond simply sitting through lessons and into the area of developing a Personal Learning Network?

I recognize that schools would need to create structures to ensure accountability.  However, it might work well if teachers could develop a Personal Learning Plan based upon the concept of a PLN. Teachers could create their own objectives, essential questions, lists of resources, choices of at-school professional development and final project/creation.  Administrators could create a menu of options to streamline the process for teachers.

Or not.

A Personal Learning Plan would vary depending upon the context.  However, it seems that schools are missing out on a huge learning opportunity when they fail to recognize the power of a PLN.


Here's a video describing what a PLN means to me:


Here's a video about starting a PLN: