680 Artifact Reflection #1

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Professional Development. It's a very interesting word.

A word that conjures this notion that information, discussion, and practice improves our profession.

Educational PD topics are broad and limitless; usually tied to school improvement goals, established by administrators, or (hopefully) shaped by teacher input. As I approach another school year, no doubt chockfull of PD opportunities, I reflect in this post about my opportunity to design a day of professional development and reflection.

In Module 6, I developed a full-day PD opportunity designed around the Edcamp model which

• allows educators to take charge of their own PD and attend sessions that most pertain to their needs or goals
• allows educators to collaboratively determine session topics
• encourages educators to facilitate sessions by sharing experiences and conversations, not a planned presentation

Edcamps were “born” to include sessions about using technology in the classroom but don’t always; many times it’s related to general education topics.

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I’ve attended a few edcamps through conferences I’ve attended and was pleased by the overall outcome. I walked out feeling better educated on topics than if I had attended an individual conference session with one main presenter talking to me. Edcamps are hard to implement if the school climate isn’t receptive to this sort of idea. Some teachers are comfortable being told what to do and where to go. Those teachers sit through sessions and (usually) don’t pay attention but are perfectly content to waste a half-day sitting there. But, there are other colleagues I work with who would like to see more personalized PD that relate to topics in education or technology that we grapple with day after day, year after year. Why not experience PD together and be expert presenters together?

With these ideas in mind, I developed a professional development day for the CTE, Science and Math Departments at my school. The design of the agenda allowed for teacher choice, personal reflection, and small group work that would continue throughout the year during PLC meetings. I was pleased with the outcome and hope to present my ideas to the building administrators at my school.

680 Artifact Reflection #2

Robert Marzano said, “when professionals share their talents and skills, they help the whole school develop a collective wisdom.” Why is this the case? Because we are proud, hard-working teachers who collaborate in a school building with other talented professionals and we can all learn from each other and be the best teachers for our students. But how can we do this when we feel stuck in our classroom? The answer is a learning walk.

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I think it's important for teachers to have the opportunity to visit other teacher's classrooms. The walkthrough model allows for a short 5-15 minute visit in another teacher's classroom, and depending on bell schedules, a teacher could possibly visit 3 teachers in one period. As technology becomes more commonplace in the classroom, it's imperative that teachers acknowledge technology standards alongside their content standards to ensure that they are molding the brightest 21st-century digital citizens. The best way to see these standards being addressed is witnessing the skills being developed in our colleague's classrooms.

My first artifact comes from Module 3 where I created a Learning Walk Google form to record information during a classroom observation. Here is the form if you'd like to take a look. This new and improved form is a modification of one I have used in the past for science classroom observations. The original science form included the Next Generation Science Standards. The form created for Module 3 incorporated some of the ISTE standards. Content standards are just as important as technology standards, but I only chose a few ISTE substandards to be used in my form. If there are specific student or teacher outcomes related to technology, I can easily add or subtract ISTE standards to my Google form. This activity was fun to create and emphasized the importance of observing and learning from others to compare their practices with other knowledgeable professionals in the building.