Learning, Coaching, and Laying the Track

As We Close Our Final Day of our Final Week

“With one exception, every single writer I met likened writing for television to one thing–laying track for an oncoming speeding train. The story is the track and you gotta keep laying it down because of the train. That train is production. You keep writing, you keep laying track down, no matter what, because the train of production is coming toward you- no matter what.” ~Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes, pp. xiii.

Tech coaches liken coaching their colleagues to laying track for an oncoming speeding train. Learning is the track and you gotta keep laying it down because of the train. That train is the school year and the students. You keep learning and coaching, you keep laying track down, no matter what, because the train of the school year and the students are coming toward you-no matter what.

 ~Adapted from Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes, pp. xiii.

In this last discussion forum, you continued your peer support and collegiality continues. Now, at the close of the course, we are at the perpetuation and sustainability level of our PLN (Groundwater-Smith & Mockler, 2012). We are laying track for the future.

You are busy, busy tonight with so many things. But in the next day or so, please consider clicking in and returning to class. Please click over to the Class Wall, where you began our course. Scan/read the introductions we all posted there. Take just a couple of minutes to read/reread the service-oriented intros of your course colleagues. You might not have visited the Class Wall in almost six weeks, but please return there and scroll through the messages of the members of our class PLN.

It has been a privilege to learn with you… please keep in touch as you keep laying track!!

Dr. Teague

Reference

Groundwater-Smith, S. & Mockler, N. (2012). Sustaining professional learning networks: The Australasian challenge. In C. Day (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Teacher and School Development (pp. 506–515), London: Routledge.