Showing posts with label staff development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label staff development. Show all posts

Monday, October 22, 2018

Instructional Technology Teacher Professional Development without Substitute Teachers

Like many schools across the country, our district often has a shortage of substitute teachers. Sometimes there aren't enough reserve teachers available to cover teacher absences due to illness, let alone cover trainings that take place during the school day. In the past we would offer teachers instructional technology trainings and staff development during the school day. Starting last year began eliminating this practice to reduce the overall need for reserve teachers and this year plan to use zero reserve teachers. 

As I've written about in the past, one of the reasons I believe our 1:1 program has been successful is because of our ongoing, sustained professional development. We are now in the eighth year of 1:1 and still providing all of our teachers with about nine hours annually of professional development related to technology. Whether teachers are in their first or eighth year teaching students with 1:1 devices, they attend multiple training sessions per year. The reason we provide continual staff development for our teachers is to help them use technology in ever new and innovative ways to deepen learning for students and make it more meaningful (see Beyond SAMR Ladders and Pools: A Framework for Teaching & Learning).

To make this happen without reserves, our instructional technology coaches are providing this staff development before and after school as well as online. Sometimes principals replace one or more monthly staff meetings with staff development sessions. This was the case last week at both our Middle School East and High School. At each site, teachers had the option to choose from a menu of options, including instructional technology sessions. Pictured are two high school mini-sessions last week, one on formative assessment with Pear Deck held in the newly remodeled Loft space and the other on Strategies for Improving Feedback in the Online/Blended Environment for teachers in our Tonka Online program. Last spring I wrote about 14 different technology mini-sessions from which high school teachers could choose in place of a staff meeting. Staff at all our sites are asked to attend about two hours of face to face meetings before/after the school day related to instructional technology staff development. 

In addition to face to face sessions this year we are expanding our online instructional technology staff development so all teachers will take two hours of training per semester equaling four hours of training this year. This past summer we increased our online technology related offerings for teachers to 18 sessions and had over 20% of our staff take at least one session using our learning management system, Schoology. Some of these same sessions will be offered once again and our instructional technology coaches are busy creating further sessions for teachers. 

We also offered extensive technology related face to face trainings in August. We have been providing these August trainings since 2005 and the options certainly have increased since that time. Teachers are asked to take at least two summer classes so they end up with about three hours of training in the summer. In the end all these training options add up to the same number of instructional technology training hours we have asked teachers to complete since our 1:1 iPad program began:
3 hours: August training classes online/face-to-face
2 hours: Face-to-face instead of staff meetings or before/after school
4 hours: Online training modules
9 hours: Total 
In addition to these nine hours of instructional technology staff development, teachers can and often do meet with their instructional technology coach or media specialist for additional help and/or to work further on a project. All of these options and work have made it possible to continue to support our teachers and advance their work with students helping to improve the ways that technology enhances learning and teaching. 

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                        Monday, April 23, 2018

                        More Ways to Inform Parents of How Technology Changes Learning

                        In a continuing effort to inform parents of how technology is used for learning in school, our  instructional technology coaches in Minnetonka keep exploring new ideas and formats for this communication. In the past I’ve shared about the Minnebytes that have run in our weekly high school newsletter for the past two years with hundreds of examples. At the beginning of this school year, I shared the middle school version of this Minnebytes newsletter for parents and teachers highlighting Minnetonka iPad Integration.

                        The challenge of grabbing parents' limited attention seems greater than ever. Parents are bombarded with all sorts of messages and information on a daily basis, whether it’s from school, sports, work, or their personal lives. Messages need to be short and to the point, and of course, catchy and attention grabbing. So often it is difficult for parents to understand how technology tools are being used because they remember school before these tools existed and don’t have a background knowledge or understanding of technologies possibilities in education. It is our continued hope that by keeping parents informed of the many ways we are using technology in school for engagement and deeper learning they will better understand its importance and continue to support its use. 

                        In an effort to better reach parents, recently one of our middle school technology instructional coaches, Sara Hunt, has been creating infographics using Infogram. Three examples are included below. In these infographics she focuses on one specific technology tool students use in our one to one iPad program. She explains what it does, how it is used, includes a link to a video about the app, and includes one or more examples of our students or teachers using this tool for instruction. 








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                        Monday, April 2, 2018

                        Minnebytes Year 2: 50 More Examples of High School iPad Integration


                        For a second year in a row our high school                         instructional technology coaches are compiling a weekly newsletter highlighting three ideas for integrating iPads in the classroom. Each week as they are out in classrooms working with teachers, our three high school instructional tech coaches see these firsthand. They snap a photo, write a few sentences describing the lesson they observe, explain how the lesson fits in with our Teaching & Learning Framework, and then put each of them on a slide in a continuous Google Slide deck.

                        This is the second time I've posted about this. Last year I wrote about the first round of ideas shared. These ideas continue to be shared weekly with staff as well as parents. It is a great way to educate everyone about the possibilities and power of using iPads and technology in instruction. We continue to track views of these weekly ideas by both staff and parents using the free analytics tools available through Goo.gl/Google. 

