5.2 Professional Learning
Candidates develop and implement technology-based professional learning that aligns to state and national professional learning standards, integrates technology to support face-to-face and online components, models principles of adult learning, and promotes best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. (PSC 5.2/ISTE 4b)
Candidates develop and implement technology-based professional learning that aligns to state and national professional learning standards, integrates technology to support face-to-face and online components, models principles of adult learning, and promotes best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. (PSC 5.2/ISTE 4b)
Reflection
As part of my job as the Local School Technology Coordinator, I facilitated monthly professional learning sessions with all certified teachers. This session focused on revisiting the concepts of blended & online learning, and learning about a few web tools to help teachers facilitate more meaningful blended learning opportunities in their classrooms. I developed this presentation based on my knowledge of using these tools – I learned about many of them through Twitter and attending educational conferences. I sent the presentation and my outline to my principal a few days before the regularly-scheduled session for her approval.
This professional learning session modeled best principles of adult learning because it was based on prior feedback from teachers and involved active learning strategies, such as discussion and guided practice to make something useful for the classroom. Additionally, formative assessment was discussed through tools such as Google Forms and Zaption as part of the presentation and our school’s continued focus on Formative Instructional Practices. This session aligned to both state and national professional learning standards because of its focus on blended learning, teacher background knowledge, and useful, practical information.
During this session, I learned that there were varying stages of readiness for the application of web-based formative instructional tools among the seven different groups of teachers. If I were presenting this session again, I would have chosen fewer tools, focusing mainly on one or two instead of giving so many choices. A large number of choices, while suitable for some teachers, can overwhelm others and lead to “shutting down” during the session, severely limiting the teacher’s ability to learn and apply the learning effectively in his or her practice.
Presenting this session to all certified staff was a great way to ensure that the learning was applied throughout the building. I modeled several things for the staff: using Google Slides for presentations, embedding video, using several formative assessment tools, and wrapping up the session with a web-based “Ticket Out the Door” activity (in this case, Padlet). Modeling these instructional uses will lead to more teachers trying them out in their classrooms. I could assess this with a follow-up survey naming the strategies and asking teachers to list which ones they had tried, and if the professional learning session helped encourage them to try the strategies.
This professional learning session modeled best principles of adult learning because it was based on prior feedback from teachers and involved active learning strategies, such as discussion and guided practice to make something useful for the classroom. Additionally, formative assessment was discussed through tools such as Google Forms and Zaption as part of the presentation and our school’s continued focus on Formative Instructional Practices. This session aligned to both state and national professional learning standards because of its focus on blended learning, teacher background knowledge, and useful, practical information.
During this session, I learned that there were varying stages of readiness for the application of web-based formative instructional tools among the seven different groups of teachers. If I were presenting this session again, I would have chosen fewer tools, focusing mainly on one or two instead of giving so many choices. A large number of choices, while suitable for some teachers, can overwhelm others and lead to “shutting down” during the session, severely limiting the teacher’s ability to learn and apply the learning effectively in his or her practice.
Presenting this session to all certified staff was a great way to ensure that the learning was applied throughout the building. I modeled several things for the staff: using Google Slides for presentations, embedding video, using several formative assessment tools, and wrapping up the session with a web-based “Ticket Out the Door” activity (in this case, Padlet). Modeling these instructional uses will lead to more teachers trying them out in their classrooms. I could assess this with a follow-up survey naming the strategies and asking teachers to list which ones they had tried, and if the professional learning session helped encourage them to try the strategies.