Ongoing Professional Learning
Imagine that you need to have major surgery. Your primary care physician has provided you the option of two surgeons. Both have been in their field for over twenty years.
Surgeon A has a comprehensive curriculum vitae (CV) — a list of information that includes academic background, teaching experience, degrees, research, awards, publications, presentations, and other achievements. From this CV, you are able to see Surgeon A’s current and past research, read up on their publications, see what they have accomplished, find out how they have advanced their knowledge to keep current with research, and learn where they have presented over the past twenty years.
Surgeon B has a less comprehensive CV. Upon further searching, you find no evidence that this surgeon has engaged in professional learning or research in the past twenty years since receiving their medical degree.
Which surgeon would you want to pursue? Why?
Professional learning is important, no matter what your career is. As educators, we are in charge of taking care of students’ minds, so being a learning teacher is essential. Keeping abreast of current educational trends and research, new resources and tools, and more is a critical part of furthering your own knowledge.
Although this is the final module for engaging with Culturally Responsive Teaching, it should not be the final time that you further your learning on this topic. This module will provide you with some final nuggets of information about equity and cultural responsiveness, and highlight some ways you can continue to extend your professional learning network (PLN). How will you continue to be a learning teacher?