Beyond the Rule of Three

By Leo Reynolds

As a classroom teacher, I attended regional and national conferences annually and a rule that I always tried to follow was what I called the "Rule of Three." Whether I attended a full-day workshop or a three-day conference, I made it a personal goal to share what I had learned with at least three people in the building or district, and then implement at least three new things in my classroom. As I offered professional development then, just as I do now, I almost always shared this rule with others, often encouraging them to at least try the rule of one!

Reflecting about my days at Educon 2.3 at the Science Leadership Academy over the weekend, I realized how much this has changed over the years due to web 2.0 tools and a varied approach to a conference.  As a participant, there were so many ways that I shared beyond my "Rule of three:"

• @mmkrill, @kditzler, and I took collaborative notes via Google Docs, which I shared via a discussion forum with one of my teammates (located in MN) in the JHU/ISTE program.
• Despite this, I did post a few tweets and for those that pertained to administration and supervision, I used the hashtag #jhuiste for the rest of the JHU/ISTE students.
• Other tweets were shared as well with the traditional #educon hashtag for all to follow, both those at Educon and those participating virtually.
• Finally, the conversations at Educon were rich and thought-provoking, and my input was sometimes at a small group level, whole group level, or one-on-one.  For several of the sessions that I attended, we collaboratively took group notes in a Google Doc or other format to document our ideas and conversations, and share with others.

Reviewing those four areas, it really isn't possible to accurately identify how many people I shared with, but it is definitely beyond the "Rule of Three!" This would not have been possible without an arena for sharing and collaboration, so I once again thank everyone at SLA and especially @chrislehmann for being such a gracious host.

In terms of implementation, I will still use the "Rule of Three" to begin, but hopefully will be able to go beyond this as well.  As the notes indicated, there was much learning, but three take aways for now include:

1. Administrator strategies to support visual literacy (via The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush).
2. The use of the Expectancy Value Theory in terms of learner motivation (via @crafty184).
3. A Roadmap for Change (as an administrator - via @NMHS_Principal).

There is so much more to learn from everyone who was also sharing beyond the "Rule of Three," but this will take some time and more reflection!

In the mean time, feel free to share your three implementation ideas!