PLN Appreciation Week - #YourEdustory

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This week, the #YourEdustory blogging challenge topic is “PLN Appreciation Week.” Educators all over the world are being encouraged to say "Thanks" to a member (or members) of their Professional Learning Network (PLN) for inspiring, encouraging, and helping make them better at what they do.

I want to thank Tim and Scott Bedley. These two gentlemen exemplify “out-of-the-box” thinking, their practice encouraging me to challenge limits and conventions to reach students. Both have been Teacher of the Year for their counties, and for good reason. In addition to being outstanding classroom teachers, they host their own education talk show/podcast, The Bedley Brothers Ed Chat, where they discuss cutting edge topics with leaders in the field such as John Hattie, Alfie Kohn, Susan Cain, Alice Keeler, Jon Corippo, and Adam Bellow. You can watch their broadcasts on YouTube or listen on PodOmatic.

I had to privilege of visiting Tim’s classroom and seeing him in action, and what I observed was incredible. The learning environment he provides for his students defies convention. See, his classroom has no desks. That’s right, students don’t sit at desks. Instead, couches and camp chairs occupy the floorspace, and all four walls are lined with whiteboards. Students engage in what Tim calls Gallery Learning, spending much of the day working on the whiteboards surrounding the room, displaying their work for classmates and Tim to see. Students are able to rotate around the perimeter of the room and see each other’s work and offer feedback on things such as problem solving methods and descriptive writing. And due to the increased visibility of his students’ work, Tim is able to easily assess their progress and provide support and challenges when necessary. It’s 360° of learning, and it’s awesome!

Using Mystery Skype and Google Apps, Scott breaks down the walls of his classroom altogether. Many teachers use the peer editing technique. Scott takes it a step further. Scott has implemented cross-age peer editing -- with students at different schools! A few years ago, Scott shared at the annual CUE Conference how he, Bill Selak, and Sean Ziebarth used the “Share” feature of Google Docs to have 2nd graders, 5th graders, and juniors in high school provide feedback on each other’s writing. Imagine this -- 2nd grade students sharing their writing, via Google Docs, with 5th grade students who provide feedback through comments within the docs. Then the 5th graders share their Google Docs with 11th graders who are able to point out the positives and offer suggestions for improvement. Talk about authentic learning! 2nd graders receiving encouragement from "big" 5th graders, and those same 5th graders getting feedback from high schoolers! Awesome!

In addition to inspiring me with ways to take classroom learning to new heights, I want to thank these two gentlemen for how they stretched me during last year’s CUE Conference, where I had the privilege of co-presenting a session on digital storytelling with Tim and Scott. As we were planning our session via a conference call, one of the guys had an idea.

“We should give out the link to our slides and ask attendees to hijack the slide deck before we start our presentation. Make it interactive. Let them contribute!”

The other instantly responded, “Yes! I love it! That’s a great idea!”

How did I respond? Confession time. I had one of those moments of internal disequilibrium. It didn’t feel comfortable, because it was out of the box. It wasn’t what a session was “supposed to be like.” I started to sweat. What if we did this and it bombed? What would people think? But then I thought of the other possibility -- What if it’s a home run?

“Cool!” I said. “Let’s do it.” See, Tim and Scott are risk takers, and in that moment they stretched me to take a risk with them. Did it pay off? Was the idea a flop or a home run? Well, based on the feedback we received during the session and from the tweets below, it was a huge success.

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Thank you, Tim and Scott, for pushing me to think outside the box, to try new things, to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of students and become a better leader. But more importantly, as great as you are as educators, thank you for being even better people. I am blessed to call you both friends.