Good Talk about Good Teaching

Borrowing her title from Parker Palmer’s Courage to Teach, Kathy Egawa revisits her own professional learning journey and contrasts traditional, one-size-fits-all professional development with her own more meaningful learning from teaching. Her stories and research from the field focus on 1) learning from students, 2) learning among colleagues, and 3) learning from experts, including teacher research. Finally, she uses Etienne Wenger’s work with “communities of practice” to consider whether successful participation in teacher learning communities must be voluntary or can be assigned.