Alternative Professional Development

This presentation focuses on the face principles for effective learning that Allison Gulamhussein,in her article "Teaching the Teachers: Professional Development in an era of High-risk Responsibility" proposes.

The story behind the story

For this presentation I wanted to apply some of the principles learned though Nancy Duarte’s videos of great presentations. I chose to use Power Point and utilized animations, font-size, images and colors to make important points in my message stand out, just as suggested by author Jennifer Gonzalez said in her video How Presentation Zen Fixed my bad Power Points (2013), and from author David J. P. Phillips in his TED-talk How to avoid death by Power Point (2014). I tried to use as well Nancy Duarte’s structure moving back and forth from “what is” to “what could be” scenarios to allow my audience get engage with what I was proposing. I tried to be minimalistic concerning the amount of information on each slide and construct the idea through my speech.

Alternative Professional Learning (Speaker Notes) Slide 1: Alternative Professional Learning; The go-and-show way By Rosa Felsen Slide 2: (Click for animation) Did you know that Educational institutions spend a great amount of money every year on professional development? (Click for animation) And, did you know that the mayoralty of Professional development sessions does not produce the expected results of improving student achievement? Slide 3: Well, Traditional professional learning treats educators as passive learners. The classic ‘get & sit’ professional development programs that educators normally receive at their institutions leads to boredom and disengagement from the topic. (Click for animation) We need Professional learning workshops that promote collaboration, (Click for animation) feedback, (Click for animation) and reflection as participants analyze student work and model new strategies in real-time with each other. Slide 4: Most professional development sessions are usually disconnected from each other, with an overload of information, from classroom management to assessment, and from literacy to blended learning. (This information overload prevents teachers from integrating it as part of their instruction repertoire). (Click for animation) Professional development should “go deep” into each teacher’s context, (Click for animation) prioritizing the application of knowledge in instruction over covering generalized topics at intermittent times. (Click for animation) Sessions need to be tailored to the individual problems, otherwise, they will not translate into practice. Slide 5: Traditional Professional learning does not involve ongoing support from an instructional expert. Once the workshop ends, support ends with it leaving teachers alone when they are trying out the new strategy or skill for the first time. (Click for animation) Ongoing support (Click for animation) and one-on-one check-in soon after implementation needs to happen for the teacher to reflect and share what went well and what didn’t (Click for animation) with the instructional expert. Slide 6: To ensure professional learning is successful, teachers need to be supported during implementation. Applying a new teaching strategy in the classroom is often more difficult than learning the strategy itself. (Click for animation) It takes several tries to master it, and many teachers must see success in their students before they change their beliefs. (Click for animation) Modeling is a highly effective way to introduce a new concept and help teachers understand a new practice. Slide 7: Mastery of a new skill is a time-consuming process. Studies have found that teachers’ professional development programs that are less than 14 hours do not affect student achievement (Gulamhussein, 2013). (Click for animation) On the other hand, programs of greater duration were associated with teacher change and improvement in student learning. (Click for animation) Some studies have concluded that teachers might need as many as 50 hours of practice and instruction before mastering a new strategy that will be implemented in class. (Click for animation) Allowing enough time for professional development will significantly improve students' learning. Slide 8: In conclusion (Click for animation) Great professional development is based on 5 principles.: (Click for animation) 1. Engage and active participation (Click for animation) 2. Content-specific (Click for animation) 3. Ongoing support (Click for animation) 4. Model skill / Teacher observation (Click for animation) 5. Enough time

The professional development course will be focus on helping instructors in the business department of a college learn how to create, implement and use an ePortfolio for their courses.

The instructors will then create their own ePortfolio and learn how they can use it as a tool to reinforce student learning in their own courses.

The business course will be based on the Fink’s 3 Column table as its instructional model. The course will also follow a hybrid model, alternating online and in-person sessions. With the online component, educators will review online material. In the in-person sessions, the instructors will have discussions, go over questions, carry out exercises, and do simulations as teams.

In order to reach the required 50 hours, the course will involve two sessions per week of 3 hours, with one online session and one in-person session. In total, this will involve 6 hours per week. The course will last 5 weeks - which means this component lasts 30 hours. Additionally, since the training needs to be ongoing, the instructor will continue with online two-hour discussions each week for the rest of the semester - an additional 20 hours over 10 weeks of ongoing support. Educators will share what they have learned, what exercises they have done, what implementation has been successful or less successful in terms of classroom approaches, and what best practices can be useful for the team. The training and the ongoing support will bring the total to 50 hours.

The 5 key principles of professional development can be found in the above course description. First, there is professional learning, an implementation problem, and ongoing support. Second, there is teacher support during the implementation stage regarding challenges and classroom practice. Third, the ongoing support ensures that teacher initial exposure will not be passive but rather active, and there will be discussion of new practices. Fourth, sharing of experiences, what works and what does not work, involves modeling which is effective for new practices. Fifth, content shared will be specific, from specific classroom experiences, particularly in the ongoing support stage.

The course and ongoing support will foster collaboration in several ways. The scheduled discussion and question sessions in the course and later on throughout the semester that compare implementation and best practices will foster a community of learners. The creation of teams within the course for the learners will also foster collaboration. The desire of all the learners to do better will also foster collaboration.

The various components will be led by a senior faculty member of the business department that has already gained

experience both attending multiple professional development trainings and one whose expertise is leadership, human resource management and or a related field, preferably a faculty member who already does consulting in this area and who can use his or her expertise to help develop other younger faculty professionally.

The audience is made of mostly younger instructors and some experienced instructors. All of these instructors have had the professional development course recommended to them as part of their HR requirements.

Schedule and Time will be detailed below…

Resources need for learners will include: either a laptop, PC/MAC, tablet, desktop; Internet access; a learning management system (LMS) - Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams

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Fink's Three-column table

BHAG: Learners will develop an ePortfolio that demonstrates their understanding,

and ability to implement it in their educational setting.

Any continuing education effort for educators where teachers can improve their skills and increase student outcomes is the best investment an education system can make. A great deal of time and money is spent each year on classroom observation and workshops to train teachers to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to address student learning challenges.

However, despite these efforts, most teachers do not always seem to improve substantially their teaching practices over consecutive years. The question remains concerning how this circumstance can be improved.

Great professional development
is based on 5 principles

Engage and active participation
Content-specific
Ongoing support
Model skill / Teacher observation
Enough time

Vision

Course Timeline (5 weeks + ongoing):

Week 0:

Introductory video about the advantages of ePortfolio

Week 1: Introduction to the training and ePortfolio

1. In-person session (3 hours) - Tuesdays, 17:00-20:00

Greetings and get to know each other
Set up the teams of learners
Discuss technology for online sessions
What is an ePortfolio
Why is an ePortfolio useful
Video: “21st Century Educator”
Assignment for online session - Different ePortfolio platforms