5.2 Professional Learning
Candidates develop and implement technology-based professional learning that aligns to state and national professional learning standards, integrates technology to support face-to-face and online components, models principles of adult learning, and promotes best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. (PSC 5.2/ISTE 4b)
Artifact: ITEC 7460 Coaching Journal
Online Blended Learning Professional Development for Category 2 International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme Workshop for Teachers
Reflection
These artifacts were developed independently of each other, but I decided to include both in evidence of this practice to insure that all areas are met.
The coaching journal was developed during the summer of 2013 and, while it does demonstrate an ability model principles of adult learning aligned to the standards for an International Baccalaureate (IB) teacher, I was not satisfied that it met the components of the other aspects of this standard. This was due to the coaching aspect of this particular artifact having taken place over a summer vacation. During that same vacation, I was working on designing and delivering workshops for IB teachers across the United States. These were generally fifteen hour, face-to-face workshops. However, I was invited to deliver a blended version (three hours online; twelve hours face-to-face) in Dallas, Texas. Therefore, I developed and implemented a Google Site that allowed the delivery of this workshop for twenty educators, and shared the structure amongst the other IB workshop leaders for their subject discipline areas, promoting best practices in teaching, learning and assessment.
The coaching journal was completed with a history teacher in our school who was new to the Middle Years Programme (MYP). She was keen to learn about flipping the classroom. To align to the MYP learning objectives and criteria, we discussed the assessments that she wanted the students to summatively perform, and mapped them on an MYP Unit Planner. While discussing her desired outcomes, I offered a solution by using TED-Ed – an online platform that curates many YouTube videos and gives the students an opportunity to think through various ideas using an online platform. I registered her for an account and she went away from the first session to explore this resource. In our next session, she shared what she had created by integrating the TED-Ed and I further augmented her work by suggesting a game that the students could play that was highly relatable to the topic that she was teaching. Our schedules, on this occasion, did not align to a face-to-face meeting, so we used Skype. I feel that this really does demonstrate a more realistic approach to modeling adult learning, as teachers today often do business with each other collaboratively using communication technologies. MYP as an International school practice demands that teachers from different schools across the planet collaborate on the programme; therefore this was a very positive experience for us both.
However, the journal really ends at this point – and we took up the conversation again when school began in August. I felt that for this standard, this evidence was not enough. Therefore I have included the Google Site that was created as the online, asynchronous component to a face-to-face synchronous professional development for a Category 2 Individuals and Societies – Delivering the MYP workshop in Dallas, TX, in early August 2013. I have used this particular website many times since in delivering professional development to IB educators across the United States in a blended setting. I feel that this better satisfies the integration of technology to support face-to-face and online components of this standard.
Completing these artifacts resulted in deep learning. In terms of coaching the history teacher, it taught me that developing and implementing technology-based professional learning needs to have a concise knowledge and understanding of the objectives of the individual being coached and energy and ability to research and to offer solutions that meet those desires. It also helps that, beyond the working relationship in a collegial sense, that the coaching team work well together and even have a wider friendship than just the school setting. I have continued to work with the teacher that I coached in 2013 and developed a strong collegial relationship and we have developed many lessons together to date using technology that have enhanced our MYP objectives, standards and practices for teaching and learning in the classroom.
The blended learning Google Site for IB MYP professional development workshops deepened my ability to use Google Sites as a learning tool. I also had the opportunity subsequently, to augment and further reflect on the use of this artifact as an adult learning tool when completing the endorsement for Online Teaching and Learning. Having created this site from the standards required by IB and facilitated its use in many different contexts (Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL and West Palm Beach, FL) since its creation, I have learned how to promote best practices in teaching and learning. In assessment, the participants had to complete all of the tasks assigned for their professional credit hours from IB. This facilitation took considerably more time than what a fifteen hour face-to-face conference would take (with discussion boards, synchronous sessions and participant technical support) but, in the end, has resulted in a robust tool that I can sustainably use for future workshops and share with other workshop leaders assigned these kind of professional development opportunities.
