Milobo’s Musings

Much to my delight and surprise, I’ve been asked to serve as an “expert voice” for the New Jersey Powerful Learning Practice (NJPLP) virtual community. Powerful Learning Practice is a program designed to impact instructional methodologies and beliefs by using a combination of real and virtual experiences to build knowledge within a community of teachers, principals, university faculty and state level administrators.  Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson have done an excellent job of designing a plan that can meet the needs of all these diverse individuals as they work together to create positive change. 

As part of the program, participants have the opportunity to learn from and share learning experiences with experts in tools and pedagogy. Bud Hunt, blogger extraordinaire, is leading the NJ virtual community and sent an email my way about a week ago asking if I’d be interested in being an expert voice for the New Jersey cohort.

Tag, I’m it.

I have to admit I’m a little intimidated by the thought of being looked at as an expert.  Sure, I’ve had lots of experiences during my 20 years in education and experimented with many different technology tools over those years, but what is it that makes someone an expert?

Here’s what I’m hoping Bud and the rest of the PLP team are looking for:

• Someone willing to risk failure in order to find success.   One of the most important things I’ve learned is that no great thing comes without risk.  Learning how to fail is a skill I wish were taught to students, because it’s one they need to master if they want to grow. For many years in my Algebra class, I spent time after every test teaching students how to learn from their mistakes. They learned that by analyzing their errors, they’d figure out where their weaknesses lay and then could work to improve them.  My goal was to have them see risk and failure as an opportunity for learning, which would ultimately lead to success.  I’ve certainly taken my share of risks, including my current job.  Who would’ve imagined a K-8 teacher would be hired to help a high school faculty learn to integrate technology and redesign their learning environment to become more engaging?
• Someone with more questions than answers.  I’m still a learner at heart and part of learning is asking questions.  Lots of them. It’s that curiosity and need to understand that help me when I’m guiding teachers through the process of building units of instruction.  I don’t claim to be an expert in most of the subjects taught by the teachers I work with every day.  What I can do is ask the right questions to help them define their outcomes, decide what practices would help students meet their goals, and then determine what method will be used to measure achievement. Good teaching and learning practices are universal across all disciplines.  It sometimes just takes the right questions to help teachers find them.
• Someone who believes the best learning comes when all believe they have something to learn. I truly believe that there’s something to learn from every person I encounter. I learn from my fellow teachers and from my students. I learn from those with more experience that I’ll ever have and from those who are just starting out. That’s one reason I’m excited about the opportunity to join the NJPLP. Because while I’m sharing what I’ve learned, I hope to learn from those who are participating.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 30th, 2008 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Prof_Dev. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.