Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Dynamic Learning Environment/Continuing Education

Students look up to teachers as purveyors of knowledge. They often accept their teachers’ words as facts, and will quote them as such for years to come. I cannot count the number of times I have heard full grown adults say, “Well my professor said….”  This act puts a tremendous amount of responsibility on the educators. They are the primary source of information to the students, so they must ensure the information is as accurate and unbiased as possible. This feat is not possible with a four-year undergraduate degree alone. Continued education for the teacher is essential to offer students the best education possible. This should include workshops, consulting other faculty, reading recent textbooks and journals, and most importantly, learning from their pupils.

Continued Professional Development
The Virginia Department of Education requires school faculty to participate in continued professional development. These regulations provide many options for completion, including taking college courses, attending conferences and workshops, and observing the classrooms of fellow faculty. This program is designed to “improve and increase teachers’ knowledge of the academic subjects the teachers teach, and enable teachers to become highly qualified.” Since the course material is constantly changing, this ensures faculty members stay up to date on the most recent developments in their field.

The requirements also designed to assist teachers in finding the best methods for educating their diverse classrooms. Teachers are given the opportunity to witness many different teaching styles. They are also provided with feedback from another trained professional on their own teaching method. Over time they will be able to better develop their lesson plans in a manner that best provides for the advancement of all of their students.

Peer Assistance Beyond the Requirements
Faculty should not consult each other only when the state mandates they do so. Another article in this wikibook has mentioned the buddy program and mentoring. A comparison to the open professional conversations shared by lawyers and doctors has also been mentioned. There is no reason that educators cannot have this same open environment, with or without mentoring or buddy programs. Whenever a question arises with either the material or the method to teach it, another faculty member should be consulted. An inadequate buddy or mentor assignment is no excuse to improperly educate the students. There are plenty of other faculty members at the school, and if no one is willing to assist, the principal is always an option.

Educational Resources
College professors have offices filled with textbooks. When students ask questions that stump them, they often consult not only the textbook for that class, but dozens of other materials until they reach an answer. These college professors are sent these textbooks by the publishers to persuade them to use these books in their classrooms. This leaves k-12 educators at a distinct disadvantage, since textbooks are chosen by the school district and shared by students for many years. This makes it unlikely for publishers to provide k-12 teachers with free books. K-12 educators are still required to teach much of the same information, and must find some method to gather their own library. The subject being taught is one they chose, so supplying some of their own materials is not much to ask. The easiest method is saving their books from their own education. These books can also be pooled with those of other faculty, and the administration can be campaigned to provide extra books for the faculty.

When these hard copy resources fall short, a plethora of scholarly resources are available over the internet. These can actually be preferable to hardcopy resources because students will have just as much access as the teacher. Extrinsic motivating techniques like extra credit can be offered to encourage students to obtain the information on their own.

Learning From Students
This is the most vital and most ignored method of teacher development. Articles and books addressing this subject are in short supply. A Google search for “teachers learning from students” results in only 797 links, compared with 34,400 links for “teachers as learners.” This is a sad reality, because the students are a terrific resource available to the teacher. Few teachers would claim to be experts their first year in the job, but most would claim significant improvement by their fourth year. What is the difference between the first and fourth year? Three years of experience, teaching students, and learning what teaching methods work best in the classroom.

Many undergraduate educational courses mention the idea of learning from students, but this lesson seems quickly forgotten once in front of a classroom. Even when mentioned, it is typically in reference to the technical prowess of today's youth. There is no reason to limit learning from students to just teaching methods and technology. Often students will ask follow up questions and inquire specifics that the teacher may not know. There may not be time for answering all of these questions, but the “it is beyond the scope of this class” answer should still be avoided. Instead the teacher may offer to look it up, or have him or her stay after class to help look it up. With the new internet age, it can even be assigned as homework for all students to find out.

Admitting to students that even the teacher does not know everything is advantageous. Giving them an opportunity to educate the teacher and the rest of the class is estimable. It will provide the students with new found confidence. It will inspire creativity and free thinking. A new more open and active classroom will be born, and both student and teacher will benefit.

Conclusion
Albert Einstein, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Benjamin Franklin all had teachers. Each one of these men proved to be more brilliant than any of those who taught them. For this reason every educator must realize his or her fallibility, and not enter the classroom as the almighty teacher. If we choose only to give the students the knowledge we already possess, then we choose to stifle the education of the children in our classroom.

We must, instead, guide them on their educational journey, often sitting and learning with them. If students are allowed to speak freely, we may find they have ideas and solutions to problems that we have never considered. This is why we should discourage the “purveyor of knowledge” title students so often grant their teachers. Learning should be a process of problem solving and independent thinking, not regurgitation.

In the end we must recall what attracted us to teaching in the first place; a passion for learning. This love and desire of knowledge makes the requirement of professional continued education seem more like a job perk than an obligation. We have all chosen a career that not only encourages us to continue learning, but actually provides us with countless opportunities to do just that, what we love most.

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