Pins, Pinterest, and PLNs, Oh My!

 Professional Learning Networks:

growing and sharing with people around us

Image source: TeachThought

PLN: social, affective, cognitive, and identity aspects & benefits

    Have you ever worked within a PLN or a professional learning network and thought to yourself, "how does working with these people benefit me?" I know I have... Luckily, we can get an idea of the benefits of working with PLNs for teachers to grow in 4 different aspects: social, affective, cognitive, and identity. Assistant Professor and PLN researcher Torrey Trust from the University of Massachusetts Amherst presented some useful information to know through some short clips in a Thinglink explaining each area's benefit.

Image source: Thinglink screenshot

    I found it quite interesting to learn these benefits and why PLNs can be effective resources for teachers. After hearing about each aspect's benefits, I find myself leaning more towards the affective aspect for growth. I feel that I can relate to this more than the others, not only as a teacher but also as a person. I enjoy being able to get emotional support from other teachers who may be in the same boat as me, not only content-wise but also feeling-wise. During this time with remote learning through a pandemic, more and more teachers seem to get burnt out earlier, therefore rely on other teachers to help them through, in which category I find myself fall under rather quickly. Remote learning and the pandemic aside, I also realize that I can rely on seeing my coworkers taking risks and showing me the new ideas they have tried. In return, I am not as afraid or nervous to follow suit. Feedback within a PLN is also valuable, in my opinion; however, I do find myself to be lacking in that department (not every PLN has people you can rely on, unfortunately).

    Shoutout to the identity aspect: growing as an educator is vital! How can we become better, more effective teachers if we don't grow with the people around us? This is where we can thank our PLNs! Engaging with one another can help us grow in such a way, where we can also learn with our students. My favorite point is "rather than seen as an expert in the classroom" because I relate to this 100%. I want my students and the teachers or professionals around me to see that I am learning as I go, growing my educator identity!

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Sharing ideas with PLN via social media pinboards

Image source: Pinterest

    As part of the collaboration process, I decided to share my thoughts and ideas with my PLN: a group of teachers I work closely with and can always rely on them for feedback, critiques, and resources. When thinking about social media and how I can use it to communicate with the communities around me, I thought of my Pinterest boards. Pinterest is a platform where individuals can "pin" different links, images, videos, etc.. to get an idea of a certain topic. For example, the oh-so-common wedding boards (man, is my wedding board loaded!), food and recipes, and even education! I have a couple of different boards dedicated to teaching. Here, I save anything that I find interesting, whether it's classroom decor, SEL (social-emotional learning), or fun activities to try out with my students. 

    I thought to myself, how can I share different ideas, resources, and activities I found with my colleagues without just sharing the links in a message? Then it hit me- create a digital pinboard and invite them in as collaborators on it! I thought it was a pretty cool idea, so I went with it. Thanks to the PLN-Tic-Tac-Toe board for providing this to me!

    Using Pinterest, I decided to find activities, resources, and tools that I can try to modify and implement into my literary analysis unit that we are starting with my English III (junior core English) students. My original plans were to use short stories to read and analyze with my students and compare/contrast them to Disney movies based on or inspired by these short stories. The first step is to teach them the various literary elements! So, how stunned was I when I found a link to a Buzzfeed article on Pinterest that shared different literary elements found in Disney movies? Very stunned! Thus began falling down the rabbit hole of short story literary analysis Pinterest boards. One idea that stood out to me that was also part of my initial plans was introducing the unit using picture books. Fun and engaging, right?

    Upon finding multiple pins and saving them to my Literary Analysis Pinterest board, I decided to share with my PLN these ideas to get some feedback or even have them find more pins! By sharing a link with them to join as collaborators, a couple of my colleagues joined and began exploring literary analysis with me. I received feedback from one of our instructional coaches, saying how great an idea it is that I am using picture books! She mentions how "it's a technique not used enough by our high school teachers." I agree 100%. She also commented on using Pinterest as a platform for PLNs to share ideas is fun, and she never thought about using it that way. Pretty neat- we learn new things every day from one another. Exactly what PLNs should do! I can't wait to see what the rest of my PLN members have to share!

Image source: Pinterest Board screenshot