As the Spring Professional Learning Series wraps up, I find myself in a reflective state. This also happens to coincide with the end of the school year, so while everyone else is getting ramped up for final exams, end of year testing and graduation deadlines, I am in the position to take a breath and think ahead to next year.
The 'Why' behind the Learning Series
When my Team and I planned the Learning Series, we knew that we wanted to continue the mindset shift that had begun to take root with our faculty. The Fall had seen 'open' options for Inservice days, and a multitude of choices for the learning that our staff could partake in. From individual options to small groups, webinars to hands-on, we tried to offer something for everyone.
To the right is the session list for the Inservice that occurred in October. The Team sent out a survey in the weeks leading up to the session to get feedback about the topics that were in demand from faculty. Those choices were then organized into 45-minute sessions and faculty chose their order
and destination.
To the left, you will see the Choice Board that we offered for the November Inservice. This incorporated many more independent options, stemming from feedback from the October session. There was also the addition of a student-run session.
Being a big fan of Jennifer Gonzalez and her blog Cult of Pedagogy, I immediately wanted to incorporate some of the ideas that she generated in her 2018 article "OMG Becky, PD is getting so much better!" She crowd-sourced the different formats that schools across the country are using for their faculty in terms of after-school and embedded professional development. Out of that open-call, Gonzalez created a visual that encompassed nine different types of PD, which can be seen in the image below.
The Choice
The Fall sessions incorporated unconferences, choice boards, voluntary piloting, lab classrooms, and peer observation. As the Team looked ahead to the Spring, we knew that our focus needed to be on the impending 1:1 rollout of devices for the Fall 2019 school year. If our students were all going to have iPads int heir hands, then instruction and pedagogy would need to change. To accomplish these changes and allow teachers to see their classes through the lens of a student, we decided to focus on Blended Learning: we would teach about Blended Learning format and basics through a Blended Learning format and structure. To accomplish this, we housed our information and resources through our LMS- Schoology. The decision to use Schoology was made due to feedback we were gathering from students and teachers about the knowledge of what Schoology can do and the ease of use that our school felt about it. We also wanted to showcase the integrations that Schoology had with the workflow that our teachers already used, so we also used Edpuzzle for a portion of the Professional Learning. See the related Post Under Pressure for more information.
Did It Work?
Well, kind of. For the teachers that did not know about Blended Learning and were of a more traditional mindset, the surveys reported some definite takeaways and changes in the way that they wanted to run their classes. We are already seeing some of these teachers implementing blended activities into their lessons, and the progress is promising. But for the teachers that were either already doing Blended Learning or who had found another format that was progressive and integrated, these sessions did not provide much for them. This is exactly what I want to get away from: providing support to one group while ignoring/providing a disservice to another. Many teachers have felt comfortable enough to tell me that they did not get much out of the sessions, because they are already doing something similar in their classes.
While we did try to include a more relevant learning experience for the Spring session, we still did not address the concept of meeting everyone where they were and providing what they each needed. This will be of focus for the next school year, and will see a return of the popular choice boards as well as an attempt at microcredentials (badging). Stay tuned for that journey!
Emily