{"id":98872,"date":"2026-07-14T17:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T21:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=98872"},"modified":"2026-07-15T18:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:54:13","slug":"reconnecting-professional-learning-reflections-from-lucy-grays-wednesday-iste-panel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2026\/07\/14\/reconnecting-professional-learning-reflections-from-lucy-grays-wednesday-iste-panel\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconnecting Professional Learning — Reflections from [Lucy Gray’s] ISTE Panel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reconnecting Professional Learning<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0— from elemenous.substack.com by Lucy Gray
\nReflections from My Wednesday ISTE Panel<\/em><\/p>\n

At ISTE this year, I facilitated a Wednesday morning panel on professional learning. The session I organized was titled,\u00a0The Future of Professional Learning: Connecting Educators Across Borders<\/a><\/em>. I was joined by fellow Apple Distinguished Educators Tami Brewster,\u00a0Bethany LaDue Nugent,\u00a0Marcus Borders,\u00a0Jason Krug\u00a0and global educator\u00a0Julie Meltzer. Our focus: How do we move professional development away from isolated, one-time experiences and toward something more connected, meaningful, and human?
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\nThe panel was grounded in a few simple but powerful ideas: professional learning should nurture, guide, and empower. It should be relevant, contextual, reflective, and sustained. It should recognize educators as capable professionals, not as people who are broken and need to be fixed. Too often, professional development is still designed around deficit thinking. Too often, teachers\u2019 needs are not the starting point, and sessions become dry, one-directional experiences where information is delivered at them rather than built through conversation and collaboration, with little choice, little personalization, and little connection to the realities of their classrooms.<\/strong><\/span> Our panel served as a call to action to re-think professional learning.<\/p>\n

We explored six different approaches to professional learning,<\/strong> and while each model was distinct, a clear through line emerged: relationships matter most.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. Virtual Conferences at Scale — Lucy Gray \u2014 Actionable Innovations Events \/ GLOW<\/li>\n
  2. Micro-Mentorship — Tami Brewster<\/li>\n
  3. Networked, Values-Driven PD — Julie Meltzer \u2014 Institute for Humane Education<\/li>\n
  4. AI-Personalized PD Pathways — Marcus Borders<\/li>\n
  5. Share Stories with Voice — Bethany LaDue Nugent<\/li>\n
  6. Speak Your Crazy — Jason Krug<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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