Inquiry Blog Post #3: Supporting On-Going Professional Development

Supporting Teachers’ ICT Curriculum and Pedagogy: On-going Professional Development

 

Image courtesy of TeachHub

When you work in a large school, it is sometimes hard to connect to each and every staff member on a regular basis. If they do not frequent the staff room or are unable to attend meetings due to various circumstances, you may not see certain colleagues for weeks at a time. How can we share and respond to the needs of our staff in a timely and cohesive manner with the most appropriate and useful professional development tools? This is something every school can continue to work on (as I’m sure there are always going to be a few colleagues who are missing out on various opportunities). For example, using technology as a communication and teaching tool with support networks in place and being flexible when scheduling workshops, meetings, and seminars might be two easy first steps. At our school we have staff meeting on the same day and time every two weeks. However, many teachers cannot make that time so a simple solution could be having staff meetings at various times of the day and throughout the week. This would then allow staff who can’t make morning meetings a chance to make a meeting at lunch or after school. 

We have a lot of committees and initiatives at our school, which is wonderful as it provides many learning opportunities for the staff involved. Many staff take on new opportunities for professional growth by signing up for various pilot projects, grants, and inquiry groups (for example, CSL, Fresh Grade, Guided Reading, Community Gardening, Aboriginal Ed, and SEL). In addition, there are about eight staff members currently mentoring student teachers (who bring a wealth of fresh, new knowledge about technology and the redesigned curriculum), and many others who are sitting on various school committees or coaching. What is lacking at our school is a sound discussion platform to share Professional Development Opportunities. Despite a couple emails featuring a few opportunities and interests about professional development seminars, our school could improve upon our ways of communicating, sharing, and advocating teacher voice and interests through a more collaborative and connected manner. 

Here are some suggestions I believe would help support our on-going professional development within our school culture focusing both with in-person meetings and workshops as well as using technology as a tool to share, collaborate, and feel comfortable teaching with.

1. Online surveys or polls. To gauge what is of interest to most staff, I believe polls or online surveys are a wonderful way of quickly and easily asking what people would want to focus on for their up-coming Pro-D Days. This is informative at the school level but if districts did something similar, using teacher input, more and more useful learning opportunities and choices would arise. Such sites as Doodle and Google Forms might be a good place to start for using surveys or polls.

Image retrieved from Powerful Learning Practice

2. Hosting various in-school professional development workshops with follow-up support networks. In-school workshops based on popular demand, interest of the staff, or with a focus on the school goals are the most beneficial. However, also offering suggestions for a variety of other opportunities available via a Google Drive or shared online site would be wonderful as well. 

According to an article by Zarrow (2014), professional development seminars are lacking in effectiveness for teachers because we “may learn, understand, and agree with a new idea or technique presented in a workshop, but it’s hard for [us] to implement that idea without ongoing support.” What he suggests we need is ongoing support after attending a workshop or learning a new teaching strategy so that we can effectively learn, refine, or improve our practice and skill set (Zarrow, 2014). I agree with this completely, especially when it comes to using new technology. I often walk away from pro-d workshops with lots of wonderful ideas and feeling inspired but also feeling a little bit overwhelmed on which tool to start with. If there was a support person to contact or a follow-up session to attend, I think I would feel more confident in taking that leap to try a new tech tool.

This animated video points out how on-going support is essential for success with teachers’ ICT Curriculum, Pedagogy, and ongoing Professional Development. It talks about how many teachers are given the technology tools but don’t know how to successfully integrate it into their classroom. It argues that having a meaningful and applicable session for the teachers attending is the goal of all professional development, and provides a few examples of ways to accomplish an engaging and successful workshop.

Although it is a Samsung advertisement, you can also check out this video about Teaching Tech to Teachers.  5 Tips for Professional Development

Unfortunately budget cuts in Vancouver have eliminated many professional resource support networks and mentor teachers that you could call upon to support your learning needs in various areas such as Early Literacy and Technology. We need to continue to advocate for these resources and teaching professionals to be brought back to our district! Contacting our union, being vocal with our School District, and acquiring parent and public support is so important.

