5a. Design professional learning based on needs assessments and frameworks for working with adults to support their cultural, social-emotional and learning needs.
5b. Build the capacity of educators, leaders and instructional teams to put the ISTE Standards into practice by facilitating active learning and providing meaningful feedback.
5c. Evaluate the impact of professional learning and continually make improvements in order to meet the schoolwide vision for using technology for high-impact teaching and learning.
5a. Design professional learning based on needs assessments and frameworks for working with adults to support their cultural, social-emotional and learning needs.
5c. Evaluate the impact of professional learning and continually make improvements in order to meet the schoolwide vision for using technology for high-impact teaching and learning.
For the culminating project in my educational technology masters program I created a year-long professional development plan on the topic of technology integration for preK teachers. To ensure that the professional development plan would be valuable and relevant for the teachers, this survey was carefully designed as a Google Form to assess their current technology interest, use, and abilities. The second Google Form is the reflection evaluation given at the end of each individual PLC session for feedback and assessment of participant needs. Although our PLC is delivered in only English, we try and meet the needs of our participants by offering reflection in the top three primary languages used by our participants.
The survey was administered to preK teachers that were signed up to participate in the 2021-2022 inquiry and project-based learning professional learning community (PLC) that I facilitate. The results were analyzed and used to guide the technology integration curriculum for the year. The reflection evaluation is administered after each session in order to assess what teachers are getting out of each session and to provide responsive facilitation based on the needs of the group.
Many of the teachers were excited that there would be a technology integration component in the PLC. From the survey, observing participants in the first session, and from my research I noticed that the best way to help the preK teachers and set them on the path to technology integration was to help them become more technology proficient themselves. The reflection evaluation is helpful in assessing each individual session and planning for the next session based on needs and questions. I’m looking forward to a year of helping these teachers become more proficient in technology tools they already use and discovering new ways to use technology productivity tools.
Creating these Google Forms to design professional learning based on needs assessment (5a) was a great learning experience for me. As an administrator, coach, trainer, and facilitator I have designed many hours of professional development (PD) but this was the first time I had content that was flexible enough to allow me to consider the needs of my learners before planning content. I feel that it was beneficial for me and it changed my original thoughts and plans considerably. The reflection evaluation is something I’ve been doing in my facilitation in order to continually evaluate the impact of the professional development and continually make improvements to ensure it's in alignment with the learning objectives and vision of the PD (5c).Offering it in the top three primary languages of our participants is something newer we are offering. I am finding that this offering is allowing for more thoughtful responses.
5b. Build the capacity of educators, leaders and instructional teams to put the ISTE Standards into practice by facilitating active learning and providing meaningful feedback.
This flipgrid video is my explanation of a mentoring experience I had with my colleague, Chih-Ying Chang-Brown, as we were preparing to co-facilitate a professional learning community (PLC) together. The document below is the Mentee Action Plan I used to plan out our time together and record both of our reflections on each session.
I asked my colleague if she would be interested in having a more formal mentoring structure for introducing the technology tools that we would be using to co-facilitate our PLC. She happily accepted and was interested in becoming more proficient with Google Workspace tools as well as Zoom which we would be using for our virtual meetings. As we moved through our planning I gave her opportunities to ask questions and experience the technology first hand. Each session I spent time with my screen shared so that she could watch as I navigated and explained how to use some of the Google Workspace features that we use in the PLC.
I was happy to hear from Chih-Ying that she felt that our sessions were helpful for her. She expressed that the learning was flexible, hands-on, and appreciated that there was time for her to ask questions openly. The best feedback that Chih-Ying gave me was that she felt comfortable with the technology going into our first PLC session as co-facilitator.
Experiencing a mentoring relationship with a colleague that has experiences that I actually look up to was beneficial for both of us. It was important that as co-facilitators we had time together to collaborate and get to know each other before going into our partnership. It was great to sit down and describe our individual strengths that we could share with each other and designing our meeting times allowed us to be intentional and impactful as we built capacity and put ISTE standards into practice (5b).
My competency continues to grow as a professional learning facilitator and I believe it is currently where I’m most comfortable in my work. For any profession that is constantly evolving and the practitioners consider their work as a “practice,” I believe it is important to seek ongoing training. I especially believe this is true for the teaching practice. Teachers are asked to spend so much of their own time outside of the classroom and as their professional development facilitator it’s important to me that I make the most of their precious time.
One way I try to ensure that their time is well spent is through constant reflection and evaluation from participants using the reflection evaluation Google Form. This allows me to Evaluate the impact of professional learning and continually make improvements in order to meet their vision for using technology for high-impact teaching and learning (5c). Another way to ensure that participants are motivated and that I am delivering content that is relevant and useful to them is by designing the professional learning based on needs assessments and frameworks for working with adults to support their cultural, social-emotional and learning needs (5a). I plan to continue collecting this information through surveys such as the PLC needs assessment survey in artifact 1.
In order to increase my competency in building the capacity of educators, leaders and instructional teams to put the ISTE Standards into practice by facilitating active learning and providing meaningful feedback (5b), I will continue to seek beneficial mentor-mentee relationships such as the one I engaged in with my colleague.