In creating a coaching journal, I would certainly not have started the process over a vacation period. However, since this journal, I have created many other coaching journals using Google Docs in my role as an Instructional Technologist for Atlanta International School. In that context, when a teacher reaches out for technology integration, I create a shared document that aligns our journey together and sets our goals, objectives and ring fences the resources suggested for implementation for teaching and learning. I have included one of these at the end of this reflection. This certainly has helped to further refine and develop my implementation of technology-based professional learning. When creating the Google Site for professional development for IB, I realized that this medium could not be used globally (China, for example, block the use of many Google products). Therefore, I have since had to also recreate this learning tool for the global workshop leader market on Edmodo. I learned, therefore, that there is no one size fits all in creating professional learning in a globalized curriculum framework like IB.
These artifacts have improved practice in both my school and in a wider organizational framework in IB. In school, the coaching journals with the teachers with whom I consult on a daily basis has helped to channel the development of technology integration with our faculty and I now use this resource effectively in the school to enhance teaching and learning for the benefit of our students. The use of the blended online workshop for IB has also started a real conversation about what blended learning looks like in context with IB and I have been asked to share this model with many of my workshop leader peers as an exemplar of how this method of teaching and learning should look.
Example of Technology Integration Coaching Journal – Atlanta International School
12.02.2014
Objectives of meeting:
Objectives met:
11.19.2014
Objectives of meeting:
2. Set up blog pages for students in 7th Grade Class
Objectives met:
2. Went to class, created pages inside Teacher Google site and initiated thinking on blogging with students
Activities to date with Teacher
To do
Chris Create opportunities in Unit of Inquiry planning in MYP and in DP for objectives for speaking and listening and involve Chris in planning to support using available technology
Teacher
These artifacts were developed independently of each other, but I decided to include both in evidence of this practice to insure that all areas are met.
The coaching journal was developed during the summer of 2013 and, while it does demonstrate an ability model principles of adult learning aligned to the standards for an International Baccalaureate (IB) teacher, I was not satisfied that it met the components of the other aspects of this standard. This was due to the coaching aspect of this particular artifact having taken place over a summer vacation. During that same vacation, I was working on designing and delivering workshops for IB teachers across the United States. These were generally fifteen hour, face-to-face workshops. However, I was invited to deliver a blended version (three hours online; twelve hours face-to-face) in Dallas, Texas. Therefore, I developed and implemented a Google Site that allowed the delivery of this workshop for twenty educators, and shared the structure amongst the other IB workshop leaders for their subject discipline areas, promoting best practices in teaching, learning and assessment.
The coaching journal was completed with a history teacher in our school who was new to the Middle Years Programme (MYP). She was keen to learn about flipping the classroom. To align to the MYP learning objectives and criteria, we discussed the assessments that she wanted the students to summatively perform, and mapped them on an MYP Unit Planner. While discussing her desired outcomes, I offered a solution by using TED-Ed – an online platform that curates many YouTube videos and gives the students an opportunity to think through various ideas using an online platform. I registered her for an account and she went away from the first session to explore this resource. In our next session, she shared what she had created by integrating the TED-Ed and I further augmented her work by suggesting a game that the students could play that was highly relatable to the topic that she was teaching. Our schedules, on this occasion, did not align to a face-to-face meeting, so we used Skype. I feel that this really does demonstrate a more realistic approach to modeling adult learning, as teachers today often do business with each other collaboratively using communication technologies. MYP as an International school practice demands that teachers from different schools across the planet collaborate on the programme; therefore this was a very positive experience for us both.
However, the journal really ends at this point – and we took up the conversation again when school began in August. I felt that for this standard, this evidence was not enough. Therefore I have included the Google Site that was created as the online, asynchronous component to a face-to-face synchronous professional development for a Category 2 Individuals and Societies – Delivering the MYP workshop in Dallas, TX, in early August 2013. I have used this particular website many times since in delivering professional development to IB educators across the United States in a blended setting. I feel that this better satisfies the integration of technology to support face-to-face and online components of this standard.
