The Perfect Blend:Â “Professional Development Design for the Next Generation of Teachers.”
Maria Bertsch-Brown
Education 6707
April 2006
Maria Bertsch-Brown is a Beginning Teacher Support Assessment (BTSA) Consulting Teacher for a Northern California school district. Her role involves mentoring and providing K-12 professional development for new teachers. She visualizes endless possibilities that online learning will hold for supporting teachers’ growth and the K-12 community as a whole. Currently she is working on her Master’s of Science Degree in Online Teaching and Learning from California State University East Bay.
 Saturday afternoon, a beautiful spring day, yet over 50 new teachers sit indoors attending a required seminar for professional development. Social workers, law enforcement agencies, and mental health professionals are speaking for eight hours addressing topics pertaining to students. Glancing around the room, I observe some teachers listening and doodling, some checking cell phones and PDA’s, others trying to look engaged while speakers present an enormous amount or information. Forty five minutes later a short question/answer period begins. People look alive and begin questioning and sharing related personal experiences. After a short break the next presentation begins and thus the entire day continued with mostly boredom and lack of engagement by the ‘learners.’Â
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Although seminar feedback is positive, it is also seen as one more hoop for Induction competition. “Induction is the name given to a comprehensive, coherent and sustained professional development process that is organized by a school district to train, support, and retain new teachers” (Wong, 2005). For new teachers hired after August, 30, 2004 in California, passage of Senate Bill (SB) 2042 requires that a formal Induction program be completed before a Professional Clear Teaching Credential (PCTC) can be issued. Additionally, completion of this program includes verification that each element of Induction Standards is addressed. The requirements are rigorous. Add this to being a first year teacher and one can be overwhelmed. Ideally Induction should introduce new teachers into professional learning communities and ongoing communication offering peer collaboration “as vehicles for jointly creating knowledge and supporting continuous improvement” (Fulton, K., Lee, C. & Yoon, I., 2005, p.22) to do so. Yet, so much of our professional development design is one-day trainings lacking interaction or follow-up.
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The majority of teachers in attendance, and those that I mentor, are considered Millennials. They’ve been called Generation Y, Nexters, and Digital Generation but are most frequently referred to as the Millennials. Born from 1980 through 2000, “they’re the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital media” (Raines, 2002, p.2). Arriving at their workplace with high expectations and heavily connected to the internet, this group differs from previous generations. The Millennials work ethic constitutes organization, collaboration, and teamwork benefiting companies and institutions of employment (Raines, 2002). However, required professional development remains unchanged. This personal observation is the main focus for this topic: Blending and aligning professional development to meet the Millennials’ learning preferences of social interactions, collaboration, and the use of technology.
The Next Generation of New Teachers
Perhaps traditional professional development worked fine for “the Baby Boomers” like myself. Memos and copies were made on a ditto machine and social interaction was sitting together at lunch in the staff room. Technology as we know today was limited and many were afraid to use it!
Formalized cooperative learning and team building became the norm during the late 80’s and early 90’s. Millennials gravitate towards active and social learning in classrooms (Oblinger, 2003). Community is essential to them. Additionally, through technology, community is enhanced as a natural part of life at school, work, home and play (Oblinger, 2004). Transforming new teacher professional development for the 21st century amounts to giving them what they know and want. Teamwork, Talking, and Technology!
Preferences of the Next Generation
Ensuring that this next generation of teachers is engaged while building community and professional capacity requires knowing the learner. According to Oblinger (2003), Millennials:
• Prefer group and team activity
• Have strong ties to family and parental values
• Appreciate structure
• Crave new technologies and are tech savvy
• Are racially and ethnically diverseÂ
• Favor being connected
• Want immediate access and response 24/7
• Gravitate towards authentic activities and community causes
• Yearn for humor and games
Interesting enough, similar findings were reported when analyzing our annual California state and internal surveys for new teacher professional development program improvement. These teachers identified the following preferences:
• Cohorts and small groups take preference over large group seminars
• Creating time for collaborating, problem posing /solving
• Allowing for flexibility and choices
• Comfort with technology
Blending what we know about Millennials with current research
Creating meaningful learning experiences for Millennials blends the required content with community activities to build trust. “Social resources like trust and shared identity make it easier for people to work and play together. Such social resources are sometimes referred to as social capital” (Resnick, 2000, p.1).