                         In addition to these high school examples, ideas are regularly shared at our other schools as well. Take a look yourself at all the great ways teachers and students are leveraging technology for learning!
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                        Monday, January 8, 2018

                        More Tips for Successful 1:1 Programs: Ongoing Teacher Sharing, Dialog, Reflection & Colleague Observations

                        One of the reasons I believe our 1:1 program has been successful is because of our ongoing, sustained professional development, which I've written about in the past. We are now in the seventh year of 1:1, and still providing all of our teachers with about 9 hours annually of professional development related to technology. Whether teachers are in their first or seventh year teaching students with 1:1 devices, they attend multiple training sessions per year. 

                         Learning to use the device itself is simple, as is learning how to use it in education to move from traditional paper and pencil environments to a digital document cycle. That part doesn't require ongoing training. The reason we do provide continual staff development for our teachers is to help them use technology in ever new and innovative ways to deepen learning for students and make it more meaningful. (See Beyond SAMR Ladders and Pools: A Framework for Teaching & Learning)

                         As part of our trainings with 1:1 teachers, we have found it beneficial to provide them with time to share ideas with one another and talk through issues, whether we are meeting with a group of new or experienced teachers. Originally we called these conversations Roses & Thorns (what was going well and what is not). More recently some of our instructional technology coaches have called it Roses, Buds & Thorns, adding the sharing of a growth area/goal to the conversation.
                        Our high school instructional technology coaches have called these meetings "Roundtables." Two past roundtable sessions I attended are pictured.  During the first year teachers are in a 1:1 implementation the roses and thorns shared at these sessions tend to be about logistics and classroom management. After teachers are more experienced and comfortable with 1:1 teaching and learning, the topics and ideas shared become much more complex and creative, as teachers share innovative lesson ideas and ways they have used technology to redefine teaching and learning. Making time for the sharing of these ideas is a great way to spread the wealth of information and experience they collectively have and move your program further forward. We have grouped teachers in a variety of ways besides experience; sometimes teachers have been grouped by subject or grade levels, too. During the share time all ideas are documented so teachers can revisit them afterwards.

                         Besides sharing ideas with one another, we have also had teachers go out and observe colleagues. I mentioned this in a past post, too. Most recently, our high school instructional technology coaches dedicated 20 minutes of a training session to classroom observations. They asked teachers to visit about three classrooms for around five minutes each, with only one class in their own department. Afterwards they regrouped and debriefed. Teachers shared what they noticed about instruction, student engagement, and the use of technology. 

                         This process of ongoing sharing, dialog, reflection and colleague observation is one of the keys to our success and growth of our 1:1 program. You can learn more about our it, iPads, and use of technology for learning in the additional related posts below:

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                        Monday, November 21, 2016

                        An Easy Way to Weekly Inform Teachers & Parents of Great Technology Integration

                        Minnebytes: 100+ Examples of High School iPad Integration 
                        This Year (3 per week)
                        Sometimes teachers and staff travel long distances to attend technology conferences hoping to return with a few new, good ideas that they can take back to try in their own classrooms.  There are certainly some great conferences out there where this can happen. But often I think we fail to realize that we are surrounded by all sorts of colleagues who are doing great things in their classrooms every day. If we had a way to know what these ideas were and when they were happening, we wouldn’t even have to leave our building to get some great ideas.

                        Over the years we have tried out a variety of ideas and multiple ways to make this happen. We've had success having our teachers share their ideas and best practices for technology integration with one another in short presentations at monthly staff meetings, sharing ideas at “Roundtable” with colleagues during training classes they are attending as part of our continual staff development, sharing and/or recording teacher presentations of their best tips and ideas and making them available online for others, as well as running our own summer workshops and training conferences in house for our teachers. 

                         Most recently our high school instructional technology coaches have been putting together a weekly newsletter highlighting three ideas for integrating iPads in the classroom. The instructional tech coaches see these firsthand as they are out in classrooms working with teachers each week. They snap a photo, write a few sentences describing the lesson they observe, explain how the lesson fits in with our Teaching & Learning Framework, and then put each of them on a slide in a continuous Google Slide deck.

                        The high school instructional tech coaches send a weekly email out to all high school staff, so that not only do the 175 teachers see these ideas, but the admin, paras, and all other support staff do, too. This is a great way to further educate everyone about the possibilities and power of using iPads and technology in instruction. Rather than having the content and ideas in the email itself, they made a Goo.gl link with just an image teaser such as the one pictured, so that everyone has to click on this link to get to the content. This allows us to see how many views the content is getting per week by using the free analytics tools available through Goo.gl/Google. 

                        In addition to informing our staff and allowing teachers to see one another’s ideas without having to travel anywhere to get them, we also decided to share this information with our families, too. Each week in the parent email newsletter, we are including a link for parents to view: “3 Ways MHS Students Used Technology This Week to Maximize Learning.” So far we are averaging about 84 views/week. The Google Slide show is a live file that we just add to each week, so each time the email gets sent out there is new content for viewers. There is no extra work required and we have the added bonus of having our parents become more knowledgeable about how an iPad and technology are used by their child and the school as a whole, which is great! 
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