In his blog post, Do Teachers Need to Relearn How to Learn, Mr. Salsich wonders why teachers seem so dependent on professional development and are unable to transfer knowledge of one technology tool to another. He wonders why schools have to have organized professional development at all since you can pretty learn anything you want on the Internet. He concludes, “I’m beginning to wonder if teachers really know how to learn new skills independently.”

That conclusion seems a stretch and also something of a contradiction since Mr. Salsich admitted up front that he hasn’t learned things independently but rather took advantage of folks on the Internet to learn. So, the real question he seems to be asking is, “I’m beginning to wonder if teachers really know how to learn new skills independently by using web-based resources the way I do?” And that’s a question that shows the blind spot of many web-using educators: I found my network/learning/salvation on the Internet so you should, too. Is is just possible that some people prefer to learn by taking a face to face class? Or reading a book? Or sitting with a more experienced friend?

Another question nagged me as well…why are we blaming the teachers for lousy professional development? Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t teachers who are necessarily demanding professional development (I know of at least a few who would be happy to use the three-hour workshop time to work independently)? Could it be that that the school leadership doesn’t trust them to learn on their own and so creates one-size-fits-all professional development that functions as an accountability rather than a learning tool?

The biggest stumbling block for me, however, was the continued focus on tools. Certainly, teachers have had professional development related to wikis and blogs and other web-based tools. And if the goal of professional development is just to learn how to use a tool then showing teachers web-based tutorials and giving them time to view them and then apply their learning in relevant ways to their teaching would be very useful to them. But, I would hope at this point in the 21st century, we are focusing our professional development on pedagogical uses of these tools and tailoring our professional development to teachers’ styles and needs. When was the last time we even asked teachers what they might want to learn or what might be useful to them?

Let’s redirect the questions we use when we plan professional development: Are you a teacher who does a lot of collaborative projects? Then, a wiki might be a great place for your students to share their research and learning. Are you a teacher who has students doing independent reading? Then, LibraryThing would be a great place for them to keep track of their reading and write reviews for other students. Are you a teacher who has students keep math journals? Then, a blog would be a great tool for you to use for that kind of writing. Are you a teacher who would like a website where you can communicate with your students and parents more effectively and efficiently? Google Sites and Edmodo are great possibilities for setting up a home on the web. Once we’ve found a relevant tool, then we can certainly show teachers how to find others, either on the web or just down the hall, who are using these tools.

One of the things they might talk about would be classroom management, one of the things that is often left out of professional development. If the math teacher embraces the idea of blogging the math journals, what does she need to know about incorporating available devices into the routine of her probably already packed day? One of the things we know about teachers is that they have routines for just about everything as a way of reducing complexity and making efficient use of time. Adding technology can be a huge disruption to those routines so helping teachers develop new ones around the tools will go a long way to supporting their use. And, while they can probably find people on the web to help them, sometimes a face to face conversation with a colleague in another grade or department about what they did may be a better solution.

I applaud Mr. Salsich’s efforts at questioning our current professional development practices but would humbly suggest that one of the first steps in encouraging teachers to integrate technology is to do what we do with the kids: make it meaningful and differentiate for different learning styles. We might also spend some time learning more about the research into adult learning, which interestingly enough shows that adult learners prefer to be self-directed, something that is often not a part of typical professional development. We don’t have to teach teachers to be self-directed, instead we need to respect them and provide them the space, time and reason to do so.