1. What is a professional development book club?
2. What are some of the advantages of a professional development book club?
3. What are some ways to format a professional development book club?
4. How can we structure the book club?
5. What are the three pillars of effective professional development book clubs?
6. A peek into our book club
A paradigm shift in professional Development
● What do you think of when you think book clubs?
● are a powerful way to foster community, develop new skills, experience paradigm shifts and raise consciousness within our schools.
● are a way to create ownership of learning and to accumulate knowledge as a team within our specific school. We are actively growing to meet the needs of our school instead of a cookie cutter one type fits all.
A paradigm shift in professional Development
● Do you remember that one book that changed your life? The book that taught you so much as you read and continues to teach you.
● When we read a book together, everyone involved has something to offer to the conversation through various perspectives. This creates an environment of learning from each other.
● Book Clubs allow us to take a deeper look into specific topics. Workshops tend to be broad, while book talks foster conversation allowing us to sit with ideas and revisit ideas.
A paradigm shift in professional Development
A paradigm shift in professional Development
● Share the Reading - Like Jigsaw reading, teams are formed and assigned different parts of a chapter or book and report back to discuss.
Structured Questions - Using a study guide or specific questions, the leader guides the discussion.
● Connect-Extend-Challenge - This structure was developed by Project Zero. This structure connects prior knowledge and new understanding.
-Connect: How is the reading connected to something you know about?
-Extend: What new ideas or impressions do you have that extended your thinking in new directions?
-Challenge: What is challenging or confusing? What do you wonder about?
● Socratic Seminars - This is the most open-ended structure. Members discuss, comment, ask questions, and share insight about the book. This gives lots of ownership to all members.
A paradigm shift in professional Development
● Relationship Building - Through book clubs, members can get to know each other in professional and personal levels.
“Book clubs provide a space for creating relationships with people that an individual might otherwise not have associated with, but with whom they nevertheless formed a committed community,” the researchers write.
● Fostering Learning - Book clubs create a space to focus the learning on a specific topic, allowing members to share their knowledge and creating ownership of the material and overall creates a more pleasant learning environment when all are involved.
● Cultural Change - Book clubs can challenge readers to think critically about current structures and how they may need to change. Collectively, readers discuss and understand which leads to possible needed change.
A paradigm shift in professional Development
● Meet once a month for an hour
● Usually discuss two chapters at a time
● More of a socratic seminar type meeting
● In-person and online meeting
● Open and honest communication
● Some paradigm shifts
● More in-depth conversations with the focus on our school in particular.
https://spencerauthor.com/book-clubs/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/starting-prof essional-book-club-jon-michaels
https://education.uconn.edu/2021/11/12/usi ng-book-clubs-as-a-professional-learning-to ol/
https://www.lessonplanet.com/article/profes sional-development/ideas-to-start-a-professi onal-development-book-club