Bringing Back the Book Club

Carrie Sand contributed today's post.

Bringing Back the Book Club: 

An examination of the wondering: “Why do book clubs work in my classroom with students but not for professional development with teachers?”

Last month I thought about the variety of ways that I’ve provided professional development options for teachers in my role as a Literacy Specialist. While I am happy with the wide range of strategies that I’ve used, especially my success with using online PD formats, one option that I continue to re-examine is the book club for teachers. Starting in November, I created a goal to implement and maintain a purposeful model for using books clubs. Below is my reflection on the process and my implementation plan.

Why my obsession with trying to make this work?

Because I think about my own learning….while classes and conferences are nice,  almost 99% of my own professional learning comes from the books and articles that I choose to read. Which makes me wonder...what about those teachers who never make the time to read on their own? How does their learning continue?

The other question one may wonder is why now? Why in the time of year when we are all busy with lesson plan writing, grading, end of semesters, and holiday concerts?

Because once again I reflect on my own learning  process; every June I leave my classroom with a stack of professional resources that I didn’t find time to read throughout the year. I optimistically think about the long three months ahead and the leisure time I’ll have to browse all the resources I’ll ever want to implement come September. Then I snap back to reality and realize that a) very little about summer is usually leisure time and b) whenever I read about professional development options in the summer by September I’ve either forgotten them or don’t have a good plan for implementation.

Professional development and professional reading is at its best when the need is immediate and implementation can begin the next day. So how to change my structure to actually make this work….

Thinking about my implementation plan for book studies, my goal is to move away from the whole school required book to team lead conversation and selection. In this way I hope to replicate my own learning process of personal inquiry. I hope this new approach allows teachers to take control of their learning and implementation of best practices within their own classrooms.