Professional Development

Which of these societies would be most valuable to you in order to continue your learning after you graduate and begin your education career?

There are so many great history and social studies resources online for teachers and scholars that it is impossible to scratch the surface of all they have to offer. If teachers have an ethical responsibility to develop into the best teachers they can be, then they have a corresponding obligation to avail themselves of the best professional development resources possible. After spending some time perusing the two social studies websites from the list, I came to the conclusion that the Washington State Council for the Social Studies offers development opportunities more closely aligned with my professional goals than the National Council’s website.

What kind of resources do they offer?

There is an assortment of curriculum building resources for all of the grades I plan on teaching--these are complete with Washington State learning targets, and offer a continuously adapting vision of the standards Washington State’s social studies teachers are aiming for. There are also resources and suggestions for designing meaningful lessons, and there are a host of opportunities to connect and collaborate with thoughtful teachers throughout the state.

I was at first skeptical about the service learning component of their website (in my experience many broad campaigns to get kids into service end up being a lot less authentic or helpful than individualized, local campaigns), but upon deeper perusal I found the suggestions and resources to be thoughtful and intuitive, and I think I will use the lesson on picking a service project someday.

I was impressed with the integration of several different instructional strategies, and the detail and clarity with which they were displayed. This could be a valuable resource for a Washington State social studies teacher who was interested in continuous professional development.

How could technology play a role in promoting your future professional development and lifelong learning?

Once Elon Musk connects our brains together wirelessly, and the human race is turned into a single cosmic consciousness, we'll all have instantaneous access to information in ways difficult to presently conceive. When this happens, maybe fifteen, twenty years in the future, I imagine professional development will look a lot different than it does today. It will be cool to know everything instantaneously. At first I was against surrendering my will and independence of thought to the human technological collective, but then I read arguments about how dangerous Artificial Intelligence will be. How could even the most professionally developed teachers, for example, compete with robots who could access the internet instantly and continuously, and scan the brains of students using FMRI while they teach with infinitely differentiated flexibility? No my friends, we either need to take drastic measures to ensure we can compete, or we surrender to the superiority of pedagogical Turing machines.

Either way, the children win.

In the meantime, I will keep an open mind to what teachers are actually doing today by using the tools we have learned this semester. . . and I will hope for the best.