Planning for Professional Development Day
Monday was a Professional Development / Parent Conference Day in our district. The PD day was also a "Flex Day," where teachers could "flex out" of attending school that day if they met the flex requirements prior to the school day.
Teachers who attended on Monday were expected to complete Professional Development activities that day. Planning the activities is part of my administrative role, and I wanted to create something that I thought the teachers would appreciate, enjoy, and learn from.
I knew that the PD needed to involve choice, be practical and immediately relevant, use real-life situations, and have learning opportunities that could be mastered in a short amount of time. (Designing Professional Development for Adult Learners.)
The feedback that I got from teachers included the following:
- they enjoyed the "lessons,"
- they thought our school needed to have more conversations about the topics in the activities, and
- they really enjoyed the short videos that got to the point.
How I did it
What I did was create a "menu" of 8 different online activities from which teachers would choose 5 to complete by the end of the day.
See my statement to teachers below:
“On Target”
Choose and complete 5 of the activities below. The activities were chosen for you to reflect on instructional practices, learn new technology tips, and stretch your comfort zone.
The 8 topics on the menu
- Digital Footprints: Teaching Social Media Literacy
- Connecting Educators Through Voxer
- Growth Mindset
- Using Google Forms to Collect and Analyze Real-Life Data
- Innovations in Assessment
- Creating and Using Google Forms
- Connecting Students to Experts on Twitter
- Which Activities Require Greater Depth of Knowledge?
If you would like to see the complete menu of activities I curated and created, click the image below.
Here's the link to the Google Doc: http://bit.ly/1jlfRr8
Feel free to use with your staff, and if you do, please let me know how your staff responds.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas and I think you hit the nail on the head for effective PD by offering CHOICE!! The feedback that I most hear from my staff and colleagues is the need for choice in professional development. Our students need it and our staff members do as well! Thanks for sharing:)
Jon