Returning to the 3Rs
This month, more than a thousand educators at the WIDA Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky focused on Advancing Learning Together. Reconnecting with passionate teachers and leaders helped energize and inspire us all. And after so many Zoom calls, webinars and online workshops, it was refreshing to once again hear the buzz of table discussions and catch the pinwheel of a stray stickynote fluttering off a poster. And just a few days later and thousands of miles away, the WIDA Institute kicked off in Bangkok, Thailand. Whether under the big tent feel of a conference or in a school-based workshop, we’ve learned the value of three Rs of professional learning: relational, reciprocal and research-based.
Effective professional learning is relational. We have a fundamental need to connect with other humans as social learners and peers in the global education community. Reducing isolation – both geographically and emotionally – helps us to recognize that both our struggles and our successes are shared with others. We know that building spaces for joint productive activity helps teachers to connect and establishes a culture of collaboration and relational trust. In this newsletter, read more about how professional partnerships have sustained a school navigating extraordinary circumstances in Kyiv.
Effective professional learning is also reciprocal. In Louisville, I had the opportunity to present with two global scholars, friends and collaborators: Esther Bettney Heidt and Andrea Honigsfeld. I continue to learn from these dedicated educators as we write together and co-create learning experiences for teachers around the world. And in these workshops and webinars, we leverage the power of teacher-to-teacher conversations, about what matters and what works, across classroom contexts. Developing empathy for our learners and our colleagues helps us to truly build on the assets of both students and teachers. Read more about reciprocal learning in Margo Gottlieb’s white paper on multilingual classroom assessment.
And finally, effective professional learning is research-based. In 500 BCE, Heraclitus wrote that “there are no new ideas in teaching, but not everyone knows the old ones.” While the bibliographies of most research articles cite studies from the past two years or maybe two decades, rather than two millennia, Heraclitus makes the point that we can’t assume that common knowledge is common. Particularly when serving diverse school communities, we know a great deal about how learning happens and the role of teachers in facilitating this process. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a global leader in educational research, and effective professional learning leverages these insights from scholars to reframe classrooms and provide teachers with a new lens through with to view their students. And even if, at times, the ambiguous panacea of “research says…” may feel impractical or abstract, we know that connecting research to practice is essential as improve outcomes for our students.
At UW-Madison, it is our privilege to co-construct relational, reciprocal and research-based professional learning experiences together with educators around the world. And we look forward to contributing to the ongoing research in international contexts: helping us both harvest and harness innovation across the global education community, creating more equitable schools and advancing learning together.
ขอแสดงความนับถือ*
Jon Nordmeyer, WIDA International Programs director
*Thai: “Best regards”