Social capital plays an important role in groups and learning. When members of groups become aware and work collectively in their common purpose, social capital increases (Imel & Stein, 2003). Learning is seen as a social process and when new teachers collaborate and communicate with one another, new knowledge is constructed and enhanced. Creating cohorts for teachers develops an intentional professional community emphasizing ongoing reflection, testing their ideas and collaborating with one another. Through this process, trust begins building. Trust is essential when building a community whether it is online or f2f. Using the Web and technology to support online professional development and professional learning communities, also increases the social capital of cohorts. Millennials are comfortable using technology as a social tool. The addition of a Learning Management System (LMS) that offers asynchronous and synchronous tools provides the social interactions this group prefers.
Imagine Professional Development looking like this!
Since Millennials prefer working in teams, socially interacting, and collaborating, professional development should be designed to foster theses learning preferences. Prior to a virtual and technical experience, if participants initially meet f2f and create cohorts effective professional development can occur no matter what content or subject is addressed (Bowling & Martin, 2005). This is called a hybrid or blended method of learning. Presenting common goals and establishing norms are part of this introductory session. Ensuring that new teachers have required technology access and determining learner readiness can be introduced during this initial meeting also.
In order to spiral and support content that has been addressed, I recommend bi- monthly or weekly f2f meeting with a mentor. Additionally, continual virtual support and discussions allows for flexibility in learning and provides immediate feedback and responses. Use of discussion threads can be designed for social interaction and construction of new knowledge as teachers reflect and respond to the posts of others.
Authentic group and team projects are enhanced through the social tools and the internet. Blogs and Wikis (social software tools) are craved by the Millennial generation and enhance opportunities to socialize and reflect on their learning and construct new knowledge based on shared experiences and ideas. E-portfolios will capture and house evidence of learning and tasks necessary for completion of Induction requirements. Continual internal assessment and refinement provides data for ongoing program reflection and growth. Offering professional development online for Millennials meets their needs personally and professionally.
Conclusion
By providing alternative professional development choices, we truly honor and know our learners. I believe optimal learning conditions prevail. Who knows, maybe next spring professional development will resemble the scenario below:
 Music plays in the background, as one member of a new teacher cohort responds to discussions posted by others in content or grade-like groups. Keyboarding is halted to take a call from a friend. An instant message appears on the computer screen, “Let’s chat at 8 about our action research project. I have some great ideas and resources to share! By the way how did your parent conferences go? I tried the classroom management tip and it’s definitely helping!”
 ”It’s not the technology that makes learning engaging for Millennial, it’s the learning activity” (Oblinger, D. & Oblinger, 2005, p. 2.16). All people learn best when they are engaged, think critically, solve problems, and have choices.
References
Boling, C. & Martin, S. (2005). Supporting teacher change through online professional  development. Journal of Educators Online. Retrieved April 28, 2006 from  http://www.thejeo.com/BolingFinal.pdf
California Commission for Teacher Credentialing Induction Handbook. (2004).   http://www.btsa.ca.gov/ba/progforms/docs/InductionManual.pdf
 Fulton, K, Lee, C. & Yoon, I. (2005). Induction into learning communities.
 Retrieved April 15, 2006 from
 http://www.nctaf.org/documents/nctaf/NCTAF_Induction_Paper_2005.pdf
Imel, S., Stein, D., (2003). Self awareness of learning that occurs in community. Paper
 presented at 2003 Midwest Research to Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing  and Community Education. Retrieved April15, 2006, from  http://tinyurl.com/o5d4s
 Oblinger, D. 2003. Baby boomers, gen-xers, milennials, understanding new  students. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from http://tinyurl.com/gxaqm
Oblinger, D. 2004. The next generation of educational engagement. Retrieved April 11,
 2006 from http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/2004/8/oblinger-2004-8-disc-paper.html
Oblinger, D. & Oblinger, J. Is it age or IT: steps towards understanding the net generationÂ
 Retrieved April 17, 2006 from http://tinyurl.com/zrawj
Raines, C. (2002). Managing millennials. Retrieved on April 24, 2006 from
 http://www.generationsatwork.com/articles/millenials.htm
Resnick, P. (2000). Beyond bowling together: sociotechnical capital. Retrieved on April  22, 2006 from http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/stk/ResnickSTK.pdf
2004 Blackboard K-12 Summit Report. Retrieved April 22, 2006 from
 http://www.setda.org/resources/K12_Summit_Report_2004Blackboard.pdf
Wong, H. 2005. The new teacher induction: the foundation for comprehensive,
  coherent and sustained professional development. Retrieved May 3, 2006 from
 http://www.newteacher.com/pdf/CorwinGalley.pdf>