Educators: Always Be Engaged With Learning

All the educators (and many times other stakeholders, too!) must stay constantly engaged with the body of knowledge about what works for Hispanic students. This knowledge can come from numerous sources:

• Membership in national and local organizations--and reading the journals and other publications from those organizations
• Subscriptions to journals specifically related to Hispanic learners
• Attendance at national and local conferences, workshops, seminars, classes
• Reading books and articles by the experts in the field and then provide "cliff notes" for others
• Collaboration with others within the school as well as outside of the school
• Mentors and networks
• A personal reflection journal
• Participation in teacher action research projects
• Writing articles for different publications
• Participation in a blog
• Visits to others classrooms and schools
• Choose an area of expertise and spend 10 minutes every day learning about that topic
• Videos and DVDs
• Participation in cognitive coaching

Some of these ideas can be divided amongst staff members. For instance, each staff member can join a different organization and then share what is learned with other staff members and stakeholders. Each teacher should develop his or her own professional development plan that is shared with the principal and other staff members. The idea is to be continually learning AND applying what is learned so students are constantly provided with the best we can give them.

Theory to Practice and Vice Versa

It has always surprised me that many teachers only want to attend professional development opportunities where they can learn practices they can implement on Monday. They don't seem to have much interest in the theory--the why. This could be one explanation as to why there is such a strong disconnect between university professors/researchers and practitioners.

Effective teachers seem to be able to cross this divide. They use generalized principles that they learn from research done by researchers about what constitutes good teaching and learning for the student population in their classrooms to develop classroom practices. They also reflect on other practices they implement to see if generalized principles support those practices. Part of this reflection may include teacher action research projects and/or keeping a reflective journal that they then can share with a university professor/researcher or publish in an academic journal.

When teachers participate in this kind of learning they will experience continued professional growth resulting in better teaching and student learning.