Call to Action
Canva
How many of us does the image above resonate with? How many times have we sat in an assembly hall and wondered why this professional development session was meant for you or could have been sent in an email? Professional development often falls short due to short durations, limited support, and generic content, creating a negative perception. There's a better way.
We carefully consider the classroom environments and the efforts we make to ensure that students receive an authentic learning experience. By incorporating voice and choice into our curriculum, we give learners ownership of their own education. If we, as educators, want to see success in our classrooms, why shouldn't we expect the same high standards from our professional development sessions?
I often think about my own experiences with professional development. Now, I find myself on the other side, as part of the teaching and learning team. It's truly a blessing to no longer just receive information but to now deliver it in a whole new way. We are saying goodbye to irrelevant concepts. Our platform provides the time, resources, and support needed to confidently implement new strategies. Our role is to be the supportive building block that helps structure your classroom and sets your students up for ultimate success.
Can we encourage our colleagues to be curious learners? Let's start by reminding ourselves that as teachers, we're always learning. By embracing a lifelong learning mindset, we can create a culture of inquiry.
We carefully consider the classroom environments and the efforts we make to ensure that students receive an authentic learning experience. By incorporating voice and choice into our curriculum, we give learners ownership of their own education. If we, as educators, want to see success in our classrooms, why shouldn't we expect the same high standards from our professional development sessions?
I often think about my own experiences with professional development. Now, I find myself on the other side, as part of the teaching and learning team. It's truly a blessing to no longer just receive information but to now deliver it in a whole new way. We are saying goodbye to irrelevant concepts. Our platform provides the time, resources, and support needed to confidently implement new strategies. Our role is to be the supportive building block that helps structure your classroom and sets your students up for ultimate success.
Can we encourage our colleagues to be curious learners? Let's start by reminding ourselves that as teachers, we're always learning. By embracing a lifelong learning mindset, we can create a culture of inquiry.
Created in Canva
Pictures are from classrooms and PD at Sweeny ISD
How are we going to achieve this and what will it look like? We have recently been slowly introducing our district to collaborative structures where we teach students how to work with their peers in collaborative settings. Students use simple structures such as turn and talk, think pair share, and Kagan's table mats to initiate conversations in the classroom. How will the teachers know how to promote this in their classroom? We use the same structures in our professional learning sessions. Blended learning can be embedded into these structures as well, so as we develop a hybrid platform of blended learning into our new teacher academy and to our district, the collaborative structures such as Kagan will be an amazing opportunity for teachers to be engaged and motivated to learn.
Allison Gulamhusseins' research suggests, “Districts cannot just do more of the same. They have to develop new approaches to teacher learning on their campuses, approaches that create real changes in teacher practice and improve student achievement.” We're committed to this change. To enhance teacher effectiveness and cultivate a culture of inquiry, we're dedicated to implementing improved professional learning strategies, with a focus on blended learning. This commitment gives us hope for a better future in education. Using the five principles of effective professional learning, here's a breakdown of our mission: why we're doing this, how we'll approach it, and what we aim to achieve.
Created in Canva
The Story Behind the Story
When developing my call to action, I knew that I wanted to make it personable and that I wanted my own voice to stand out. Having a powerful message is one thing, but inserting your personal experiences and having emotion behind your words is another. These are the tools that I used to make the magic happen.
|
This tool is my favorite because of its simplicity and how easy it is to transfer to my other devices. I often do my best thinking and writing when I am away from my computer, so knowing that I could take my phone with me to record my story was a plus.
|
After recording my story, we needed to add visuals. Canva is always my go-to for creating digital media. It was easy to transfer my voice audio to create the movie presentation I wanted, so that my audience would be drawn into my call to action.
The last Canva-created media also met my audience's needs and vision, making it easy to portray my professional learning goals.
References
Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development in an Era of High Stakes Accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/system/files/2013-176_ProfessionalDevlopment.pdf
Kagan, S., & Kagan, M. (1994). Kagan Cooperative Learning. http://elibrary.clce.ac.zm:8080/jspui/handle/123456789/88
TNTP. (2015). The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development. Retrieved from http://tntp.org/publications/view/evaluation-and-development/the-mirage-confronting-the-truth-about-our-quest-for-teacher-development