Another research article by Charles Naylor (2007) that I came across, talked about how collaborative teacher inquiry can act as very successful teacher professional development. I have had very valuable professional development days when working alongside my colleagues collaborating or attending inquiry sessions together. See article summary here from the UBC library - Collaborative Teacher Inquiry.

3. Have teacher-driven monthly “drop-in” workshops. Yes, this would add to our already existing workload but to bring staff together in an informal manner can be so positive and valuable. Our school has just started one for Art Methods and it is seen as an opportunity to de-stress and have fun while learning new art skills! If we could have a couple more of these on different topics of interest such as ICT curriculum or Science, and in welcoming environments, I think it would create a more cohesive school culture and foster many successful learning opportunities and interactions with colleagues. Some suggestions I have seen from others in our LIBE course that happen at their schools are Book Clubs, Evening Hangouts, Supporting Opportunities during the lunch hour, and sharing resources with colleagues through an online platform such as Google Drive or Office 365. Our staff currently sends each other tips, resources, templates, and lesson plans via email but perhaps there is a better method or platform? 

A quote that resonated with me from an NCTE article on Teacher Book Clubs was the following:
"The most successful aspect has been the opportunity to interact with other teachers, to hear different perspectives, and to function more as a group of learners than teachers."                                 --Comment from a NCTE book group participant 

4. Creating a platform for housing online teacher resources and blogs for staffs’ learning needs. I believe that being inspired by others and exploring online is great “unstructured” professional development! Being able to remember everything I have found is still a challenge for me, and something I struggle with all the time. I tend to leave webpage tabs open on my Internet browser or tag sites to my Pinterest board, but I know there are many other (and perhaps better) ways to manage all the information available on the web. Perhaps as a staff we could start using online bookmarking sites, like Google bookmarks or sites such as Microsoft SharePoint or Office 365. If all teachers on staff who have a class website or professional blog could go to a shared site or automatically be notified when new posts are made, we will be more readily informed of what our colleagues are doing in the school and this would add to our “Professional Collection.” 

Personally, I have found that following blogs and other social media sites has helped my professional development flourish throughout this course and I am eager to pass on my positive experiences to the members on my staff as well!

Image courtesy of Quotations Quotes

However, as we all know, change takes time! To get all staff on board and using the same sharing tools will not happen over night. Time management is also something many teachers struggle with due to the various demands our profession entails. Finding the time to post, share, search, and collaborate will not be easy. Nevertheless, if numerous opportunities for professional development are provided in an easy to access manner within our schools, district, and province, perhaps finding the time won’t be as hard as some of us think (myself included)!

Bibliography

Dunn, K. "The ten best tools for gathering classroom feedback." Daily Genius. November 19, 2014. Retrieved from http://dailygenius.com/best-classroom-tools-gathering-feedback/

Leng, K.  "Top 10 Bookmarking Sites to Organize your Stuff." Online Fanatic. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://onlinefanatic.com/top-10-best-bookmark-sites-for-urls/

Microsoft Sharepoint website. https://products.office.com/en-CA/sharepoint/collaboration?ms.officeurl=sharepoint

Naylor, C. S. (2007). Collaborative teacher inquiry as professional development: concepts, contexts and directions. University of British Columbia Library. Retrieved from http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=3817140

NCTE Guidelines. (2017). Teachers as Readers: Forming Book Groups as Professionals. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/teachersasreaders

Office 365 website. https://products.office.com/en-CA/business/office-365-business?&wt.srch=1&wt.mc_id=AID623563_SEM_lHbt2itK

Professional Development - Technology Integration. Youtube. April 28, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMhokHM8YAg

Teaching Tech to Teachers: 5 Steps for Professional Development. Youtube. June 26, 2015. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZXP02Az6ds

Zarrow, J. (2014). Five Strategies for Better Teacher Professional Development. TeachThought. Retrieved from: https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/5-strategies-better-teacher-professional-development/