Professional Development Experiences

This is one of my reflections from my class, Leading Change: Go Beyond Gamification with Gameful Learning.

In general, the most beneficial professional development experiences have been experiences that I have voluntarily taken part in. I understand the need for mandatory professional development, but the two experiences that I have chosen to discuss are experiences in which my district might not even be aware of my involvement.

One experience is the EdCampMadWI, which is an ed camp (teachers meet and propose sessions and the schedule for the day is made right there, allowing teachers to share and learn from one another by choosing which sessions they would like to attend) in Madison, WI. I attended last year and meant to attend this year, but subzero temperatures led to my missing out this year. This experience was so valuable to me because I met plenty of passionate teachers who really want to do what is best for their students and the students of others. They were so open to sharing ideas and listening to ideas, asking questions, and offering future help by exchanging emails and twitter handles.

Another experience is actually a multitude, but I’ll sum it up here: Twitter chats. I wasn’t involved in Twitter until a couple of years ago, but it has greatly opened up my world and allowed me to learn from so many other people, as well as ask questions and receive helpful feedback.

Both of these experiences have commonalities; both are organized and attended by passionate teachers who are willing to share ideas, discuss openly, ask questions, answer questions, and most of all, are willing to welcome new members into their learning community.