District-wide Professional Development - A Capstone Project

There are about 20 of my colleagues and I are enrolled in a cohort working on earning our Technology Specialist certification.  Currently, we are learning more about 21st Century Leadership.  Part of that leadership is around professional development.  For our Capstone Project, we are designing a Professional Development opportunity for staff across our district.  The goal is to improve culture, foster collaboration, and encourage innovative teaching practices across the district.

It is exciting to be part of this Capstone Project that has the potential to positively impact our entire district.  Just thinking that our small group of 20 educators can jumpstart a movement across the entire district is energizing in itself. 

For me, the struggle has been real though. Mostly because we are trying to work with such a large group of people who all have busy lives and not much time to connect.  On top of that, trying to work digitally, presents a bit of a struggle.  Not everyone is online at the same time, we are working asynchronously so making decisions becomes a challenge.  If we were to meet in person to work on this, it may be more productive.  At one point the design group was making plans for challenges.  When the larger group head the direction we were going, they weren't really on board with that, so we had to change directions.  It can be difficult to plan a large scale professional development when the entire group doesn't have the same clear vision.

Also, there are different groups spearheading different parts of the project.  One group needs another group to complete their work before they can begin on their own part of the project.  Before this course is over, we need a solid plan and timeline, so we can meet our kickoff deadline.  We need to identify and agree upon our challenges.  Then the promotion and incentive group can get to work on their part.  I like the idea of having a website with a link to a Google form on which participants can submit their artifacts.  I also like that the challenges increasingly build collaboration.  I like the ideas for incentivizing participation.  There are lots of great ideas, we just need to put them all together in a seamless rollout.

But, we must come together for the good of the district, because I truly believe that D181 is better when we work together.  #D181BetterTogether

21st Century Leadership - A Reflection

Over the past few weeks, I've been reflecting on what it means to be an effective leader in the 21st century.  

Jennifer Gunn’s article “Transformational Leadership In Schools,” said that transformational leadership “empowers members of the learning community to improve from within.” Improvement from within would be my metric for success.  When I first began delving into this topic, I considered district level and building level administrators as leaders within the education setting.  Being a teacher within the school, I did not view myself as a leader.  Eric Sheninger's video on the Pillars of Digital Leadership changed my perspective and really sum up what leadership in the 21st century encompasses.  

Now, as I think about my career, I can see myself as a leader.  Over the years, I’ve had ideas to build professional capacity.  When I have an idea I want to try out, I typically run it past trusted colleagues of like mindset.  If they think it's a decent idea, I approach my building administrator for her opinion.  In most cases, both my current and previous administrator supported my ideas.  Generally, leaders in the digital age encourage risk-taking if the outcome will benefit students and/or improve instructional practices.   

Within my school, we implemented the ideas with great enthusiasm but a somewhat limited follow-through.  There is a small group of my colleagues that truly participate.  But, that's how change happens. Eric Sheninger said he started with just 5 teachers in his building that he supported and encouraged to take risks and be innovative. Those teachers became the models for others in the building, and, soon, others followed.  

The winds of change are coming.  Sharing my ideas within my school was always easy.  That's just what you do to collaborate with your colleagues.  In more recent years, I have led some professional development within my school and within my district.  Even more recently, I established a professional Twitter and Facebook presence.  Since doing that, colleagues across my district have reached out to collaborate.  I have extended my Professional Learning Network (PLN) and improved my professional practice.  Participating in Twitter chat book studies, Twitter chats for Apple Distinguished Educators, asking and answering questions among the professional Facebook groups I belong to have all grown my leadership capabilities and instructional practices. Soon, I will be presenting at the IETC conference - broadening my PLN once again.

There is never a good time to change in education.  Jennifer Gunn says education is like "rebuilding a ship from the inside out" because we never have time to stop. She speaks about collaboration, ethics, and compassion leading to momentum within an organization which results in growth and success.  I'm teaming up with a cohort of teachers leaders within my district, and we are planning to invite other teachers from across our district to join us on a journey of growth and success.  Each week for a few weeks, we'll encourage our colleagues to participate in challenges that promote collaboration and the use of technology.  When we work together, we can exact powerful change.

So, here's my challenge - to myself and my readers:  Be the catalyst for change and see who follows you.

Turning Professional Development on Its Head

In his article "Turn the Tables On Professional Learning" Keith Janelli stated that "effective professional development for teachers should be personalized" and technology can help that become a reality.  In essence, it was all about replacing one size fits all professional development with PD designed to meet the individual needs of teachers.

It is about time to turn teacher professional development on its head to meet the needs of individual staff members.  Countless times, I have walked out of a PD session learning nothing new.  Maybe my practices were affirmed, but I'm in a PD session to improve my practice not to affirm what I am already doing.  According to the article, personalizing learning for teachers, just like for students, takes a great deal of preparation and planning.

