Call to Action
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The WHY
We have all experienced ineffective professional learning. For the past few years, our instructional leadership team has tried to infuse fresh life into the required professional learning by making it as entertaining and “bearable” for our staff as possible. After reflecting on the past year of educating and supporting our students through the pandemic, there were many victories to be recalled and celebrated. But it also allowed us to reflect and connect on how what we learned during the 20-21 school year might be applied moving forward to make our staff professional learning more engaging, deeper and beneficial to our teachers. Robin and I desired the concept of this video to be lighthearted, personal, positive and uplifting - nothing too flashy or complicated. The emphasis was to begin with praise and address the supports put into place last year to establish that we already have a strong foundation. The ultimate goal was to make evident that we saw success in some of our additional support endeavors last year and that our students - the staff - also deserve the extra attention and refocus that was successfully provided to our students during the pandemic. The presentation will be delivered via email directly to our Instructional Leadership Team to give them something to process as they rest up over the summer. We are directly targeting the HEARTS and passions of our team members as every one of us strongly believes that our teachers deserve the very best. Since we typically meet in late July to firm up the details of our professional development for the upcoming school year, the hope is that the Leadership Team could use this down time to begin reframing, rethinking and brainstorming our call to action to move into more effective professional LEARNING with the 5 Principles outlined in the video. |
The WHAT
Using the 5 Principles of Effective Professional Development, we emphasized and expanded on the key points within our presentation video including the duration of the training and the need for ongoing support throughout the school year. Collaboration and modeling, as well as verifying that the context and content is specific to our participants, was also reviewed as these will bring about more effective professional learning for our teachers. We provided suggestions and prompting questions for each of these principles within the presentation to really start the brain juices to flow! Robin and I first outlined the points we wanted to emphasize, then wrote out a detailed script. We toyed with several scenarios and technology options but decided upon using the program Renderforest to create our presentation. Our school district recently purchased this online branding program so that our Leadership team could quickly and easily put together engaging electronic presentations to share with parents, staff and the community. There are thousands of settings and templates to choose from but that can also be problematic as it is quite time-consuming to sort through, add and edit to create the ideal presentation. We also chose to use voice-over versus typing out our script as we believe it makes it more personal and engaging, rather than overloading the slides with text.
Using the 5 Principles of Effective Professional Development, we emphasized and expanded on the key points within our presentation video including the duration of the training and the need for ongoing support throughout the school year. Collaboration and modeling, as well as verifying that the context and content is specific to our participants, was also reviewed as these will bring about more effective professional learning for our teachers. We provided suggestions and prompting questions for each of these principles within the presentation to really start the brain juices to flow! Robin and I first outlined the points we wanted to emphasize, then wrote out a detailed script. We toyed with several scenarios and technology options but decided upon using the program Renderforest to create our presentation. Our school district recently purchased this online branding program so that our Leadership team could quickly and easily put together engaging electronic presentations to share with parents, staff and the community. There are thousands of settings and templates to choose from but that can also be problematic as it is quite time-consuming to sort through, add and edit to create the ideal presentation. We also chose to use voice-over versus typing out our script as we believe it makes it more personal and engaging, rather than overloading the slides with text.
The HOW
Robin and I wanted to simply set the stage for the upcoming school year and how we can all come together to make professional learning more effective for our staff. The presentation was meant to bring attention to the fact that our school district has accomplished good things and can continue to do so in order to fully support our staff and students in the best way possible. The intention of our presentation is to introduce the 5 principles of effective professional development to secure some initial buy-in so that when we come together, we can move forward utilizing these principles (through team collaboration over time to create and provide various strategies that will be engaging and meaningful). This will set the foundation for stage 2 of our desired education revolution. Since Robin and I are implementing our project-based learning and blended learning innovation plans (Join the Club Innovation Plan) within classroom settings in the 2021-22 school year, we strongly believe that witnessing the students become independent, motivated learners will encourage and prompt our peers to adopt and incorporate the same learning opportunities within their classroom. Designing a professional learning program to help new and experienced teachers adopt these COVA + CSLE practices that will be used in our PBL and Blended Learning plans must go beyond the typical one-day workshops, sit and get format, and campus and grade-level meetings during conference periods or before and after school. Adopting and modeling the principles of effective professional learning into all of our scheduled PD will not only model that we are indeed walking the walk and committed to providing the best learning environment for our staff but will also hopefully filter down and change school culture, help our teachers adapt to the new pedagogies and indirectly improve student success in the classroom.
Robin and I wanted to simply set the stage for the upcoming school year and how we can all come together to make professional learning more effective for our staff. The presentation was meant to bring attention to the fact that our school district has accomplished good things and can continue to do so in order to fully support our staff and students in the best way possible. The intention of our presentation is to introduce the 5 principles of effective professional development to secure some initial buy-in so that when we come together, we can move forward utilizing these principles (through team collaboration over time to create and provide various strategies that will be engaging and meaningful). This will set the foundation for stage 2 of our desired education revolution. Since Robin and I are implementing our project-based learning and blended learning innovation plans (Join the Club Innovation Plan) within classroom settings in the 2021-22 school year, we strongly believe that witnessing the students become independent, motivated learners will encourage and prompt our peers to adopt and incorporate the same learning opportunities within their classroom. Designing a professional learning program to help new and experienced teachers adopt these COVA + CSLE practices that will be used in our PBL and Blended Learning plans must go beyond the typical one-day workshops, sit and get format, and campus and grade-level meetings during conference periods or before and after school. Adopting and modeling the principles of effective professional learning into all of our scheduled PD will not only model that we are indeed walking the walk and committed to providing the best learning environment for our staff but will also hopefully filter down and change school culture, help our teachers adapt to the new pedagogies and indirectly improve student success in the classroom.
Editing board in Renderforest
References
Duarte, Inc. (2009, December 16). Five Simple Rules for Creating World Changing Presentations [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT9GGmundag&t=1s
Nancy Duarte: How to Tell a Story. (2013, March 21). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JrRQ1oQWQk&feature=youtu.be
Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the teachers effective professional development in an era of high stakes accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/system/files/2013-176_ProfessionalDevelopment.pdf
Heather Hill. (2015). Review of The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth about Our Quest for Teacher Development. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved from http://www.greatlakescenter.org/docs/Think_Twice/TT-Hill-TNTP.pdf
Innovation That Sticks Case Study – OCSB: Collaborative Professional Development. (2016, May 19). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/iUusuw-xdr4
Photo used under Creative Commons from tompagenet
