Faculty+Professional+Development-21st+Century

This page will be devoted to resources that will help teachers think or reflect on their professional development in the 21st century. We believe that faculty will need to reflect on their professional development if they want to be better prepared to help students develop 21st century skills. One way to envision professional development is to think of the metaphor of survival--preparing oneself to be ready for the unexpected--flexible, adaptive, and organized. In his book, //A Deep Survival//, Laurence Gonzales writes about the qualities or character of people who survive difficult situations--mostly as a result of accidents in nature. The conclusions he draws about the qualities that an experienced survivor needs to make it through a challenging situation are transferrable to educators who are faced with adapting to changes in the 21st century, global world. Gonzales writes, "But an the environment changes (and it always does), what you need is versatility, the ability to perceive what's really happening and adapt to it." (page 279) How is the 20th and 21st century different, especially as it relates to educating students in the classroom? What skills do students need (see Partnership for 21st Century Skills at [|www.21stcenturyskills.org])? What kind of teaching is required to teach those skills? These are important questions for the classroom teaher to reflect on if he or she is to remain "versatile," "perceptive," and "adaptive."

1. 21st Century Schools is a company and website that has some interesting resources for developing 21st century skills. [|21st Century Schools]

2. **EdTech Talk** is a collaborative open webcasting community. It is a place where teachers talk with each other about issues, challenges, and opportunities they face in the classroom--moving into a 21st century classroom. You can download podcasts of other topics. [|EdTech Talk Community]

Here is another example of a 60 minutes podcast: On a snowy, windy night last week, Dr. Sondra Perl, Lehman College and Gradate Center, CUNY, NY and five National Writing Project teachers from the [|Rural Sites Network] joined us to describe their journeys as teachers of Holocaust studies. These are the teachers who you'll hear on this podcast:
 * Danielle Bethune, McCool Junction Schools, Nebraska
 * Kristi Bancroft Boucher, Oxford Hills High School, Maine
 * Gail Desler, Elk Grove School District, California
 * Ilka Hanselmann, Wind Gap Middle School, Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania
 * Susan Hodgin, Moscow Senior High School, Idaho
 * Larry Neuberger, Miller High School, Springfield, Missouri

[|Teachers Teaching Teachers on the Holocaust]

3. Here is 2006 article by Pat Bassett from NAIS on faculty professional development for the 21st century. Pat is a very forward thinking educational leader. His writings are perceptive and stimulating. Take a look. [|Pat Bassett Article on Faculty PD for 21st Century]

4. 21st Century Connections: a website devoted to helping teachers prepare for a world in which "students will need 21st century competencies to survive and thrive in the future." "This Web site is dedicated to delivering technology solutions that will help students to learn 21st century skills." There are resources, professional development programs, ideas, and news that help teachers think about technology solutions for teaching 21st century skills. Definitely worth looking at and rummaging around through the site. [|21st Century Connections]

5. This is an interesting video describing some recent innovations in teacher development. Montclair State University in NJ and Colorado State University's Project Promise are two schools with programs that are designed to help develop teachers. The Montclair program has designed two 21st century classrooms for teacher training--mostly having to do with technology integration. This link describes in general what they are working on. [|Teacher Development for the 21st Century]

6. NAIS has a site where you can post stories of excellence. Several "Stories of Excellence" about teaching with technology have been added to this ning. Consider submitting your own stories! There is one group devoted to Classrooms of the Future. [|Stories of Excellence] [|Homepage for NAIS' Schools for the Future]

7. This video is an introduction to what High Tech High School does to foster professional development with its faculty. It describes their intern and graduate school program for training faculty within their own community. [|High Tech High Graduate School of Education]