Janelli's article stated that it took 2 months of planning to pull off a 2.5 hour personalized PD session.  A staff development committee began with observing teachers and initiating discussions as they joined teacher planning meetings.  The purpose was to gather teacher feedback about the focus tools for the PD sessions and engage teachers in buying into using these tools.   Teachers then answered survey questions on their preferences and comfort level with the tools.

From there, the district found teacher experts to help plan and lead sessions with other staff members.  Objectives and proficiency skill lists were developed for each of the tools.  Then another needs assessment was administered to determine which group was the best fit for each teacher.  Teachers with similar needs met with teacher experts for their particular session.

Districts could and should engage in this type of professional development.  As Janelli said, "teachers deserve good teaching."  While it would take a great deal of preparation and planning, it would be well received and valued PD instead of the typical sit and get PD that oftentimes occurs.  One obstacle is the amount of teacher feedback that is required to plan such PD.  It requires teachers to actually engage in the discussions at planning meetings and complete the surveys sent to them in a thoughtful way.  It requires a great deal of trust between teachers and the coaches or whoever is planing the PD.  Coaches might be in classrooms observing teachers or having discussions at planning meetings.  This is not meant to be evaluative - except in the means of determining the best PD for teachers.  

With this in mind, I designed a Professional Development Outline for a 2 Hour After School Collaboration meeting for my department.  Beforehand, we decided what the topic would be.  We identified a curricular need and decided that each school's representatives would be prepared to share an app, tool, lesson, or strategy to support vocabulary development that was added to our agenda document.

During the meeting, teachers had an opportunity to interact with the websites, apps, etc. that were shared and, through discussion, connect that new tool or lesson idea to the 4C’s.

Using the teacher experts that already exist within a district, can be very effective. Planning out objectives and skills for various sessions makes efficient use of limited professional development time.  I'm confident teachers would rather participate in a PD session that is geared to meet their needs at their own pace.

Read more about Professional Development remix.

Walk Through Observations

Nothing New...

Walkthroughs or Learning Walks are not new.  I recall quite a few years ago when my district had IPI walkthroughs.  Administrators were trained in using iPads to document observations during classroom visits.  Teachers were given rubrics on what administrators would be looking for during the walkthroughs.  After a certain amount of visits were completed by a swarm of visitors, data would be reported back to the building's staff.   As I recall, this practice was rolled out in a way that created a great deal of anxiety for teachers.  The process wasn't supposed to be evaluative, but it also didn't feel supportive.  There was no real discussion afterward to help improve instructional practices because individual teachers did not get specific feedback.  The reflection sessions consisted of teachers trying to defend what we were doing during a faculty meeting.  The process died off as many things have in my district due to the extreme turnover rates at the administrative level.

If walkthroughs were going to be reinstated, I'd want the focus to be on the 4 C's.  These are the skills that will really propel our students once they enter the world outside of the walls of our schools.  These are the skills that will create purposeful and engaged learning.  I created my own Learning Walk Through Form using Google Forms and made plans with a colleague to observe each other.


Our observations led to great conversations about instructional practice, the 4C's, and integrating technology into the curriculum in meaningful ways.

     

    

After our observations, we shared the data we collected with one another and debriefed.

Being a support staff member, I am in and out of classrooms all day long.  I often co-teach or teach within someone else's classroom or teach whole group lessons in front of a classroom teacher.  In short, I guess I don't really have hesitations about other teachers observing me.  In fact, toward the end of last school year, I joined the #ObserveMe craze on Twitter and created my own #ObserveMeMadison sign to post outside of my classroom.  Several times before the end of the school year, I invited teachers into my small space to observe lessons I was doing with small groups of students.   I was excited when my principal and MRC director came after I posted my sign for the first time.  I was proud my students were so engaged and excited that they had an audience for whom they could demonstrate their learning.  I tried a few more times before the school year ended, but it seemed that it was either difficult for classroom teachers to find the time to pop in or there wasn't a lot of interest.  The same couple of visitors came to observe.  Before the school year ended, my principal liked the idea so much that she made #ObserveMeMadison signs for every teacher. 

My sign is up again this year.  I plan to post my sign on Twitter to make others aware of when I'm inviting colleagues in.  I'm hoping I get more teachers interested.   I even started a #ObserveMeMadison Seesaw class where teachers at my school can post when they are inviting teachers in or can post what's happening in their classrooms for those that don't make it to an in-person observation.  There is such power in learning from observing each other.  As Christopher Emdin said in his TED Talk, "Allow others to observe where the magic is happening."  That is how we all become better.  The magic is happening in every single one of our classrooms.  WE have to believe that and not fear being judged.  We have to step outside of our comfort zones.  In his blog post titled "#ObserveMe," Robert Kaplinsky wrote that the best way to improve is to observe what others do and "check insecurities and pride at the door."

Once we witness the amazing things that our colleagues are doing, we can celebrate the magic by replicating that magic across the school.  Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.  Post what's happening on Twitter to celebrate the greatness.  Create a safe space to share and celebrate - like a School Staff Seesaw class.  Celebrate a colleague by recognizing what they did at a faculty meeting.  These baby steps will hopefully lead to inspiring Professional Learning Communities.