Meet Them Where They Are

img credit: http://www.mrstruittspage.org/differentiated-instruction.html

When I first started teaching, I thought I'd have students writing amazing things, and I would be shaping and fine tuning. As you can imagine, it was a little different. Some of my students were writing sophisticated things. Others wrote words on a page because I said to. Still others had neither the capacity nor the interest in writing anything at all.

When I first started presenting, it was with the thought that I was really late to the conversation and I'd need to amp it up to actually engage educators who already knew so many of the tools I was using.

Turns out, just like teaching young writers, educators show up at different spots in the skills and experience spectrum, and we need to recognize and respect that fact.

There exists a need to meet all learners where they are. We must respect that they are in the learning process, and they may be in very different parts of that process. This holds true if you are in front of group of 1st grade students who have hugely different vocabulary skills or a group of educators who are trying to learn something new about educational technologies.

The difference in these two examples is the why of their appearance in front of you. 1st grade students show up because they have to. Education is compulsory for certain ages. Generally, the group of adults shows up because they're looking for something. They have chosen to come. In this case, poll them. Get a sense of why they came. Learn quickly where they are and where they are headed. This information is going to help you tailor your message to meet them at an appropriate level and in turn to help them reach their goals.

Ideally, you can offer insight early on that will indicate the levels to which you will be speaking. Is your presentation for the experienced ed tech user? Is it for people who are new and just starting to spread their wings? Or is it somewhere in the middle. Letting your potential audience know up front what to expect is going to give potential attendees the ability to decide right away if they're comfortable enough to push themselves or if they have higher levels of experience that won't fit your introductory lesson.

Remember - meeting your audience where they are benefits both the learner and the instructor.

Open Doors

Connected educator month has arrived. This is the time that connected educators celebrate being connected and all the wonderful feelings we have and the fantastic things we’ve learned from our connections. We lament the fact that there are educators around us who fear the methods of connecting that we all hold dear.

What does that get us? A lot of frustration.

“Why can’t they see how wonderful it is to be connected?!”

“They’re stuck in the past!”

“They’re harming students!”

I used to get upset when colleagues shared resources through email because it’s such a limited way to get the word out. I would rail to my connected educator groups about how I had seen the same articles on Twitter the week before. I would not deign myself to click on the dated information.

The fact is that connected educators, as a gross generalization, become exceptionally divisive in our attempts to pull, push, poke, or prod our colleagues into a land of online connectedness. And as we should realize with our students, we cannot force anyone into our world. We must open doors and allow those who have not already found their preferred method of connectivity the opportunities to walk through them.

Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, FaceBook are all ways for educators to connect. Personally, I haven’t spent time with Pinterest, and I’ve never been on FaceBook. I’ve made some connections on Google+, but it’s never been my go-to when reaching out to my PLN. But Twitter is my chosen tool. I was going to write about how it has changed my professional approach, but Jill Thompson (@edu_thompson) did that in 2011 when she wrote "Twitter Has Changed My Teaching Life".

The point is this. Being is a connected educator is important. There are ways to connect for everyone. There are also levels of connection. Wherever your people are, meet them there. Show them alternatives; find some for yourself. Don’t get frustrated because your colleagues aren’t rushing to Twitter or share their Pins with you. Don’t condescend when they turn their noses up at coming to the local EdCamp. The key is to just open as many doors as you can. Send those emails, put links on your sites, talk to them about opportunities. When the doors are open, someone is going to walk through, and they might even bring a friend.