Completing these artifacts resulted in deep learning. In terms of coaching the history teacher, it taught me that developing and implementing technology-based professional learning needs to have a concise knowledge and understanding of the objectives of the individual being coached and energy and ability to research and to offer solutions that meet those desires. It also helps that, beyond the working relationship in a collegial sense, that the coaching team work well together and even have a wider friendship than just the school setting. I have continued to work with the teacher that I coached in 2013 and developed a strong collegial relationship and we have developed many lessons together to date using technology that have enhanced our MYP objectives, standards and practices for teaching and learning in the classroom.
The blended learning Google Site for IB MYP professional development workshops deepened my ability to use Google Sites as a learning tool. I also had the opportunity subsequently, to augment and further reflect on the use of this artifact as an adult learning tool when completing the endorsement for Online Teaching and Learning. Having created this site from the standards required by IB and facilitated its use in many different contexts (Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL and West Palm Beach, FL) since its creation, I have learned how to promote best practices in teaching and learning. In assessment, the participants had to complete all of the tasks assigned for their professional credit hours from IB. This facilitation took considerably more time than what a fifteen hour face-to-face conference would take (with discussion boards, synchronous sessions and participant technical support) but, in the end, has resulted in a robust tool that I can sustainably use for future workshops and share with other workshop leaders assigned these kind of professional development opportunities.
In creating a coaching journal, I would certainly not have started the process over a vacation period. However, since this journal, I have created many other coaching journals using Google Docs in my role as an Instructional Technologist for Atlanta International School. In that context, when a teacher reaches out for technology integration, I create a shared document that aligns our journey together and sets our goals, objectives and ring fences the resources suggested for implementation for teaching and learning. I have included one of these at the end of this reflection. This certainly has helped to further refine and develop my implementation of technology-based professional learning. When creating the Google Site for professional development for IB, I realized that this medium could not be used globally (China, for example, block the use of many Google products). Therefore, I have since had to also recreate this learning tool for the global workshop leader market on Edmodo. I learned, therefore, that there is no one size fits all in creating professional learning in a globalized curriculum framework like IB.
These artifacts have improved practice in both my school and in a wider organizational framework in IB. In school, the coaching journals with the teachers with whom I consult on a daily basis has helped to channel the development of technology integration with our faculty and I now use this resource effectively in the school to enhance teaching and learning for the benefit of our students. The use of the blended online workshop for IB has also started a real conversation about what blended learning looks like in context with IB and I have been asked to share this model with many of my workshop leader peers as an exemplar of how this method of teaching and learning should look.
Example of Technology Integration Coaching Journal – Atlanta International School
12.02.2014
Objectives of meeting:
- Install and work on getting Skype.
Objectives met:
- Skype installed and practiced conferencing techniques.
11.19.2014
Objectives of meeting:
2. Set up blog pages for students in 7th Grade Class
Objectives met:
2. Went to class, created pages inside Teacher Google site and initiated thinking on blogging with students
Activities to date with Teacher
- Set up blogs using Weebly with DP Lang Lit Class
- Set up Google Sites with ESOL Class (4 middle school students)
- Set up Google Page inside teacher class website for students in 7th Grade Lang/Lit
- Set up blogs using Weebly with DP Ab Initio Class
- Supported teacher development in deployment of various technology tools in order to support classes in the objective of getting students to speak and listen in their target language area.
To do
Chris Create opportunities in Unit of Inquiry planning in MYP and in DP for objectives for speaking and listening and involve Chris in planning to support using available technology
Teacher
- Create standing schedule time when required for the following blocks
- H: German 1st Lang
- E: German A Lang/Lit DP
- F: German 11 Ab Initio
- G: ESOL