I tell folks that often a room of high school teachers and administrators are a worse and less receptive audience than kindergarten kids after cupcakes. I can speak from experience.  For 12 years I have been a part of that audience!! First, many teachers don’t want to be there because they have “so many other better things to do with their time”. Second, many feel that their methods are good enough, so why fix it (especially in high school where we love our content!). Speaking as a high school English teacher who is leaving the classroom to do Professional Development full time. I have been in worthless PD workshops. My goal is to make the “Buddy’s” of the school world see two things- Change is good (and inevitable) AND The new classroom/student involves learning together and not teachers being the only keepers of information. Heck if the kids can Google the answer on their Smartphone, what do we have to offer.

Most professions require training and recertification procedures.  Teachers only have to recertify every 10 years.  Should we really wait that long to do meaningful restructuring of our practice?  Considering how different today’s student is from even 5 years ago, shouldn’t we be a little different too?

Retrain, untrain, be flexible… it will save you lots of head ache with the digital learners!