One of the main constraints that support staff are faced with in our context is time. We mainly work as hourly employees and though officially there exists the opportunity to work more hours, in practice this isn’t always the case. This means that taking time away from student learning is to be avoided. I have long thought about designing an online teaching and learning experience for the support staff in my school, and for other schools should it be successful, but haven’t been able to get it started with support from administrators yet. This is mainly because our focus this year has been on health and safety, and I support that focus with my whole heart.
Part of my role as a Behaviour Support Worker is to build capacity for my colleagues in supporting students with unique learning concerns. This mainly happens with students with the most difficult externalizing behaviours that hurt others, however, my concern is for those with internalizing behaviours that prevent them from fitting in socially and often academically as well.
The currency of Connectivism appeals to me – many support staff are excluded from Professional Development opportunities that teaching staff are privy to, simply because of the hours that they work, and the lieu time they have earned and when they are expected to take it. Many approaches to managing students at recess and in the lunchroom, for example, are taken from their own experiences and through working through the difficult problems with more insight. My learning experience would provide these staff with current information that they can approach through their current lens. Posing questions to encourage thoughtful reflection on how they support students in their social interactions while building their skills with regard to current approaches would build their capacity for self-reflection, but also for learning new approaches and why they might be more beneficial for the long-term learning of the students. This is something that Dr. Jody Carrington does well in her approach, specifically with her course and her online interactive social media posts. I have had the privilege of studying “Kids These Days” with the teachers in my school simply because I work a few more hours than other support staff. The reflection and discussion we have through reading the book and going through her online course have been manifesting in positive relationships throughout our school. I want to bridge the gap between support staff and the learning that the rest of the school is doing as part of their professional practice.
Ally (2008) also talks about the importance of experiential learning in Connectivist theory. Support staff have a variety of learning and experiences with students several times a day, and using their new knowledge and connection to one another to explore how this learning can impact their practice fits with that theory and for my idea for the course itself. The main limitation for the online learning is that I am designing it for one particular context (our specific school location) but if designed well it could be applicable to other settings, not just schools. When I consider this, I feel a little anxious, as my school is something I know well, and bringing other contexts into its design doesn’t sit well with me at the moment. This tells me a little about where my next steps are with my own learning journey!
References
Ally, M. (2008). Foundations of educational theory for online learning. In Anderson, T. (Ed.). The theory and practice of online learning (pp.15-44). Athabasca, AB: Athabasca University Press. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/01_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf.
