{"id":881,"date":"2012-06-28T21:44:28","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T21:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edtechteacher.org\/blog\/?p=881"},"modified":"2012-06-28T21:44:28","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T21:44:28","slug":"letting-go-of-the-wheel-taking-advantage-of-summer-professional-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edtechteacher.org\/letting-go-of-the-wheel-taking-advantage-of-summer-professional-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Letting Go of the Wheel – Taking Advantage of Summer Professional Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

At EdTechTeacher, we are now a few weeks into our 10th Annual Summer Teaching with Technology Workshop Series<\/a>. Educators from across the country and abroad have participated in Teaching Elementary Grades with Technology, iPads & ePubs in the Classroom, Teaching Foreign Languages with Technology, Teaching Ancient Egypt, Greece, & Rome with Technology, Leveraging Technology to Create Differentiated Learning Environments, and more. However, one topic has remained consistent across all of our workshops: the challenge of letting students become creators and take the lead in the classroom.<\/p>\n

In a recent blog post,<\/a> Beth reflects on advice from a former mentor –\u00a0You have to let go of the wheel<\/em>\u00a0– and reflects on how that lesson can be applied to all educators as they start to prepare for the 2012-2013 school year.<\/p>\n

My first classroom was a 50 foot sailboat. For several years, I worked my way up the food chain at ActionQuest<\/a> – an adventure learning program based in the British Virgin Islands – from instructor to skipper. During my first summer running a boat, I struggled for the first 3-week session. The responsibility was stressful, and I wasn’t super confident in my own abilities to manage situations. Before the start of the second session, the head of the sailing program pulled me aside and said, “You have to let go of the wheel.”<\/p>\n

Think about the terrifying nature of that statement. Let an inexperienced 14 year old drive a 50 foot yacht based solely on my directions. In other words, I had to be confident in allowing the students to have control over the final outcome assuming that I had provided sufficient instruction and leadership….<\/p>\n

\u2026 As educators moving rapidly towards not only 1:1 classrooms, but also BYOD situations, we have to be willing to teach without driving<\/em>. Here’s what I think that means:<\/p>\n